Caitlin's blog: In Australia, the Christmas tree is not a pine...

I had class today (and I got back my paper from Aboriginal Colonised History and got a distinction!) and after my Aboriginal colonised history tute we went on a field trip. Ken, the lecturer, also teaches an introduction to Nyungar (the Aborigine country around this area) culture class and they had a field trip. He let people from my class go if they wanted to. Sam, Portia, and Paige are all in his other class so we all were there together. It was about an hour away and we took a big bus to get there. We met at Kulbardi, the Aboriginal studies centre at Murdoch, and Ken gave us Kulbardi hats and braclets. (the rubber ones like the livestrong one)

It was a really good experience. Even though I'm not Aboriginal and don't believe the same belief systems that they had, I felt that connection to the land there. The guide first started off with going to the body of water. You are supposed to tell the water who you are through a ritual of throwing dirt in it, then rinsing your hands, touching your armpits, and rinsing your hands in the river again. We all had to do it out of respect and because they have a belief that if you do not, you will get sick. We continued on the guide and he showed us around and told us various aspects of their culture. Another thing we did was lay on these healing rocks. There were separate areas for guys and girls. As you lay on the rocks they are supposed to get more comfortable. He also told us stories about people that have been healed by laying on them, including a woman with Parkinson's who no longer shook after a half hour of laying there. He then took the guys to see something that is more sacred and girls are not allowed to see it. It always bothers me to not be able to do something because of gender, but I have to respect their beliefs.

We continued on the walk and when we were following the path, we suddenly had to walk around a shadow. The shadow was from an Australian Christmas Tree. They believe that when their ancestors pass, they are in the trees and so passing through the shadow shows disrespect. The Christmas tree isn't flowering yet, which is why it looks so different from the wikipedia picture. He also talked about some of the things that they eat from the ground, including a root that is orange but turns your tongue blue and tastes spicy and a grass type plant that quenches thirst and tastes like lemon water. I didn't try either of them, though because I don't like eating things from the ground that aren't washed. We also stopped at a few places to look for artifacts from tools that the Aborigines used to use. It is so weird to think about the people that were here 38,000 years ago, but things like that remind you of it. At the end we all got in a circle thanked our guide and told him what the trip meant to us. It was definitely a unique experience that made me appreciate and understand the Aborigine's beliefs.