Scientists
are beginning to tap into a wellspring of knowledge buried in the ancient
stories of Australia’s Aboriginal peoples. But the loss of indigenous languages
could mean it is too late to learn from them.
The
Luritja people, native to the remote deserts of central Australia, once told
stories about a fire devil coming down from the Sun, crashing into Earth and
killing everything in the vicinity.
The
Luritja lands include areas to the west and south of Alice Springs, extending
around the edge of Arrernte country.
The
local people feared if they strayed too close to this land they might reignite
some otherworldly creature.
The
legend describes the landing of a meteor in Australia’s Central Desert about
4,700 years ago, says University of New South Wales (UNSW) astrophysicist Duane
Hamacher.
It
would have been a dramatic and fiery event, with the meteor blazing across the
sky. As it broke apart, large fragments of metal-rich rock would have crashed
to Earth with explosive force, creating a dozen giant craters.
The
Northern Territory site, which was discovered in the 1930s by white prospectors
with the help of Luritja guides, is today known as the Henbury Meteorites
Conservation Reserve.
Gigantic
wave
Mr
Hamacher, who runs an Indigenous astronomy program at UNSW, says evidence is
mounting that Aboriginal stories hold clues about events from Australia’s
ancient past.
Last
year, he travelled to Victoria with tsunami expert James Goff, also from UNSW,
to visit members of the Gunditjmara people.
“They
describe this gigantic wave coming very far inland and killing everybody except
those who were up on the mountaintops, and they actually name all the different
locations where people survived,” says Mr Hamacher.
He
and Mr Goff took core samples from locations between 500m and 1km (0.6 miles)
inland, and at each spot, they found a layer of ocean sediment, about 2m down,
indicating that a tsunami likely washed over the area hundreds, or possibly
thousands, of years ago.
The
samples need further analysis but Mr Hamacher says it is a “very exciting”
result that suggests the legend could be true.
Earlier
this year, another team of researchers presented a paper arguing that stories
from Australia’s coastal Aboriginal communities might “represent genuine and
unique observations” of sea level rises that occurred between 7,000 and 11,000
years ago.
The
crash landing of a meteor in the Central Desert would have been a fiery affair.
Thousands of iron-based meteorite fragments have been found in the vicinity,
validating its classification as an impact crater.
Nick
Reid, a linguistics expert from the University of New England in Australia,
co-authored the paper with marine geographer Patrick Nunn from the University
of the Sunshine Coast.
Fact
checking
The
stories they analysed, which had been documented in colonial times, referred to
water levels rising over coastal areas that were once dry.
By
looking at historical records of sea level rise following the last glacial
period, about 20,000 years ago, they were able to match the stories to
coinciding dates.
Mr
Reid says the relative isolation of Australia’s indigenous people – living for
50,000 years more or less free from cultural disruptions – and the conservative
nature of their culture could help explain why there is so much detail in their
stories.
Secret
knowledge
“Aboriginal
people have very particular beliefs about the importance of telling stories
properly, and about stories being told by the right people,” he says.
They
also employ a rigid kin-based, cross-generational system of fact-checking
stories, involving grandchildren, parents, and elders, which Mr Reid says
doesn’t seem to be used by other cultures.
This
extreme conservatism and adherence to accuracy can also be seen in rock
paintings, drawings and engravings, which were often used to support oral
legends, says Les Bursill, an anthropologist and member of Sydney’s Dharawal
people.
But
there is a problem – Indigenous languages are dying off at an alarming rate,
making it increasingly difficult for scientists and other experts to benefit
from such knowledge. More than 100 languages have already become extinct since
white settlement.
About
145 Indigenous languages are still spoken in Australia by at least one person
but a 2014 report by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Studies found that 75% of these were considered “critically
endangered”.
Posted on August 13, 2015 by ramongovea
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