Back to Reality... And the Aborigines

20 foot waves on Monday leaving Bribane

Smooth wake on Tuesday

The storm has passed us by (or, rather, we've broken out of the unreality of the cyclone) and it all seems now like some otherworldly part of our life.  Did it ... or did it not... actually happen??  And, as we sit here at our desk overlooking the seas (don't know which one, as there are so many different names of seas in this part of the world!), the waves are calm, the water looks quiet, the seaweed  passing us is the only offshoot of the storm and the captain says the ugly green color has been here since Captain Cook.  Not worried at all anymore.  We had our worry time all used up!

Anyway, on to our lesson for the day: Aborigines.  Australia, at one time, was attached to the rest of Asia by land bridges and, over 100,000 years ago, these strange looking "people" marched from what is now Thailand into Australia and set up "camp".  Now Australia is a very large country (about the same land mass as the US) and it is amazing to me, considering how hot and deserted most of it is, that these little dark-skinned funny looking people walked all over the country and set up tribes, like our Indians, marking out their own territories.  I always heard about Maoris, but they are only one small tribe and they were located near Sydney area.  But there were many others all over, existing -- that's all I could call it, because they didn't have air-conditioning, microwaves, refrigerators, cars, or even horses to help!! What they did have was dingoes, those original dogs that helped them hunt and were so very good at it that they almost killed off all the wildlife!

Another thing they didn't have was religion--at least, not what we would call religion with a big man sitting on a throne on top of a cloud, creating everything.  But what they did have was a story of how life began in Aborigine-ville.  They called it "dream-time."  And from those "dreams" came life, art, good, bad, everything -- all explained in one nice little packet. They were, in essence, the original hunter-gatherers,  living off the land.

  When the Europeans finally discovered Australia, they looked down their long European noses at the original settlers, those pesky Aborigines.  Where were their 'farms" and "crops"?  And what about things like cows and pigs or even chickens?  These Aborigines were so backward, living off the land.  So they decided to isolate them, get rid of them, see how long they would last.  Does this all sound familiar?  But remember they were "funny-looking" with dark skin and broad noses and funny hair.  And they were short, after all.  They didn't know English.  They talked gibberish!

 Well, hundreds of years later, there are still Aborigines and many of them live in villages now.  They produce art, much admired by art collectors.  And we tourists occasionally pick up diggeredos to take home to replicate their haunting music.  A movie worth seeing is called "Rabbit Proof Fences"about the period 1920-30's..  It is the true story of a time in British-Australian history when the Australians passed a law to remove Aborigine children from their homes and put them in white homes thru forced adoption to assimilate the Aborigine culture to death.  It was a disaster and the story is about two little girls who escaped and followed the rabbit fences back to their family! Touching -- and true.

Enough lesson for today.  We had our "dream" sequence with the cyclone and it does now seem like it was only a dream.  We are off to Darwin, Australia and then to Komodo Island to see those dragons people talk about.  From there, we are on to Indonesia and further adventures.

I could describe life onboard a luxury cruise ship, if you would like.  We have certainly become intimately acquainted with the routine on this trip of "sea days".  Let us know if you would like to hear our observations of that !