Uluru and Aboriginal tools

In August 2008, I was fortunate enough to visit the stunningly beautiful area around Uluru, in the heart of Australia, for the second time. This magical week was spent camping out bush with an incredible group of women. The pictures shown here are taken on the first day of our gathering, before we entered our camp.


This is Uluru at a distance... we were told that Uluru formed in the most unusual way. Please forgive me for not remembering which end is older, but the geologists have determined that what we now see of Uluru is a mountain that has fallen over on its side! Apparently, geologists can see the layers of the earth's crust when they go from one end to the other.

The sun rises and sun sets were simply out of this world... There is something special about the endless outback sky that makes you believe in the genuine 'glowyness' of the world!

This bowl was used by the women for gathering food. They would cut out an oval piece of bark from a tree that was just large enough to make their bowl, but not kill the tree. As you can see by the one on my head, there is a decorative pattern in it. This pattern was burned into the wood.
Above shows what the tree looks like when a bowl has been cut out. This one is clearly very large!
The picture shows what the Aboriginals used to use for hunting. You hold it by making sure that the shorter part of the stick faces down, and you place your right pointer finger at the tip (where the woman has her finger) and make a crevice with the rest of your hand for it to fit into. It is tricky because you have find a good balance between a firm and loose grip for it to stay up, have direction, yet be able to let go without changing that direction.

Ideally, you are to throw it in one smooth motion from back to front. This is in an ideal world. Unfortunately, we live in no such place. Maybe with more practice, and if our meal depended on it, one of us would have eventually figured it out!