William Cohen (the US Secretary of Defense) is in Cairns today. One assumes it relates to East Timor; theoretically there is to be no official American military involvement, but… Well, to continue the original story… after the night walk we piled back into the guide’s land cruiser to head back to PK’s, and we found a python laying on the pavement. It was fine, not run over; they are known to lay on the warm pavement after dark to keep warm. The guide picked it up and showed it to us; it was coiled around his wrist, clenching strongly, “like a tight bracelet” he said. He let it go up a tree, to see vehicular death another day.
The next day we prepared to leave PK’s, back to civilization. It was unexciting, mostly packing stuff up and tring to catch the right bus, which was pretty entertaining and challenging. More than a few bus riders failed. The bus took off at 1PM or so, departing for a four hour ride back from Cape Trib to Cairns. The driver turned out to be this huge old Scottish guy. Looks like a slovenly Santa Claus. But his rolling Scottish burr aside, he was an Aussie in his heart; he hummed, then sang, “Waltzing Mathilda” for a good bit of the trip. Quite a character. I saw lots of banana and coconut plantations in this part of rural Queensland. We stopped at a fruit stand that makes a kind of ‘ice cream’ from purely fruit products, no milk or sugar, and it was actually good.
The next stop was the entrance to a chunk of land run by the Aborigines. It turns out there are a few still left, more here than farther south. The ones who live here are not smeared in charcoal and hunting with boomerangs, nor are they homeless and drunk as the ones I found in Brisbane. These people, the Kuku-Yalanji, have a different way. In order to generate money for their community, a few of them work as guides on the old Aboriginal dream trails in the Daintree rainforest, in Mossman Gorge. They say the jungle is like a person to the Aborigines. Our guide was a mostly Aboriginal (75%) man named T.J. His perfect Australian accent was surprising to me. But he is certainly no stranger to the European sourced Australian culture.
T.J. is 43 years old and was born in the jungle. He told us of his struggle to find identity while being torn between two cultures. He spoke of the old rituals and performed an initiation ceremony for one of the girls in the tour. (More on this later.) He said he had been sick from his internal conflict and was thus killed and resurrected by a witch doctor. A life-changing experience for him occurred when he was just a child. His grandfather channeled a spirit who foretold that he would become a messenger, a kind of messiah to share Aboriginal culture and spirituality with the materialist white man. He believes that Christianity is about fear and he wants to liberate people from their destructive greed. The material existence seems hollow to him. He might express these ideas differently than I am. I found his message to be similar to Taoism. But I think he’s worried about white people and that makes him want to transmit Aboriginal culture. He really seems to see it as his duty.
He took us to a small pool in the woods. Here he performed the rite of initiation for the girl he had picked earlier. He chanted in his native tongue and rubbed clay dots on her forehead, cheeks, and chin. The point of the initiation is to make the person feel special, he told us; nothing more. He said it’s best if an old man performs it because with experience one can really best characterize the qualities of the girl being initiated.
Afterwards we went on and saw a few more things, like a 500 yr. old tree that was of special significance to the guide’s people. He mentioned that he planned to do a documentary. If he makes it, I hope to get a copy somehow. I also hope to keep in touch with him via email, after I return home. His natural interest in spiritual Aboriginal symbols parallels my own interest in semiotics. Oddly, he disappeared at the end of the trail; I never saw him come back out to the clearing with the rest of the group.
Then we piled back onto the bus to continue our journey. When we got to Port Douglas I said goodbye to Neil and Meaghan — this was their stop. Perhaps we’ll keep in touch.
Down the road, just outside of Cairns, a mango tree decided what we needed to do was stop under it, so it arranged for our bus to get a flat tire. Its mangos were ripe so some of us gathered a few to take with us for food. This ensures good dispersal for its seeds and contributes to the success of its species. Pretty clever for a mango tree. And the fruit was delicious.
Soon enough we got back to town, and I checked in again at Caravella’s 149. No sooner had a settled in than Lisa convinced me to drink with her and some friends. But I’ve already told that story. I was drunk, not to mention sick, so I slept like a log. But this morning I woke up feeling better than I had in days! Strange. It’s very rainy in Cairns today. I bought a Quantas ticket back to Sydney for 10/1. Thank God I don’t have to take the bus back. Due to the rain, there isn’t much to do today. We were going to a nearby beach but those plans are shot. Tomorrow Lisa and I will go skydiving over Dunk Island. Man, did I just say that?
