AustraliaQuest is an interactive expedition developed by Classroom Connect. For five weeks a team of scientists and explorers will examine the ancient culture of the Aborigines and attempt to determine how it affects their modern existence.

Fox's Files: Trading for Outback ochre

David and Tom took a small plane high above the Flinders Ranges. Many of these mountains are featured in the Dreaming stories of the Adnyamathana people

By Dan Buettner

"Yesterday," announced Terry Coulthard, our Aboriginal teammate, as we stood around the campfire eating breakfast, "the Spirit Beings didn't want us to visit the mine. Today's OK, I reckon."

The mine he was talking about is the Bukartoo ochre mine, an important site for local Adnyamathana Aboriginal people tucked away in the Flinders Ranges, here in south Australia. Our attempt to reach it started yesterday morning as we pushed off on bikes from the sleepy town of Parachilna, an outback oasis with a population of seven.

We met up with the support vehicle for our usual pepperoni, cheese, and cracker lunch, which I'm already sick of, then cycled off into the desolate, thirsty bush. Four flat tires and one broken bike rack later we set up camp for the night. While I cooked over an open fire and others began to write, we planned our second attack on Bukartoo for the next morning.

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Ochre is a mineral that comes in bright reds and yellows and was traded all over the continent for thousands of years. Red ochre from Bukartoo has been found in 10,000-year-old rock paintings in the Kimberley, over 2,000 miles to the north as the kookaburra bird flies. It was highly valued and used for painting rock art, shields, and carrying vessels called "nardu," as well as for decorating bodies for ceremony and burial.

We biked up into the foothills and then hiked for another hour over jagged boulders and through the spinifex, a vicious bush that makes barbed wire seem comforting. As we struggled along with flies snacking on our fresh scratches, I imagined barefoot Aboriginal people making the same pilgrimage over thousands of years and almost as many miles.

The mine itself is a hole in the side of a hill, just big enough for a person to crawl in. Back in 1834 an account from Tasmania describes women squeezing themselves through narrow crevices to get at the best ochre, then having to be dragged out by their feet. The ochre was then packed into kangaroo skins and hauled home.

Terry took some ochre powder, mixed it with water and began to paint Sherri's leg. "According to the stories, this ochre is the blood of the Akurra, the Rainbow Serpent." As the serpent dragged its way through the mountains, shaping the land as it slithered along, it scratched itself and drew blood. "When we put the blood-like ochre on our bodies we take in the spiritual energy of Akurra."

The opening to the Bukartoo ochre mine is only about four feet wide and goes back about six feet. In the past, people would crawl in and sometimes have to be pulled out by their feet

In the time before Europeans, the Bukartoo ochre would have been traded for pearl shells, stone tools, spears, and other items of value with Aboriginal people all across Australia. But this wasn't like stock trading on Wall Street. An early anthropologist in the northern part of Australia describes Aboriginal trade as a kind of social exchange. Someone would send a gift to a trading partner in another group. Over time the partner would send a gift back to complete the exchange, and the cycle would continue like that over years.

Aboriginal Peoples didn't trade just to get stone to make their tools or ochre for their painting, but to forge and maintain social connections with their neighbors. As the historian Geoffrey Blainey describes the relationship, "Between giver and receiver was a solemn obligation: 'All time, till die, we two people.'" By making connections and alliances, conflict could be avoided and valuable resources shared. "Trade," according to Blainey, "was more like a family Christmas tree than a street stall."

Over the next five weeks I'll ask you to join me in exploring Aboriginal society, past and present, to see what lessons we can learn and apply to our own. Together we'll get inside a social system that's operated successfully in this land for 50,000 years. As we began to scramble down from Bukartoo with a sample of ochre in our pockets, Terry turned to us, "Now you have to give me something in return. Then our exchange will be complete."

I'm wondering if he likes cheese or pepperoni?

John Fox

AustraliaQuest
Classroom Connect