Sydney, The Rocks

The Rocks area of Sydney, down by the harbor, is where it all began. This is where the convicts were first put to work to build their own housing. Small alleyways, some original buildings. I separated from the walking tour, and did my own art tour. I went to the Craft Center of NSW, over 100 years old, now housed in a World Heritage site, an old coroners court building, on George St, above the quay. I brought out my spindle to spin and met Gwen, who had done all the restoration weaving for theGovernment House.

I then went to the Contemporary Art Museum, which was mostly closed. I wandered here and there, into every Aboriginal Gallery I found. I took off across the Domain ( kind of like Central Park) and went to the State Library. It is a beautiful building. I went to a portrait show there, super paintings by contemporary Australian artists.Had lunch at the cafe there. I sat inside, as the breeze was pretty cool. I watched people eating outside, sharing their food with the Galahs....rather like we share with the seagulls- whether we want to or not! I then trucked on too the Gallery of New South Wales to see their world famous collection of Australian art to find that they had just closed that section for renovation! I did see a smaller show of some of the best works from Arnhem Land. Extraordinary barks in Xray style. I walked all the way back to thehotel (A very long walk)! Wandered through the Victoria Building, full of very chi-chi shops. Fashion in the big cities of Australia: very high heels; skirts a bit shorter; los & lots of leggings, with tight butt cupping tunics. Dogs- small, remarkably small. Many more small terriers than labs.

We arose at 3:45 am to fly to Christchurch, New Zealand!

Spinning: learning stories & politics

I don't know why, but I am shy about taking people's photos. Actually, despite what my blog might seem to imply, I am shy about having my own picture taken. All the photos of me in the blog are compliments of tourmates offering to take my picture.

In the Cairns airport, waiting for our flight to Sydney, I got out my beautiful Golding spindle to spin a little merino silk. My son gave me this spindle for Christmas last year and it quickly became my favorite.

I have found that spinning in public creates opportunities for most amazing conversations.

The woman next to me was waiting for a plane to Brisbane. Her name was Melba and I was too shy to ask to take her photo. She was a very pretty woman who looked quite Polynesian. She had been in Cairns for an Indigenous Rights Conference. Her family, on her mother's side, descended from slaves, stolen from islands (perhaps in the Fiji chain), stolen to work in the cane fields of northeastern Australia.

Melba told me about one of the papers she heard at the conference, given by an Arizona anthropologist who had lived 30 years with one Aboriginal group on the Bay of Carpentaria, in Northern Australia. He learned the language and the customs, the history and the beliefs. His paper was on the subject of preserving the strong, successful, original ways of living on the land while still participating in the modern world.

Melba said that the "Sorry" was a start. Many people we talked to referred to the "Sorry", the official apology of the AUstralian government to the "stolen generation: of Aboriginals made in February of 2008.

"Between 1920 and 1970, the government took Aboriginal babies away from their parents on a large scale, and re-housed many of them with white families. Many of these children were abused, though for some it meant the chance of a better life. At the time, it was official Australian policy to give Aboriginal children a ‘white' upbringing, as the government was convinced that the Aboriginal culture would die out.

Already in 1997, the distress of the "stolen generations" was recognized by an investigation commission that advised the Australian government to offer its apologies. The previous Prime Minister, liberal John Howard, refused on the grounds that it was not his government's responsibility." (read more here.)

She and I taked at length about how does a people manage when t heir land specific culture has been broken? How does one transition to something t hat works better in the larger colonial culture? She went on to talk about some of the similarities with the Navaho people. Hunting & gathering skills and beliefs...about there being some universality. Melba stated that while the "Sorry" was, indeed, a start...it is not believed that the prime minister has made sufficient effort to understand the indigenous beliefs and way of living.

I believed her. The all consuming nature of Western culture is so at odds with the slower, considered, efficient conservation of the aboriginal way. Melba talked of the importance of the dances, telling stories, mimicking animals...it keeps the land alive.

The day before we also had a lecture from Ernest, a representative from Tjakupi, about northeastern indigenous groups: the rainforest people are shorter and lighter skinned than the desert groups. His description of traditional social structure sounded somewhat different that the structure I heard about in the Red Center. Doug, at Desert Park, stressed the relative gender equality in the Arrende people. Men and women had different but equally important and respected roles in the survival of the group. Ernest described a more uneven power structure in Tjakupi, saying that men's hunting was the most important activity. Both stressed a respect for elders.

The comparisons of the expression of the tribal LAW, were different as well. If marriage laws were broken, Arrende would banish the couple, and they would wander alone, no other group likely to take them in. Tjakupi would physically attack the couple : women were raped, men were speared.

The Tjakupi group was described as a clan structure, rather than as language or skin groups as in the desert. The clans were classified as wet or dry groups and membership in the clans determined your marriage possibilities, protecting the genetics in the same way as the desert groups. Rainforest aboriginals were traditionally promised in marriage almost at birth, older men promised to much younger women. Earnest had been promised to twins! But, as is increasingly common, he married for love.

