Tuesday May 31, 2005

Feel the spirit

April 30, 2005
Sydney Morning Herald

Aboriginal tourism is no longer just a tribal dance around a campfire for a busload of tourists, writes Bruce Elder.

It has been one of the best-kept secrets of Australian tourism: Aboriginal people with a complex, age-old society and a culture of dance, music, art and stories unlike anything else in the rest of the world. People from overseas are, quite rightly, fascinated by it; so are many locals. Yet little attention has been paid to it until very recently. Only during the past decade has Aboriginal tourism boomed. And it was only this year, in February, that the first Indigenous Tourism and Cultural Expo was held. Aboriginal Tourism Australia, the national body for indigenous tourism in Australia, said it would give "a major boost" to the "emerging" Aboriginal tourism industry.

There is a rich diversity of tours and experiences available and it is common throughout Australia for travellers to join in and experience Aboriginal culture and lifestyle in places as diverse as the Coorong in South Australia, a factory site in Penrith, the South Coast around Bermagui, the Lake Mungo area of far western NSW, the Atherton Tablelands in Queensland, the Flinders Ranges in South Australia and the Northern Territory.

These experiences range from organised tours of sacred sites to performances of dances, the selling of traditional Aboriginal artefacts, and, in some cases, an opportunity to live with Aborigines and experience the cycle of their daily lives. The level of organisation varies from enterprising individuals to highly professional commercial operations and tourism projects owned and financed by the local land councils.

If you think only of the Northern Territory, Aboriginal tourism ranges from the perfunctory (tribal dancing around a campfire for tourists bussed in from resorts and hotels, shops where Aboriginal art and artefacts are sold, the opportunity to gawp at dot painters while they work at Hermannsburg mission) to serious and sophisticated ecological and anthropological experiences that make a genuine attempt to connect tourists with Aboriginal lifestyle and culture.

See the Alice Springs-based Aboriginal Australia Art and Culture Centre's tours (www.aboriginalart.com.au/culture/our_tours.html), which has a Didgeridoo University and the catchy slogan "40,000 years of experience to share". It offers everything from a half-day mix of dancing, bushwalking and art through to a five-day experience that includes trips to Uluru, Kata Tjuta and an Aboriginal Desert Discovery tour.

For a more upmarket alternative see Gunya Tourism (www.gunya.com.au), which offers five-star tents (in the style of African safari tents) in the desert 120 kilometres south of Alice Springs at Gunya Titjikala where meals, including witchetty grubs, are a fusion of Western and bush tucker and where, as a badge of authenticity, they promise that visitors will only interact with members of the local community.

The reason for the growth in the sector is twofold. There has been an increasing interest in Aboriginal culture, particularly from Australian baby boomers and overseas visitors eager to get to an Australian experience beyond the Great Barrier Reef, the Opera House and Sydney Harbour. A recent government study found that

"3.5 million Australians are interested in indigenous tourism experiences where you can take walks with indigenous guides and participate in activities like tracking an animal and tasting bush tucker".

And, within the Aboriginal community, tourism has been seen as a practical, hugely important way to provide an economic base which, in some notable cases, has seen communities prosper.

Unfortunately the biggest problem with Aboriginal tourism is that the operations are, typically, located in rural areas where the number of tourists and visitors often makes the viability of the program extremely fragile.

Tours and programs come and go with sad frequency. The Woollool Woollool Aboriginal Cultural Tour out of Tenterfield, which included a brisk walk to the top of Bald Rock, the opportunity to throw boomerangs and spears, and some excellent identification of local bush tucker, no longer exists. For some years it was partially sustained by a program that flew overseas tourists across from the Gold Coast for the day.

The same, as far as can be determined, applies to my favourite Aboriginal experience, which started at Hawker in the southern Flinders Ranges. It involved visits to both rock-carving and painting sites far removed from the tourist trail, and involved a most delicious marinated and barbecued kangaroo, shot the night before by the guide (or so he said), cooked over an open fire in a dry creek bed in the heart of the ranges. Run by Joe McKenzie and Pauline Coulthard, it was an exceptional program that was undermined by a combination of isolation and public liability.

