Bonzer Words!: Naming The Natural Estate
The naming of geographic features has a deep, deep significance, as Paul Newbury reveals.
Paul writes for Bonzer! magazine. Please visit www.bonzer.org.au
Uluru (Ayers Rock) and Kata Tjuta (The Olgas), Central Australia
Uluru is the sandstone monolith acclaimed as the red heart of Australia, 460 km southwest of Alice Springs. Uluru is 4 km long, 2.5 km wide, 8 km around the base and it rises 340 m above the sand plain. The highest of the 36 domes of Kata Tjuta rise 500 m above the plain, 32 km to the west of Uluru.
Uluru and Kata Tjuta are renowned for the spectacular colour changes that sweep over them as the sun crosses the sky. As the sun rises and before sunset, they give off a stunning reddish hue. At other times, they are bathed in magenta light. Sojourners should linger to appreciate the changing moods of Uluru and Kata Tjuta as the sun passes by and during changes in weather.
The flora of Uluru and Kata Tjuta is spectacular in spring following a wet winter as millions of seeds left from the previous good season spring to life—ephemeral plants sprout and ‘dead’ shrubs resurrect in a rush of leaves and flowers. Perennial are the spinifex, grevillea and desert oak. The fauna is exceptional—birds, marsupials and reptiles.
Uluru – Kata Tjuta National Park is inscribed on the World Heritage List for its natural value, its traditional land use and its cultural significance for the Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara people who refer to themselves as Anangu—custodians of Uluru – Kata Tjuta.
In 1985 under the Northern Territory Land Rights Act (1976), the Government handed freehold title of Uluru – Kata Tjuta to the traditional owners who leased the sites to National Parks and Wildlife. Restoration of the Anangu names signifies a reversal of dispossession and restitution of the harmony between people and place. Anangu have a majority on the Board of Management of the Park.
Uluru and Kata Tjuta cannot be discussed simply as tourist icons. They are sacred sites of the Tjukurpa, the Dreaming—the stories of creation that stretch back unbroken for millennia. This discussion of the spiritual significance of Uluru – Kata Tjuta is taken from Songman: the story of an Aboriginal elder – Bob Randall published by ABC Books in 2003 that I worked on as second writer and editor. Bob Randall is a Yankunytjatjara Elder of Uluru and I acknowledge him as mentor and friend.
For Anangu, Uluru is the head of the Rainbow Serpent who brought them to live in the Central Desert. The features of Uluru – Kata Tjuta are physical evidence of the passage of ancestral creation beings of the Dreaming. Every curve, hollow, pool and overhang has significance in the story of creation.
The pathways taken by the ancestral heroes and their activities are referred to as song cycles of the Tjukurpa (Dreaming) telling the story of creation. Tjukurpa has complex meaning. It refers to Anangu religion, law, relationships and moral system. It is the basis of knowledge. Uluru is the point where several ancestral tracks cross rendering it a profoundly spiritual landscape – a criss-cross of energy lines flowing in the land.
Bob Randall says: ‘In Aboriginal culture, our knowledge is kept alive and passed down through the epic song cycles of the Dreaming that are sung, danced and painted, vividly imprinting them in our hearts and minds. Our country is our mother, the womb of our spirit, vibrating with the life force of creation.’
Bob says non-Aboriginal Australians visit the red centre searching for a rekindling of their spirit; especially the link between spirit and land. He says we are drawn to come because we know the Earth is troubled with widespread destruction of her forests and waterways. Bob believes spirituality is the ultimate answer to reconciliation between black and white in Australia.
Anangu prefer that tourists do not climb Uluru but park management is reluctant to ban it. The Cultural Centre organises guided tours around Uluru and Kata Tjuta that introduce tourists to Anangu stories of the Dreaming. .
Uluru is majestic and awe-inspiring. In the morning, the sentinel of the western desert glows molten red and shimmers in the heat of the day. At sunset as the night rises in the eastern sky, Uluru takes on her purple gown and dissolves into the lucid blackness of the night, embraced by a sky bright with stars—the eternal camp fires of the ancestors in the night sky.
© Paul W Newbury
