White Australia has black history

Day 307

"There once was a jolly swag camped by a billabong
Under the shade of a coolibah tree
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me
Down came a jumbuck to drink at the billabong
Up got the swaggie and grabbed him with glee
And he sang as he stowed that jumbuck in his tucker-bag
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me
And he sang as he stowed that jumbuck in his tucker-bag
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me

Down came the squatter mounted on his thoroughbred
Up came the troopers One Two Three
Who's the jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker-bag?
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me
Who's the jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker-bag?
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me.

Up got the swaggie and jumped into the billabong
You'll never catch me alive said he
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me"

Song above is the unofficial National Anthem of Australia. Many many times people have petitioned government to make it official National Anthem. Response has always been: "Look, we love the song. It's aussie song. But...it's a song about a thief, who steals a sheep and then drowns. We just can't make it our National Anthem...".

At the moment I am back in Perth for 1 week before embarking on long 30h return trip to Finland. There isn't that much happening since most of the days I'm not doing much anymore, just relaxing, doing some souvenier shopping and trying to get my mind ready for cold and depressing Finland. So...this is best time to start summing up past 10 months. But first I want to put something else here. Something that has started to fascinate me more and more each day. Something that is one of the big unexplained mysteries of Earth. Aboriginals.

For many tourists, their first and only contact with aboriginals come when they arrive to Alice Springs, - mandatory pitstop on route to Uluru - walk to the mall and are met by group of drunken aboriginals who haven't used a shower in couple of years spitting in their face yelling "white cunt!". Because of this aboriginals have a very bad reputation within Australia and especially outside Australia.

This image of 24/7 drunken aboriginals is in fact both true and false. Yes, alcoholism is huge problem among them. After over 250 years since European settlers introduced alcohol to Australia, aboriginals still haven't developed same kind of immunity to it like we have. For them it's highly addictive drug which has destroyed world's oldest civilization. It's also true that majority of aboriginals have alcohol problem, but there is other side of coin as well.

Aboriginals don't have prisons, but their communities have very strict laws. When someone breaks law - for example drinks alcohol - they are banished from their community. Now, most of current aboriginal communities are not even on roadmaps. They are scattered throughout central and northern parts of Australia. When they are banished they have nowhere else to go but to nearest town which in most cases happens to be Alice Springs(on northern parts there are also few others like Derby, Fitzroy Crossings and Halls Creek which all have similar if not worse reputation as Alice Springs). When they get to town, they are alone. They have no family and are generally frowned by white people(=us). They go to social security desk, get money, hook up with other banished aboriginals, buy alcohol and become full blown alcoholics, rejects of their own community. It is really a sad story and unfortunately most tourists don't know this. They don't know why aboriginals in Alice Springs are like they are, drunk 24/7.

For me biggest shock came when I learned what is going on in these aboriginal towns full of banished alcoholics. I met a doctor who had been working in Halls Creek for few years and he said that he still sees nightmares of the things he saw. Mothers dumping their 6 month infants in the bush and going drinking...only to forget where they left their kid which is found 3 days later dead of dehydration.

What makes this even more sad is that we are talking about the decline of oldest civilization on Earth. In Northern Territory there are cave paintings which are atleast 35,000 years old which is proof that their culture has literally stayed untouched until European settlers arrived 250 years ago, after which nothing was the same anymore.

How did a culture survive and thrive in such a harsh environment as Australia literally unchanged for 35,000 years is still a bit mystery. None of aboriginal tribes ever had written language. Everything, all knowledge was passed on as paintings, drawings, dances and stories. Stories...this is an absolutely fascinating part of their culture which took a while to open up to me.

Wherever aboriginal tribe lived they had hundreds of "creation stories" about the nature around them. There is story why 3 big stones are actually 3 sisters turned to stone by village shaman hundreds of years ago. There is story why some bird which constantly digs ground for no apparent reason is actually a shaman searching his magic bone so he could become human again etc etc. When I first heard these stories I was like "Oh my, what sort of weed they smoked here". Stories were ridiculous, silly and stupid. It took me long time to learn why and when revelation came, I understood the genius behind this system.

You see, stories have different levels. Everyone starts are level 0 and more knowledge they get, they are allowed to listen level 1 stories and so on. Now, naturally in aboriginal culture they start to tell these level 0 stories to children, so that is why stories are shaped so even children understand them. Every story has also a meaning, a message about how to live your life and why nature is to be respected. As children grow and they get more knowledge, only then they are allowed to listen stories from next level. This also why tribe elders are always ones making decisions, because their knowledge level is highest and they are able to pass on all the stories. Tourists - thats you and me - we are at same level as 5-year old children so thats why stories we hear are same that are being told to children and that is why they sound silly to us. Aboriginals are not even allowed to tell tourists anything other than level 0 stories.

Now it's time to tell the big mystery of aboriginals. I already mentioned how they have found cave paintings 35,000 years old from Northern Territory. But aboriginals have been in Australia a LOT longer than that. Latest human fossil discovery from New South Wales(near Sydney) proofs that aboriginals were here 90,000 years ago! How did they get here is mystery which science has no answer. You see Homo Sapiens, human as we know, left Africa around 120,000 years ago. So if we assume simplest explanation is accurate, this is what happened:

For some reason group of Homo Sapiens left Africa and instead of going to Europe(Homo Sapiens arrived to Europe 45,000 years ago) they started to go east. They crossed harsh deserts of Middle East, mountains and jungles of India and arrived to rainforests of Malaysia and Indonesia within few thousand years. Now, this is where it gets really tricky. For past couple of million years, Australia has been an island, isolated from rest of the world. Because of this, Australia has never had apes so human couldn't have evolved here on it's own. Humans had to have arrived from somewhere. So, these humans who left Africa some thousand of years ago were able to build boats capable of traveling oceans - quite an accomplishment to species who hasn't even developed speech yet(humans developed speech about 60,000 years ago) - they set out to sea and headed south from Papua Guinea without any knowledge that 400km south they would arrive to Australia. They get off their boats, colonize entire Australia within few thousand years and completely forget how to build boats for next 75,000 years(latest evidence show that first time humans were able to build seafaring boats was 20,000 years ago).

So..how did aboriginals get here?? Oh, and in case above story is not mystery enough here is another puzzle. Those 90,000 year old human bones discovered in New South Wales apparently don't share same DNA with Homo Sapiens who left Africa. And as far as current knowledge goes, all humans are descendants of Homo Sapiens evolved in Africa. Interesting...

Hope someone read this far. I myself find aboriginal culture fascinating and it really is sad that they were able to survive nearly 100,000 years in the most harshest environment on Earth only to be destroyed by European settlers in matter of 200 years.