The extended Coulthard family, who are spread throughout the Flinders Ranges, have not, however, abandoned tourism. Terry and Vince Coulthard are the driving forces behind Iga Warta (www.igawarta.com) in the North Flinders. It proudly declares itself "100 per cent Aboriginal owned, managed and staffed" and offers accommodation and a direct opportunity to experience the daily life of the Adnyamathanha people from artefact making through to camping expeditions and lessons in local history and culture.

Over the years I have been on organised Aboriginal tours in NSW, Queensland, South Australia and the Northern Territory. I have never had a bad experience but this, from anecdotal evidence, may have been my good luck. Certainly I have heard horror stories but, with rare exceptions, these have tended to have rather unsavoury racist undertones of the order of "the whole thing was running terribly behind schedule but what do you expect from Aborigines?"

Beware of these criticisms. I recently heard of a four-star motel in western NSW where a guest found a nest of redback spiders in the curtains but there was no suggestion that this was, somehow, typical of motels owned by white people.

The opportunities to participate in Aboriginal life are now so extensive that any overview inevitably will miss some of the best. However here are three (just a modest sample) which I found exceptionally good.

A spiritual experience at Gulaga

Eric Naylor, a tribal elder with the Yuin people, an Aboriginal group who live on the shores of Wallaga Lake between Bermagui and Tilba Tilba on the South Coast of NSW, tells the Dreamtime story of Gulaga as he mixes a paste of white ochre in a small tin bowl.

"This mountain is Gulaga, the mother," he says as we stand in a small clearing near the top of a mountain known to white Australia as Dromedary.

It was named Dromedary back in 1770 when Captain Cook, seeing the strange mountain, noted in his journal: "At six, we were abreast of a high mountain, lying near the shore, which, on account of its figure, I called Mount Dromedary: under this mountain the shore forms a point, to which I gave the name of Point Dromedary, and over it there is a peaked hillock."

Two cultures. Two separate histories. The Yuin had lived in the area for at least 3000 years before Cook's arrival and they knew the mountain by its mythology.

"In the Dreamtime, Gulaga had two sons Najanuga and Barunguba," Naylor explains, "and although she pleaded with them to stay, the two sons ran towards the sea. The younger, slower and more cautious, became a rocky headland." The older swam out to sea where today he stands as the windswept outcrop known to Europeans as Montague Island and to the Yuin as Barunguba.

Naylor dips his index finger carefully into the bowl and paints a single, simple line down each visitor's forehead. "This is your third eye. It will let you experience the spirits who live here. And this" - he puts the ochre on the left cheek - "is to allow you to open your mind. A simple mark on the right cheek "will help you to listen" and ochre on the chin "will help you to be quiet".

Faces daubed with ochre, the group is ready to enter the sacred site. Naylor stops and produces two smooth pieces of hardwood. "These are song sticks. I must clap them to let the spirits know how many people are coming through this sacred site."

Behind thick scrub, totally hidden from the European bushwalking paths, are huge, moss and lichen-encrusted grey granite monoliths, rocks worn smooth and sensual like Henry Moore sculptures. Enter this well-hidden area and it is impossible not to feel the Gulaga's spirituality.

"Who are the spirits?" someone asks.

"There are a whole lot of spirits," Naylor replies. "Men spirits, women spirits, boy spirits, girl spirits. Then there is Daramulun, the Great Spirit. He has the power to do anything. He can harm you."

Eric Naylor has been taking visitors to the NSW far South Coast on this unique Aboriginal experience for the past seven years. It is one of the enduring success stories of the Aboriginal tourism industry.

Umbarra Aboriginal Cultural Centre and Tours, Wallaga Lake, via Narooma, NSW 2546; phone (02) 4473 7232.

Harry Nanya tours of Lake Mungo

In terms of human history, Lake Mungo - an uninteresting, arid remnant of a lake 124 kilometres from Wentworth which has not been filled with water for at least 13,000 years - is one of the transcendental landmarks on the map of human habitation in Australia.

