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.

The real gems

Some of the underground dwellings the team found in Coober Pedy

When the producers of the movie "Mad Max" wanted to show a vision of the world after a nuclear explosion, they came to the town of Coober Pedy. It was a good choice.

As you approach Coober Pedy, the land gets increasingly desolate. Scarce vegetation thins then disappears completely. The land begins to look like a vast parking lot on a hot afternoon. The sun creates shimmering illusions of water in the distance. In some places the biggest feature you'll see are rocks the size of tennis balls.

Coober Pedy itself looks as if some giant-gopher monster dug it up. Slag heaps and enormous empty holes pockmark the town. Instead of filling the holes, people here have created refuges from the heat and sun. They've moved underground. There are underground homes, churches, hotels, restaurants, and even an underground hairdresser.

Fortune seekers made the holes. They were looking for opals, color-flecked gemstones that fetch hundreds of dollars. They're composed mostly of silica, the same mineral found in sand. They serve only as jewelry and nothing else.

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We didn't come here for opals but rather for gems of a different sort. We traveled here to find "Tjilpi Tjuta Tjulaku", a bush camp of Aboriginal elders. We heard it was a good place to hear stories and experience authentic Aboriginal culture. We had visions of traditional people living off the land. Maybe we would even be treated to a traditional Aboriginal performance.

We found the elders all right. But they weren't living traditionally. Instead, they were sitting around a tin-roofed community center in Coober Pedy watching a Ricki Lake episode on tormented youth. They sat blank-faced, completely disinterested in us.

Among the elders was one of those things that didn't belong in this picture. "It" was a young Norwegian linguist who spoke in a Southern-American drawl. His name is Peter Neasson and he had learned English from Blue Grass singers in Oslo. He wore a pressed shirt, leather hat, and a long, bushy beard that gathered at a point below his chin. At 6'5" he towered over everyone else. I caught him walking out of the cultural center.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"I'm studying language," he replied laconically. "I live with these people."

Peter told us that on average, one Aboriginal language is lost each year. Of the 300 or so languages, only 90 remain. With each lost language, a bit of Aboriginal history dies forever. "In linguistic terms," he said, "English is the killer language. It's not only the language of power, but people have been made to feel ashamed if they don't speak it."

These machines are used to dig for opals

"So what?" I said. "Don't different languages divide people? Seems to me that common languages would help bring people together."

Peter didn't answer. He tilted his head and silently regarded the ground. "People have lived here for thousands of years," he said finally. "Then came a powerful people who imposed their way of describing the world. Included in these descriptions were maps, something that the Aborigines never knew. Once land can be portioned off and described that is the first step to taking it away."

"Have you gained any wisdom from living with these people?" I asked, changing the subject.

He thought for a long moment. "Yes," he said lifting his head. "Everything connects. You, me, Aborigines, the land, animals. We are all part of a whole."

Back inside the community center, I found the manager Gwen Crombie. A white Australian woman who's an Aborigine at heart, Gwen helps support Aboriginal elders. She found the money for the Bush Camp. It started out as just another cultural center for older Aboriginals to gather. Now it's become a permanent home for a few elders. It amounts to a couple warehouse-like shelters and a fire pit for roasting kangaroos. "The old people like it because it gets them away from the gas sniffing and alcoholism in town," Gwen explained.

"Is Aboriginal culture dying?" I asked.

"The problem is," she replied, "that there are only a few knowledgeable elders left. Their children have either been raised in missions where they weren't given a traditional teacher or they've been taken by alcoholism. Few people are left to pass on the traditions. That's why we try so hard to preserve the culture of the older people."

As I cycled back to camp, l thought about the whole town of Coober Pedy compared to the ramshackle community center that Gwen ran. On one hand, you had an entire town built to chase useless little stones while on the other, so little was being spent to save a priceless culture.

It seemed to me people here are missing the real gems.

Pedals Up!

Dan

AustraliaQuest
Classroom Connect