Ancestral places (Ecotone)

Ancestral places are not just old places, they are places where we can feel a connection with the generations that have gone before us.
If I go back a few generations, my ancestors lived in England, Scotland and Ireland. Thanks to my father’s genealogical research, I know that my great great great grandparents were married in a church in Wishaw, Lanarkshire, Scotland in 1845. I have not visited the church, but if I did I could stand at the back and look towards the altar and imagine them taking their vows. Perhaps if the register they signed still exists, I could gaze at their signatures. I could even attend a service in the church and know that many of the words spoken and sung today would be similar to those of 158 years ago.

Last year we visited Ubirr. Ubirr is an Aboriginal site in the Kakadu National Park of the Northern Territory and it is truly ancient. Humans have lived here for at least 23000 years, and there are rock paintings reliably dated at over 20000 years old. We did not personally meet Bill Neidjie - Kakadu Man - who died in May 2002, but his presence was throughout Kakadu. He was the last surviving speaker of the Gagudju language, and he recorded enormous amounts of indigenous knowledge. It is thanks to him that we know that the painting in my photo is part of a series depicting the story of a young girl who breaks tribal law by killing and eating Barramundi in the wrong season. This story is part of an oral tradition thousands of years old.
Bill Neidjie could hear the voices of his ancestors from thousands of years ago, and thanks to Bill and his people, when I stood and gazed at these paintings I could clearly hear those ancient voices too. They are not my ancestors, but I believe they belong to all of us.

Comments

[Coup de Vent]

You capture some of the betweenness (and yet belonging) that a lot of people feel when they are from somewhere else and live amongst the ancient spirits of another land. Thanks for showing the drawing.....

[Tvindy]

Australia is the only place on earth where rock art was done recently enough that anything of its meaning or purpose has remained long enough in living memory for scholars to document. Yet it is present all over the world and can be uncannily similar. A lot of the panels in Australia would not strike anyone as at all out of place if found in a Nevada desert here in the US. Some people have suggested that the practice may be so ancient that it may come from a common source.

[Geoff]

Some of the rock art at Ubirr was done as recently as 1985. We also visited another site in Kakadu - The Anbangbang Gallery at Nourlangie. Many of these paintings were done in 1964, by a man named Nayambolmi, shortly before his death. The repainting of designs was performed according to tradition. David Attenborough apparently visited this site in 1964 (prior to the new work) and found art similar to what is evident today, but more faded. We were pretty overwhelmed. It really did feel as though we were somehow in touch with ancient humans. I am fascinated to learn that North American rock art is similar. The last common ancestor of American and Australian indigenous people must be over 50,000 years ago. Could traditional knowledge survive that long? Alternatively there might be something instinctive about this kind of expression. Thanks for your interesting comment.

[Tvindy]

That's the question. There really is no plausible explanation for the similarities, yet there they are. It's very strange.