Sparrow Fart walk around Uluru - Friday, September 11

Yes indeed, Sparrow Fart is Aussie speak for really early in the morning!

Our Tali Wiru dinner last night had pairings of wine with each meal course.  As you might imagine I experienced each pairing and had a pretty good buzz going.  Thus my 5:30am wake up call this morning was a sparrow fart to me…I was a bit hung over, a bit tired….but I made it happen.

Beth was fortunate to be able to sleep in and have a massage.

I took a SE IT (Australian tour company - Spirit, Emotion, Intellect and Task).  The tour I took is called the Uluru Trek.  It is a sunrise 14 kilometer walk around the entire base of Uluru.

Uluru is a very sacred place and for me this tour was like a doing a walking medititation.

Uluru is one of only 33 places on Earth that have 2 different World Heritage UNESCO classifications.

Water in the desert?  Four leaf clovers?

Spotted this heart shape in Uluru for my love Beth

A Thorny Devil 

Here is the first story we were told:

"In the beginning, the Mala people came from the North and could see this rock.  They thought it looked like a good place to stay awhile and make inna (ceremony).  The Mala men decorated and raised Ngaltawata, the ceremonial pole.  The inna had now begun.

The Mala people began to busily prepare for their ceremonies.  The women gathered and prepared food for everyone.  They stored nyuma (seed cakes) in their caves. The men went out hunting.  They made fires and fixed their tools and weapons. 

In the middle of preparations two Wintalka men approached from the west.  They invited the Mala people to attend their inma. The Mala people said no explaining their ceremony had begun and could not be stopped. 

The disappointed Wintalka men went back and told their people.  Enraged, they created and evil spirit - a huge devil dog called Kurpany to destroy the Mala inna. 

As the Kurpany travelled towards the Mala people he changed into many different forms.  He was a mamu, a ghost.

Luunapa the kingfisher was the first to spot him.  She warned the Mala people but they didn't listen.

Kurpany arrived and killed some of the men.

In great fear and confusion the remaining Mala people fled down into South Australia with Kurpany chasing them.  The story continues down south.

These ancestors are still here today. Luunapa still keeps watch, but she is now a large rock.  Kurpany's footprints are imprinted into the rock heading east to south. The men who were killed are still in their cave.

This story teaches that it is important to finish what you start and that you should watch for and listen for warnings of danger."

I might add that it also teaches to be honest and truthful and to tell the complete story and not just part of it.

Can you see Luunapa face?  She's still keeping watch!

Uluru from the western side as we started our sunrise walk around the base.

Kuniya Piti is an Anangu men's site and is scared under Tjukurpa (traditional law).  Some other sites we saw but where prohibited from photographing due to them being scared sites are:  Warayukia another men's site and Tjukatjapi a women's site.

Water in the desert……LIFE!

I thought i'd like to have a short history of the Aboriginal history so I copied these details:

** Aboriginal Australia (Anangu = Aboriginal people of the Western Desert)

“When the First Fleet arrived with its cargo of convicts in 1788 there were between 300,000 and 750,000 Aboriginal people living in Australia, belonging to about 500 tribes, each if which had its own territory and its own culture. They spoke and estimated 700 dialects.  These languages are as different from each other as English is to Russian and Chinese.  Many of these languages are no longer used or are under threat of disappearing.

It is estimated that there are only 20 to 50 languages still described as “healthy” – that is, they are spoken to and used by children.

Anangu mainly speak Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara, but some speak up to six different Aboriginal languages.  Some local speak – Palya = hello/goodbye/thank you/welcome or Kata Tjuta = Many heads.”

“Dreaming or Dreamtime  a complex idea at the heart of Aboriginal culture.  

Most Aboriginal groups believe that in the beginning the world was featureless.  Ancestral beings emerged from the earth and as they moved about the landscape they began to shape it.  They could be in any form – humans, animals, rocks, trees or stars – and could be transformed from one shape to the another.  Nor were they limited by their form (kangaroos could talk, fish could swim out of water).  Wherever these beings went  and whatever they did left its mark on the landscape.  A mountain might be the fallen body of an ancestor speared to death, a waterhole the place spirit emerged from the earth, or yellow ochre the fat of an ancestral kangaroo. In this way the entire continent is mapped with the tracks of the ancestor beings.

Although the time of creation and shaping of the landscape is associated with the temporal notion of ‘beginning’, it is important to understand that Dreaming is not part of the past.  It lies within the present and will determine the future.  The ancestral beings have a permanent presence in spiritual or physical form.  Ancestor snakes and serpents still live in the waterholes that they created; this is why visitors are asked not to swim in certain pools, so that these ancestors will not be disturbed.  This is also why mining on similar development can cause great distress to Aboriginal people if the area targeted is the home of an ancestral being.  The ancestors are also still involved in creation. Sexual intercourse is seen as being part of conception but new life can only be created if a conception spirit enters a woman’s body.  The place where this happens, near a waterhole, spring or sacred site, will determine the child’s identification with a particular totem or ancestor.  In this way the Aboriginal people are directly connected to their ancestral world.”

This evening Beth and I took a simiar but different walk around Uluru and then got to take awesome sunset photo's.