A Whale Dreaming Story

Aboriginal peoples along the South Australian coast have featured whales in their dreaming stories for generations.  Here is one example.

One hot day, many Aborigines gathered at Encounter Bay for a large ceremony. The participants wanted to hold the ceremony through the night, but they did not possess any fire to enable them to see at night.  Two messengers were sent to find Kondole, a large powerful man who owned fire.  Kondole, was only invited to the ceremony for his fire.

Kondole hid his fire, however, and thus infuriated the other participants. They were determined to obtain the fire by force, but no one dared approach him.

Finally Rilballe decided to wound him with a spear and take the fire from him.  Rilballe threw the spear and wounded Kondole in the neck.  The participants laughed and shouted after this and most were then changed into different animals.  Kondole ran into the sea and became a whale, and now blow water out of the wound in his neck.

Mother Nature Showing Her Color

This week's PhotoHunt theme is colorful.

There were many choices for this week's theme, but I decided to showcase Australia's most famous natural icon.  These colorful pictures were taken at Uluru (aka Ayers Rock) at sunset.   It was a remarkable site to watch the giant monolith change colors as the light from the setting sun struck it.  

Uluru is a large sandstone rock formation in central Australia.  It measures more than 348 m high and 9.4 km in circumference.  However, it is interesting to note that the formation extends several kilometers below the surface of the ground--so visitors can only view a small section of Uluru.

The inselberg, or island mountain, is an isolated remnant left after the slow erosion of an original mountain range.  The remarkable feature of Uluru is its homogeneity and lack lack of jointing and parting at bedding surfaces, leading to the lack of development of scree slopes and soils.  

Metaong

The aboriginal people of the southern Fleurieu Peninsula (the Kaurna and Ngarrindjeri) use dream stories to illustrate the creation of land formations.
The following is a Kaurana dreaming story that describes the formation of the Pages Islands which can be seen from the Tapananppa Lookout in Deep Creek Conservation Park.

Ngurunderi was traveling along the coastline in search of his two wives, who had run away from him.
The two women hurriedly walked down Tunkalilla Beach to Tjirbuk.  From there they could see Kangaroo Island, the spirit lad.  At that time Kangaroo Island was almost connected to the mainland and it was possible to walk across.  Picking up all their belongings, consisting of nets (for fish) and mats (to carry food in) they began to walk across.
In the meantime, Ngurunderi hurried up to Tjirbuk, and could see them going across.  When they had reached the center, Nurunderi called out in a voice of thunder, saying: "Pink'ul'un'urn'pra nukurn" (fall waters-you).  Immediately the waters (sea) began to come in from the west, wave upon wave, driving the two women from their course.
So rough, so strong were the tempestuous waves, that the women tried to turn their faces towards the mainand.  At last, sighting against waves no more, they were carried into the open sea, taking their net baskets with them.  But again, as the water grew calmer, they tried to swim to Tunkalilla Beach, but could not and were at last drowned.  They were, however, metamorphosed into Metaong--The Pages or the Two Sisters, opossite Tunkalilla Beach.

Burning Mountain

One day the Gumaroi Aboriginal people in the north sent a raiding party to steal Wanaruah women for wives. The Wanaruah people heard of the plan and sent their warriors to do battle with the raiding party. One of the wives of a Wanaruah warrior sat at the top of the southern rock face of Mt. Wingin to wait for her husband's return. When her husband did not come back because he had been killed in battle, the woman was so sad that she asked the great sky god, Biamie, to kill her. Biamie felt so sorry for the warrior's wife that he turned her into stone and as she turned to stone she cried tears of fire that set the mountain alight.

This dream story comes from the Wanaruah Aboriginal people of the Hunter Valley of New South Whales. It documents their relation to Burning Mountain, located about 300 kilometers north of Sydney, just off the New England Highway.

Burning Mountain is a a naturally ignited coal seam which is believed to have been smoldering for several thousand years. It is one of three burning coal seams in the world and the only one in Australia.

From the car park there is a short trail, flanked by interpretive panels, that leads you through a gum tree forest to a viewing platform at the barren summit. Here you can see smoke, hot sulphur gases, rising from the grey, smoldering ash, and you can not help but remember the Wanaruah Warrior's grieving wife.

(source-information panels Burning Mountain Nature Reserve)