Day Four: An Aboriginal Community

Colin and Maria's way of life is pretty urbanized. They live in a regular house, and live a life like you and me, in a community in Broome. That doesn't mean that they don't practice their culture still, or get back out to see their tribes. Colin told us that some communities are still living by Aboriginal law and living the Aboriginal life --what it was like before the government took over. Since we weren't able to get up to the upper peninsula, we were the first group to be taken to a Aboriginal community. We were the guinea pigs, and it was a pretty big deal. We were setting the bar for people after us that want to come and visit and bridge the gap between cultures. We drove for about 4 hours and they took us through the aboriginal community and onto their beach. No white peopel had ever been to this beach before. At first it was kind of weird because everyone that drove by us would look at us oddly. Before long, the elders of the community warmed up to us and the children wanted to play with us. They taught us how to fish, make bread, and cook the fish. They not only taught us usful skills, they taught us about their culture. The elders opened up to us, taught us some of their language, shared their stories, shared some songs, and even gave some of the group skin names. Shane, our Australian professor, told us that we made more progress with these people in 4 hours than a lot of people have been trying to do in years.

The Elder women: I thought it was interesting to know that the people in charge of the community are always the women.

The tide went away

Most prestine and untouched beach

Lezlee and me!

Heather, Kelsey, Lezlee, and me

The aboriginal children. They thought it would be funny to put mud on. Also, the mud keeps the bugs away.

Me playing with the kids--they were so awesome! The kids were so curious of my culture and the color of my skin. They wondering if I had any black people in my family back home because a lot of these kids are half-casts or have some sort of white person in their family. They wanted to know what America is like becuase their perception of America is that every one has guns and there is a lot of killing in America. I got questions from a few of them asking me if there was a lot of killing in America. Two people in this Aboriginal culture could be related, but not by blood but by skin tribe. A little girl was telling me that she could call one of the boys brother and uncle. It is hard for me to understand. They all have skin names and some of them have totems (an animal that they came from in which they have a connection with and cannot hunt for food). One of the girls walked up to me and said, "isn't it weird"... I was confused and asked "what wierd" she stated that it is weird that we are all walking on bodies. 60,000 years of her ancestors have been buried on this land and they are all around us. I got goose bumps and Colin said that getting goose bumps is a sign from them telling you that they are still around. One of the elders asked my freind what his name is, and he said Brandon. They gave him a look and said we cannot say that name in our community because someone by the name of Brandon just passed away in the community so that name is not spoken and retired, in memory of him. 

This was probably one of the coolest cultural experiences I will have in my lifetime and it happened just in one day.