FORMER Ararat Police Leading Senior Constable Eddy MacDonald will return to the region next week to unveil a unique carving he created with the help of community members with diverse backgrounds, which has encapsulated the spirit of the Anzac.
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Work on the wood carving began earlier this year and was created to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the landing at Gallipoli.
The base was donated by Pyrenees Timber, with the messmate wood being milled from Mount Cole.
LSC MacDonald covered all bases in the project, with the three main centre pieces tying together New Zealand, Australia and Turkey.
“Hundreds of years ago people told stories, not by books, but by carvings through Maori tradition and paintings through Aboriginal tradition,” he said.
“The images include, Tangaroa which is the guardian of the sea in Maori culture. The reason for including that feature is that the Anzacs travelled by sea to Turkey.
“The goanna, which was painted by an aboriginal man in Horsham, symbolises the Australian community. It is the guardian of the spirit in Aboriginal mythology
“The ribs of the ancestors represents the ‘going down of the sun’, while the rise of the goanna’s tail represents ‘in the morning’ as it flows onto the carving of Anzac Cove to complete the phrase ‘we will remember them’.
“I have received a casting from Turkey, which was organised by the Muslim community in Ararat, which is to be embedded in the feature of Anzac Cove. It represents the Turkish community which has preserved and is looking after the remains of the Anzacs who were left at Gallipoli. For me that is of vital importance.”
Still to be added to the artwork at the time LSC MacDonald posed with the piece for The Ararat Advertiser, are white stars to form the Southern Cross carved from the bone of local sheep and stone which was sent across from the beaches of Albany in Western Australia to signify the last standing point of the Anzacs before they went to Gallipoli.
Members of Ararat’s Maori community had also journeyed back to New Zealand to get some polished stone which will form the guardian’s eyes - the final piece of the art work.
“This was carved with proper protocol. It was done all by hand, the same technique that has been existing for 200 years in Maori culture,” LSC MacDonald said.
“So Tangaroa won’t have eyes in him until everything else is complete, as is tradition.
“I am also yet to add a horse’s tail, which pays tribute to the horses that were bred in Horsham in 1914 and sent to Europe for the war effort.
“There is nothing made in China here, it is all natural and each has special significance.”
The unique carving is to be mounted and will take pride of place at the Ararat RSL in time for next week’s Anzac Day commemorations.
The unveiling at the Diggers’ Luncheon will include a smoke cleansing ceremony by Horsham’s Aboriginal community, while local Maori members will also do a traditional blessing, as will the Ararat Islamic community and the Police Chaplin, who will conduct a Christian blessing.
“People have asked how I’ve come up with the concept, but the story has been around now for 100 years,” LSC MacDonald said.
“It would have been no different to someone sitting down and typing up 1000 words on the history of Gallipoli - the story is there, all I have done is tell it using traditional method.
“When I carve, I get a piece of timber and it just flows. I have had no trouble, there has been no holdups with getting any materials, everyone has been willing to help.
“Is that a message that it is meant to be? I don’t know, but I look at something like this and it makes me so proud to have such a whole community involvement. It is certainly not about me.”