I was too shy to take Earnest's picture as well.

Tjakupi

AT Tjapuki we learned to throw boomerangs... sort of. I still throw like a girl! Right into the ground. The returning boomerang is native to the rainforest Aboriginals, used in bird hunting especially, to flush out the game. Tjakupi is a Cultural Park near Cairns that highlights Aboriginal culture. Before you go to their performance, you watch a movie of the history of Aboriginals in the time of colonialism. It was a no holds barred documentary of the generations of abuse of the native peoples, some from ignorance, some from intent. These beautiful young men are all of Aboriginal descent. There is not just one tribal type. The Aboriginals of Australia appear to descend from several groups that emigrated to the continent between 30,000 and 60,000 years ago. Those who traditionally inhabited the rain forest, tended to be paler skinned; those who inhabited the desert looked more African. There are over 300 language groups in Australia, some so vastly different that they must have arisen independently. These young men are professional singers, musicians, actors and dancers. They were very impressive, by Western standards. They imparted much information in a very slick, palatable way. It wasn't pandering. They were clearly very proud of their abilities and their heritage. It was a method that I think worked to make the mysterious more understandable. The power of art.

They gave us a behind the scenes talk about "bush tucker," showing us a plant that could be sucked on for caffeine, broken open for nuts, and shredded to form a paint brush. They talked about there dry & wet language groups: presumably desert vs rain forest. The organization they described for the rainforest people sounded more patriarchal than the desert peoples. They explained the dilly bag, a woven net bag, that was used for collecting and carrying food stuffs and for rinsing the toxins out of some the the foods. Traditional, old clothing, would be little more than pubic coverings, often made of human hair.

Paintings of Kata Tjuta & Uluru

I paint when I travel in order to understand the landscape. These watercolors are a "way of knowing" for me, not intended as great paintings or even intended for frames. They tend to stay in my travel journal to remind me. Along the route to Kata Tjuta, I saw cracks in the red, red sand. Distant mountains sped by. I drew the ink sketches on the bus and painted later. I heard it was very distracting for the bus driver. Kata Tjuta, or the Olgas, did seem very male to me. Indeed, they do have exclusively male sites. If an Aboriginal woman had been with us, she would have covered her eyes rather than gaze on the forbidden sites. Uluru, the back side, sketched on site, in a big hurry as we walked to a water hole, the most beautiful waterhole I have ever seen. Balancing the pad of paper, the camera and the pace was a challenge...but I did not want to miss what the guide had to say. Our bus driver was our guide and his love and respect for the Aboriginal people was palpable. A more sympathetic guide could not be imagined. When I drew this one, I sighed and said,"Now I understand." I felt like the form and the meaning of the mountain had entered me, somehow.

Uluru at Sunset and Sunrise

Champagne at sunset is traditional. The viewing lot is chock a block full of coaches and catering tables. Cheesey? yes. Cool? You bet! It is a great tradition as far as I'm concerned. Drinking champagne and gazing at the iconic view of Uluru is the bomb! Note the gloves...it was cold! The rock really does changes colors as the sun sets, going from a copper red, through purples to dunn brown. A Carrot at Uluru! The food down under is quite British...meaning that vegetables are NOT the center of the meal and fresh vegetables are even less so. I was so excited that the caterers brought raw veggies! Sunrise we watched from near out hotel.

It was cloudy, so no where near as spectacular as sunset, but still pretty wonderful.

I don't know who this woman is, but she stood through most of sunset with her arms stretched out in welcome.

Uluru, the experience begins

The first glimpse of Uluru is an iconic experiences. It looms in the distance like a big turtle shell, a giant crown of a hat...You see it in the open flat plain and deduce that it must be big. But how big?

Bigger than you ever imagined. And far more complex. It is convoluted and full of fissures, caves, rock pool, utter cathedrals of stone, secret areas where women gave birth, other areas where men painted their stories claiming this land as the land of their ancestors living now and forever.

Uluru is one, singular large piece of compressed sandstone, tipped on its side. The striations are vertical on Uluru. Like an iceberg, more of it is below ground than above.

The Olgas or Kata Tjuta

I had heard of the Olgas, whose true name is Kata Tjuta, but I did not know what to expect. I just knew that many people said they were even more magnificent than Uluru.

We first saw them at a distance, looking like so many heads peeking up through the ground.When we got closer, we could see the red and purple colors of the rock. Deep canyons full of stories. Kata Tjuta is a series of conglomerate rocks of monolith proportions that are incredible.

In the presence of these rocks, and Uluru, one can understand how religions were formed here. When one is in the presence of the Earth's awesome power on such a scale, you cannot help but feel puny and awestruck. Kata Tjuta is the site of the male ancestors, male stories, male business. Business means male ceremony/ritual sites, secret sites where Aboriginal women are not even allowed to look.

Uluru Kata Tjuta National Park