A Look Into Aboriginal Culture

I spent a little more than three days in the Northern Territory of Australia, also known as the Outback and the Red Center, at Ayer's Rock National Park, King's Canyon, and Alice Springs.

Before diving into details from the trip, I'd like to write about the aboriginal people, now officially referred to by the name they call themselves - Anangu, which means "people" in their language. 

Here is a note on the Anangu's come to being in Australia from Bill Bryson:

"At some undetermined point in the great immensity of its past- perhaps 45,000 years ago, perhaps 60,000 years ago, but certainly before there were modern humans in the Americas or Europe- Australia was quietly invaded by a deeply inscrutable people, the Aborigines, who have no clearly evident racial or linguistic kinship to their neighbors in the region, and whose presence in Australia can only be explained by positing that they invented and mastered oceangoing craft at least 30,000 years in advance of anyone else, in order to undertake an exodus, then forgot or abandoned nearly all they had learned and scarcely ever bothered with the open sea again.

It is an accomplishment so singular and extraordinary, so uncomfortable with scrutiny, that most histories breeze over it in a paragraph or two, then move on to the second, more explicable invasion- the one that begins with the arrival of Captain James Cook in 1770."

So, the Anangu have been living in Australia for a LONG time. I remember being intrigued at seeing the Egyptian pyramids and hieroglyphics that were built and carved 4,500 years ago, but in The Outback I saw cave dwellings and paintings that have been around for over ten times as long! It's inconceivable. In fact, the Anangu people lead the longest, uninterrupted lives in world history. They live on the same land, tell the same stories, and survive almost the same way as they did 45,000 years ago.

I wish I could share a lot about the Anangu, but very few people have insight into their culture, stories, and beliefs. The Anangu belief that knowledge about their culture must be gradually learned, like starting in kindergarten, then moving to 1st grade, 2nd grade, etc., like how a kindergartener cannot start learning calculus without mastering basic arithmetic. In order to learn from the Anangu, each person must start at the beginning. Hence, there are very little explanatory signs at Anangu sacred sites for tourists, and there is very little explanation in the cultural center/museum about Anangu tools, trades, and way of life. There are a few stories that are shared with tourists, but apparently the Anangu only share the versions that are appropriate for a kindergartener to know.

The Anangu people have evolved with dark skin for protection from the sun, thick leather feet for walking on hot sand and prickly plants, and are very tall and have wide noses. They are partially nomadic, meaning that they settle in areas for a short time before moving on again. They travel from home to home, taking only light tools with them and leaving behind their heavy stone tools for the next family to use. They know where to find watering holes, where to find honey ants for food, and how to make sunscreen to protect themselves from the harsh sun.

The Anangu have very strict barriers between men and women. There are things that only women do (gather fruits and seeds, track small animals, make small tools and bowls, raise children) and things that only men do (hunt kangaroo, make fires, make medicines, make spears). The Anangu are so focused on surviving in the hostile environment that they do not have time to learn everything. Hence, women have never known for thousands of years how to hunt kangaroos, and men have never learned how to find fruit and mix them with seeds and animal fat to make granola bars. But we do know that the men through toxic spears at the kangaroo's legs to paralyze them. The hunter would carry the kangaroo back alive so that the meat didn't spoil in the hot sun during the several kilometer trek by to the family. (Side note: there's a plant in the Outback that has leaves that smell like Vick's vapor rub that the men would mix into a salve and put on their sore shoulders after carrying the kangaroo back).

In fact, there are sacred areas around Uluru (Ayer's Rock) that are designated only for men and only for women. Tourists are not allowed to take pictures of these spiritual sites (which are usually caves and outcropping at the base of the rock). There is no explanation as to why the Anangu find these gender specific areas sacred, but there is a $5000 fine for taking a picture of one. My theory is that these areas were used as locker rooms, like an Anangu woman retreats to a woman's only area during her monthly or when she's having a child.

The arrival of the white man into Anangu land has been quite devastating for the Anangu culture. The Anangu men used controlled fires for thousands of years to burn the land. They understood that the heat from the fires enabled certain seeds to open their shells and that the fire helped certain trees to regenerate, while the aftermath of the fires brought in kangaroos. The plants and animals of the Outback were as reliant on the Anangu as the Anangu were reliant on them for survival. The Anangu were as much a part of the land as the flora and fauna. 

When the white man saw the Anangu burning the land, the Anangu were ordered to stop. The white man didn't understand the importance of the burning, and the Anangu couldn't (or wouldn't) communicate their reasons. Because the Anangu were not allowed to set off their controlled fires, years later devastating forest fires ripped wildly through much of the Northern Territory, killing several people and wiping out entire species of plants and animals. After this, the Anangu were allowed to start burning the land again, as it helped keep the environment in balance.

The Anangu diet was based on fruits, seeds, and meat. They ate very little sugar - the equivalent to 3 Mars bars in one years. I think I've consumed the equivalent of 3 Mars bars in the last few days... So when the white man came and used alcohol and foreign foods to bargain with the Anangu, the Anangu's bodies had terrible reactions to the introduction of so much sugar into their diets. To this day, the Anangu suffer greatly from diabetes, as their body systems had never developed to handle as much sugar as they consume today. In fact, almost every Anangu I saw was overweight, again I think because their bodies have not evolved to handle our kinds of food.

Around the Ayer's Rock area, the Anangu were quite peaceful. They were friendly and willing to help us understand the sacredness of their culture and lifestyle. I admired how there are several Anangu on the Ayer's Rock National Park Board who work with the white man to protect the rock and keep the tourists safe. 

However, in Alice Springs (the most remote city in AUS, right in the middle of the Outback), I found the Anangu to be hostile (and this is the tough part to write). At night in Alice Springs, Brandon and I were walking a German girl we met on our tour back to her hostel. Along the way, there were hoards of Anangu on the streets. It was late at night, but they were very much awake, it was unnerving. As we walked through the city center (along little shops that had closed their business for the night), a large male Aborigine assaulted the three of us. There's really no other way to put it. He must've been drunk I guess, but as he walked by, he threw his shoulder into Brandon and then advanced on Natalie and I. It was one of those slow motion moments, where your body switches into fight or flight mode. For the three of us, it was fight I suppose, as we held our ground, pushed out our arms and just said Stop Stop Stop. He screamed at us that this was Aboriginal land and we didn't belong, and that he was a monster and was going to chase us. At this point we had started cautiously walking away, and he didn't follow us. We made it to the hostel around the corner, but of course everything was shut down for the night. Since Brandon and I still had to get back to our hostel (which required walking right back through the same streets), we called the police from a pay phone to get an escort car (all the taxi places were closed). The operator politely said "The police are dealing with more important matters. I'm sorry, we can't help you." I was furious, and after several attempts at calling a taxi company, we finally managed to get a taxi to come pick us up and take us back to our hostel (where the gates had been shut for the night and we had to climb a fence to get back into the complex only to find the hostel staff having a late night pool party. Lovely.)

So that qualifies as one of my scarier travel moments where you fet that rush of fear and adrenaline (right up there with the rickshaw drivers who tried to take us to the Underground City in Beijing). I hate to end this post on such a bad note, especially since the Aborigine culture is truly astounding, but that's how I left Alice Springs. I don't think I will be returning.