The Hop On Hop Off bus dropped us off where we ate dinner last night. The bench looked very innocent in the light of day.
Note, I am typing out my notes without double checking spelling or facts. I plan to go back to put in the work, but for now I want to press on.
Adam, our guide, took us on the Mala Walk.
Back to Adam.
There are many different nations living in Australia. Each nation has their own language group. This area is the Western Language Group -- a vast area with many different languages. Here we use pidgin language. Pidgin is the general term for English-based languages spoken in Australia, especially between English settlers and Aboriginal peoples. (Okay, I already broke down and looked something up.)
Mala=Creation story
Let's see together if my notes make any sense.
Mala means wallaby
The highest record for making marsupials extinct is the ltaritjariky yuce (windbreak) -- tiny marsupial swims through the earth and runs out after the rain to eat. Giant creation beings come out to create all: the land, animals, birds. The first Ithar is huge it struck this rock and dug holes in the earth.
Jukuta is the creation story.
Now we are heading to shade.
The answer is, simply typing my notes after a tour does not make sense which is why most of my posts involve a lot of unseen research.
As it is already December 7th as I write this; Christmas is around the corner and I have not put the lights on our tree. I will type first. Add pictures. And make sense of it after the New Year.
Not 100% sure this was the plant
In the shade, Adam, whose family is Aboriginal describes the different plants in the area. The bush plum is particularly tasty. He pulls one off and hands it to me to eat. it has seed inside, which he instructed me to throw on the ground. He offers to find more for others who are interested. On our tour the next day, the non-Aboriginal guide said it is illegal to pick the fruit. I trust our ranger had permission to do so.
Adam digresses. Wallabies, as a result of European influences, no longer live nomadically. This impacts the ecosystem.
Sometimes they have storms without rain, but with lightning that causes bush fires.
In the past, the Aboriginal were nomadic. If they didn't survive in one area because they ran out of food, they moved to another.
The creation story told on these walls teaches boys how to uphold the law in society; morals; survival skills. It is akin to our Bible. Make sure we have enough food. Hunt without depleting. As he talks, it reminds me of what I learned about the Lenape by taking Ashley to Churchville Nature Center.
The stories are to refamiliarize them with their country. They told stories as they travelled. Similar to how we learn a chapter at a time. A hundred kilometers away there would be another story, another chapter, for the boys to learn.
The Aboriginal used fire to warm food, to cook, and to manage the land. they would create small pocket burns. In the 1970s when the park commission took over they banned fire, and learned it is necessary at times. Rather than small burns, a large bush fire took out 90% of the park, wiping out the possum population. It had a huge impact on the land.
In the beginning thy had 3,000 visitors a year and one ranger. Now they have 300,000 visitors a year and 40 rangers.
These caves are used to educate the boys. Here their grandfathers would teach them how to make spears while four-five men went on hunting parties. Women hunted, too, but they hunted smaller game.
What we see if 5,000 years old. What is underneath is much older.
The paint is called racha paint, made from ochre mineral and mixed with animal fat. They added in ash to make it white, and charcoal to make it black. Similar to oil paint.
The fig tree we only see growing in rocky crevices. Its fruit ranges from green to yellow to maroon. We can it. It is meaty fruit. There are 750 types of fig. They rely on wasps on cross pollinate.
The picture above may have been from a fig tree instead of the bush plum.
The bush plum is part of the cilantro family. It provides five times the amount of vitamin C as an orange, but is much smaller.
Maybe the bush plum and this fig are the same?
Quandrom-Madora fruit is bright red. It has a large seed with dimples and an orange peel. It tastes like apricot. If you eat too many seeds your hair will fall out.
It is definitely not a picture of quandrom-madora.
In the morning honey dew droplets form. The plant absorbs it. The result is a nutty fruit that tastes like caramel and barley sugar.
This leads to a fight.
They took the creation beam, which took the form of a dingo as it can chose its shape and went to attack the Mala men. It approached the women who did not see the threat because he had changed is form into a lumpa (king fisher bird, another creation being). It called all the women to get together and run to the men's area where they are having a ceremony. Several of the Mala men took battle against them and devoured the. They turned to stone.
The end.
There are layers in the story.
1) The importance of finishing what you start: the Mala men declined to go because they were in the middle of their ceremony. If they finished early, parts of the creation story would have been lost forever.
2) The importance of working together: to form community.
These ceremonies still exist out here. The mens is in mid-summer, the womens in the autumn.
They are hearty people because they had to be.
Women teach women. Men teach men.
We then walked over a bridge to an area that was a no photo zone. This is a picture of a different bridge.
The Ninga is open for the public to teach. Some areas are more sacred and, thus, more secretive. We cannot photograph the women's area so we do not mix them up. "Mala puta," no photos between signs. Up in the cave we can take pictures again.
Aranga=aboriginal people
Last year Uluru was closed for 24 hours when a senior member of the aranga passed away and they had a ritual ceremony.
There was a lesson in geology as it relates to this area, dating back 900 million years ago. Even with my notes, I'm having troubles making sense of it all. There was an earthquake that placed everything under a sea in the center of Australia. The water receded 350 million years ago, creating Uluru and Kata Tjuta.
If you look carefully at Uluru, you notice the lines are vertical instead of horizontal meaning it was pushed up from the earth and moved into position. Horizontal would mean it was formed by a new layer going on the old one. The lines are at 15-20% angle.
Uluru is 348 meters high, and goes 5-6 kilometers underground. Kata Tjuta is 35 miles away and made of one rock.
The options around here at night are you either get a spectacular sunset or you get rain. Rain leads to short-lived waterfalls.
These ancient rocks are high in iron content. The red color is from rusting iron. Otherwise they are a creamy grey color. Back when this was formed, Antarctica was connected to Australia. It was a rain forest three times the size of the Amazon. The rock temperature rises to 45-60C -- hot enough to fry an egg on. Birds lay eggs on the rocks, which hatch in the rain.
Adam has been a ranger here for 10 years as of last week. When he was younger, he was passionate about his culture. His grandfather was from the Canberra islands. He met a man up here who adopted him and became his father. He learned this culture and wanted to teach it, teach his grandfather's story. It is good to share so it can survive.
Women and men are both leaders in their culture. Women's law is more powerful and dangerous.
The black lines indicate where waterfalls occur after a rain. They have washed away the outer layer of rust.
The tour is officially over. The rest are questions and answers.
Yes, they now do controlled burns to manage the park. It is now a federal park.
The park has several teams: animal management, media team, natural cultural resources.
They do not get real rock slides.
There used to be chains people used to climb to the top. I later found out friends Masumi and Hiroko climbed to the top just before this ceased. On nice days, there would be a line of 5,000 people waiting to enter first thing in the morning in order to do the climb. The closed it on 10/26/2019 -- the local aboriginal celebrated. Helicopters came in to take the chains away. It is much more peaceful now.
Adam said the move was in response to tourists wanting more educational experiences rather than extreme activities.
They used to offer blimp rides, but it was hit by lightning and could no longer fly.
After dinner at the Gecko Café, Don and I went to bed early in anticipation of tomorrow's Segway tour. The company offered to give him a full refund, but as this was something he really wanted to do, we pressed on.
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