Where does the time go?

2008-09-19 - Friday

One week down already; where does the time go?

Today, we're off to an old cattle station which has been given back to the Aboriginees. Known as Manyallaluk, "The Dreaming Place", the local people now use the land to offer various cultural activities; as well as sell thier artistic wares.

Today we have the pleasure of being hosted by two local Aboriginals, John and Nathan. John is one of the community elders and speaks in a broken sort of English, so softly that great amounts of concentration is required in order to hear him...and even then his conversation is intermixed with little chuckles, leaving you wondering what joke I may have missed.

Nathan, on the other hand, reminded me of one of the characters on Cool Runnings...laid back, always with a smile, and quick to laugh at this own jokes. I believe he may have been John's son...and it was his additional comments at several key moments that helped many of us understand what John was trying to convey.

They have spent the day teaching about the vegetation around us and how it was used in traditional every day life. They identified the types of trees which were used for spear making, didgeridoo making, medicine and spicing food. We were also shown what minerals and plants were used to colour baskets and used in traditional painting.

We were also introduced to the green ant. A fiesty little creature whose abdomen is swollen with a green type of goo. When crushed and inhaled, the vapours instantly wake up the olfactory system with a strong scent of vinegar. If boiled in water, the vapour will help to clear any nasal congestions and when eaten raw they have both a sweet and terrifically sour taste - it's the best way I could describe it (from my firsthand experience}.

After our walk of discovery, it was on to spear throwing, where we got to try our hand at throwing a spear using a traditional tool called a woomera (spelling may be off, but this is how it sounds). Basically, the woomera was a multifunction tool used by men for various things such as digging and hacking. With respect to spear throwing, it served to extend the reach of their arm allowing them to transfer more energy to the spear - hurling it much faster and with a greater force than what they could do without it.

Once everyone had atleast one try of spear throwing, we moved on to the infamous Didgeridoo. John had already told us a bit about the process of building a Didgeridoo on our discovery walk and now he spoke a bit about it's use and then treated us to a little of his own playing. He was quite good at it...then he passed it over to us...we were not so good at it.

Ahhh, time for lunch. A departure from the norm today, as we were treated to garden salad, roasted Kangaroo tail (regarded as a delicacy), regular beef steak, sausage, beets and corn.

After lunch, it was back to learning. John and Nathan took us through some of the natural pigments and artistic style used by the local artisans. The pigments, as used by men, were primarily composed of red and yellow oachres along with a white pigment from a local clay. Their paint brush is a local grass which is skinned between the fingernails to expose the fibers. Their drawing style is quite different from the Aboriginees near Uluru. The Uluru Aboriginees draw everything using dots, while the local Aboriginees use lines.

After creating two pieces of work, they handed over a blank canvas to us and invited us to make our own creations. Without doubt we have some pretty artistic folks on this tour. Our creations ranged from desert animals to portraits.

After the art lessons, it was on to basket weaving. Christine was the facilitator for this demonstration. It was a pretty intricate process of "sewing" tinted straw onto a line already created while encasing 3 or 4 other strands of straw in the process to create thinkness...basically creating a very large coiled snake that is sewed to itself.

The final demonstration of the day was fire making. While I did enjoy all of the other demonstrations, this one was by far my most favourite. It was fire making with nothing more than two sticks and a wee piece of charcoal.

John and Nathan had a fire going within minutes...then they passed it on to us...we're still working on it!

After the demonstrations were completed, we headed up to their gallery...everything was for sale. While there was some very cool stuff in there, I was able to resist. I'd show you a picture of some of the cool stuff if I could, but cameras were prohibited from the gallery.

After a quite filling supper of fajitas, John returned to our site to relate some "bedtime" stories. I won't go into details, but in general, these stories are used to share beliefs, knowledge and the laws of the people from one generation to another. For those of us who could hear (and understand) John, they were cool little insights to their culture.