It was here, some 25,000 years ago, that Aborigines living on the edge of the lake cremated and buried a young woman. The ceremony was simple. The woman's body was burnt. Her bones were collected and buried in a small pit. It is, some believe, the first moment when humanity embraces the idea of spirituality and acknowledges forces beyond primal animal behaviour.

Lake Mungo is one of those elemental sites where it is absolutely necessary to be accompanied by a guide. There is a certain smugness, a sense of money well spent, when you watch a trail of bewildered people clambering up the Walls of China, a lunette at the edge of the lake. Gazing querulously around for signs of significance while beside you is Graham Clarke, from the Aboriginal-owned and operated Harry Nanya Tours, down on his knees, digging in the sand, exposing the whitened and ancient bones of a giant emu.

Clarke is one of those accomplished guides who is capable of explaining the stories of his people as well as the detailed archaeology of the district. He is also an accomplished didgeridoo player who, when the tour stops at the Lake Mungo Visitors Centre, tells stories of the area and accompanies them with bursts of the instrument.

It is possible to visit Lake Mungo without a guide. It is just not a very sensible option if you want to understand why this piece of desert is so important. There is no question that the sand dune at Lake Mungo, just like the dunes on Lake Leaghur, Lake Garnpung and Lake Mulurulu, which all lie to the north, is thick with artefacts. There was a time when these lakes were part of the Lachlan River system. They were thick with mussels, frogs, yabbies and Murray cod.

The shores were home to dense reed banks and the fresh water attracted lizards, wallabies and emus. From around 40,000 years ago, when the Aborigines first arrived on the shores of the lakes, this was a larder of gigantic proportions. Life was easy. Food was plentiful. The climate was good.

Each time it rains, another layer of Lake Mungo's rich history is exposed. To stand on these ancient shores is to begin to understand the mystery of ancient Australia. Stand and gaze over the dry lake bed and think "12,000 years before primitive Europeans started drawing bulls and horses on the cave walls at Grotte de Lascaux in southern France, Aborigines were enjoying an idyllic life on this once-rich and fertile lakeside". Or, if you want to reflect on Mabo and land rights, do a simple division of 200 years (European settlement) into 40,000 years (Aboriginal settlement) and realise that Aborigines have been at Lake Mungo 200 times longer than Europeans. Here you can start to feel a true sense of the antiquity of human history on this continent.

Visit Lake Mungo with Harry Nanya Tours, phone (03) 5027 2076, or book through Mildura Visitor Information and Booking Office, (03) 5021 4424 or 1800 039 043.

Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park

The most successful Aboriginal tourism experiment has been the Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park near Cairns. With artistic assistance from New York theatre impresarios Don and Judy Freeman, and led by Djabugay didgeridoo virtuoso David Hudson, the Tjapukai Dance Theatre was established in a rented basement more than a decade ago. After a couple of years of extraordinary success it moved into a modern theatre at Kuranda and in 1997 it became the world's first cultural theme park. The Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park is, reputedly, the largest private enterprise employer of Aboriginal people in Australia, and offers visitors a unique insight into Aboriginal beliefs, history and culture. The experience combines an impressive display of Djabugay artefacts: a beautifully made, hard-hitting 20-minute documentary that charts the history (including the massacres and maltreatment) of the Djabugay; and a Creation Theatre where the belief system of the Djabugay is told in their language with the audience able to listen to translations in seven languages. There is also a traditional village, demonstrations of didgeridoos, bush food and medicine, and lessons in spear and boomerang throwing.

The success of the Tjapukai is obvious. Apart from being a very good and comprehensive entertainment they, by accident, happen to live in one of Australia's most desirable tourist destinations. People come to Cairns to see the Daintree and the Great Barrier Reef. The Tjapukai Cultural Park exploits this natural influx of tourists. Sadly, it is obvious that, were it located at Weipa or Tennant Creek, it would not enjoy the success it does. It has also radically altered the economic fortunes of the local community, many of whom work at the site.

Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park, PO Box 816, Smithfield, Cairns 4878; phone (07) 4042 9999.

Further reading: Aboriginal Australia and the Torres Strait Islands, Lonely Planet, $29.95.