Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Today we visited the Tjapukai Aboriginal Culture Park. It was amazing to learn that there are over 500 different tribes and the same number of different aboriginal languages. Over 60% of the people who work at Tjapukai are of aboriginal decent. We heard a presentation on the didgeridoo, how they are made, and how a lot of the songs they play imitate the animals and sounds in their environment. The longer the didgeridoo, the deeper the sound. We got to listen to a couple of songs... awesome! There were also talks on the hunting and gathering practices of their ancestors, the different fruits, nuts, leaves, and plants that the women gathered and the weapons used and animals hunted by the men.
In many cultures it seems typical to want to keep people who are different apart, but the aborigines distinguished between the wet people (from the rainforest) and the dry people (from the bush) and marriages were required to be with someone from the opposite group.
Probably the highlight of our visit was being instructed on the art of throwing spears and boomerangs. My first spear throw was pretty good but my second a disappointment. Our fearless leader, Janet Mobus, was the only person to successfully plant her spear in the straw target with a picture of a kangaroo on it. For the boomerang demonstration we went out into a net cage in the middle of a big field, while two at time took lessons. My performance was pretty whimpy, but one of us, I believe Alex, managed to land his boomerang inside the entry to our net cage. No damage done. No one managed to catch their boomerangs as they returned to us, but one of the instructors did manage to catch one of our throws. Very fun. We could have spent more time here, but I do think they sold a lot of boomerangs... so we can practice more.

After the Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park, we visited Hartley’s Crocodile Farm. Of course, it was both interesting and disturbing to watch grown men do extremely stupid things with crocodiles who they have restricted their food intake to ensure they will be hungry for the show. Hartley’s is actually a crocodile farm where crocodiles are breed and raised for meat and their hides. They have added other displays to bring in tourists, such as the koalas, snakes, other reptiles, and the large cassowary birds. I found this visit to be very interesting because of the conversations it sparked. Some objected to Hartley’s because of the farming aspect of it, which led to conversations about how this differed from other farmed animals like salmon and even cattle. Others objected to animals being on display like in a zoo enclosure. In recent years, many zoos are doing more research and conservation trying to help animals in the wild and educate the public. Many believe this public education benefits the animals by fostering interest and concern for the animals. The Hartley’s facility did appear more like a tourist show.