Monday’s Gunaikurnai issues of Nature Human Behaviour presented the findings of a study done by Archaeologists regarding how Indigenous oral traditions have passed down knowledge across 500 generations.
According to the description, Gunaikurnai sites were small fireplaces either for heating or cooking and trimmed sticks made from casuarina wood, the stick smeared with human or animal fat.
This makes it approximately 12,000 years old which is equivalent to the end of the last ice age.
The author stated in their report that “Determining the longevity of oral traditions and ‘intangible heritage’ has important implications for understanding information exchange through social networks down the generations”.
What did they find?
The major finds at both sites are an undersized hearth unlikely to provide warmth or cook food and a piece of trimmed casuarina wood coated with animal fat.
Mullett had been searching for the meaning behind this when he found out Howitt’s work as far back as the late 1880s.
Howitt writes about Gunaikurnai medicine men and women in his ethnography from this period known as mulla-mullung engaged in healing ceremonies.
They would light a small fire after sticking that stick into ground accompanied by something that belonged to a sick person tied on top smeared with oil/fat. Monash University said “The mulla-mullung would then chant the name of the sick person, and once the stick fell, the charm was complete.”
At one point he mentioned that ritual involved using casuarina wood.
Thousands of years’ oral tradition
“There is no other known gesture whose symbolism has been preserved for such a long time,” AFP quoted Jean-Jacques Delannoy.
Delannoy added: “Australia kept alive its memory thanks to its powerful oral tradition”.
“But since we switched from oral storytelling to writing, memory changed in our societies, we lost this sense.” In 2020 Cloggs Cave was excavated with the assistance of Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation (GLaWAC), after many years. The Gunaikurnai were excluded from previous digs in the region, which they have called home for generations.
