Uluru, known also by whites as 'Ayer's Rock, is a vast monolith that
dominates the desert plains at the centre of Australia. Today bush-loads of
tourists flood to marvel at how it dramatically changes color at sunset -
but my own experience of it was quite different....
The Aboriginal women escorting me chanted greetings to the spirits of the
caves and waterholes as we wound along a footpath at the foot of the high
smooth cliffs of Uluru in Australia's heartlands. "See that cave", one
woman grinned. "Doesn't it remind you of the vulva?"
The storekeeper behind the dust covered shelves in the local Aboriginal
owned store told me I would be welcome when I said I had come to meet the
local Aborigines. He took me from the store across a patch of scrub to
where the Aboriginal senior men were sitting in the shade of a tree. "Jan,
this is the Chairman." he said introducting me to an old man sitting cross
legged in the sand. "He will look after you." The Storekeeper knew no
better. As a male he saw the males of the Aboriginal community as the
proper people for me to meet.
I sat nearby and answered a few brief courteous questions from the
chairman. Then he told me: "The women want you"and pointed across to
another tree some 40 yards away. In its shade a group of women were
sitting.
They made space and warmly welcomed me as if I were expected. We talked,
eyes sparkling. Then one said. "We have something to show you." They
invited me to climb with them into the back of a truck parked nearby. We
drove together towards the long brooding red-grey cliffed monolith that
dominated the horizon.
They took me first to a small fenced off area at the base of the rock.
Standing well clear of it they explained that this was an area sacred to
Aboriginal men. They then took me away from the male area along the side of
the great rock to some nearby caves. These they told me gladly were sacred
to women and for women alone. No Aboriginal male would dream to come near
for the whole area was reserved to women under the strictest of Aboriginal
laws. But I saw the women's sanctury was protected by no fence, no warning
like to those that had protected the male sites. Tourists could freely
enter and were doing so. I saw white men camera in hand ignorantly
exploring the most sacred female places. The women explained to me that as
men are allowed to tell men about the location of their sacred places,
Aboriginal men had been able to tell white male government officers and to
persuade them to grant protection.But the women had not had this
opportunity. They had not been able to tell a female government officer
because our society had not thought to send them a woman officer. So they
wanted me to tell the world that the women of Uluru wanted equal
protection.
The rest of that day I spent with the women in their sacred places. I saw
deep permanent waterholes shaded by trees beneath the cliffs, a precious
resource in the desert. I felt as if I were with the ancient tribe of
Israel learning of their Garden of Eden sacred story as the Aboriginal
Elders told me their equally age old account of divine creation.
The most privileged moment came when I was taken into the birthing cave and
was shown how the women sat to give birth. I was instructed how to sit as
the woman laughed with the pleasure of the telling.
It was a day of magic. I learnt how the women and men of the Central
Australian tribes have two Sacred codes of Law, one for men and one for
women. Both are of equal status. They would sit in separate parliaments to
make decisions. Only when an elder had grey hair was she or he allowed to
know some of the secrets of the other.
Some days later an Aboriginal man took me in his utility truck past the
phallic shaped smoothly eroded bare rock hills of the Olgas, a range to the
west of Uluru. As we passed he directed me to avert my eyes. The other
women with me put up a hand to shield their eyes. These hills are sacred to
males.
The same traditions are not shared by all the Aboriginal nations of
Australia. Australian Aborigines once formed over 200 nations, with
different languages and customs. Some of the nations of the South East had
councils in which men and women sat side by side making joint decisions.
This caused great confusion and some mirth when the communities formed the
first national Federation of Land Councils. When they had their first
meeting in Alice Springs, the men of the centre were shocked when the women
of the south refused to hold separate meetings. After much debate it was
decided that men and women at the Federation of Land Council meetings
should meet together. This did not stop some men sneaking off to try to
hold separate discussions - nor did it stop patrols of southern women
going out to bring these men back into the common meetings.
But the women of the south east still have separate sacred places. One day
on the coast of Victoria a group of Aboriginal women told me to wait until
the men had gone on ahead. Then they quietly told me of the existence of an
ancient women's sacred place nearby. They showed me a beautiful place. I
asked did they want it fenced off as had the women at Uluru. They said no,
too many whiites live in the south.. If it were fenced off local white men
would vandelise any signs put up and desecrate it.
But in the centre, the women won their battle. Other women and I told of
the message that we had been given. Today at Uluru most of the women's area
around the base of the rock is fenced off - an area much larger than the
men's sacred area. Tourists still climb the rock totally unaware of the
sacred lands that lie below and despite Aboriginal protests at this
desecration. Uluru has been returned to Aboriginal ownership - but only on
condition that the Aboriginal community within 5 minutes of the title being
handed back immediately gave it back to the Australian nation as a tourist
park.
But for me it makes Australia very special, how many nations have at its
heart a woman's sacred place enshrining the story of creation? If only
White Australia realized quite how special a people's land they live on.
End ©96 Janine Roberts
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