Originally Posted by
CraigE
Not going to get in a right or wrong slanging match, but seems there is a lot of rubbish information out there.
I climbed it back in 96 and the view is amazing.
Now it will be interesting to see if they can actually stop you.
Talking to the local indigenous when we were there it had nothing to do with it being a sacred site. The area that is a sacred site has been no access for 40 plus years and it is to do with the initiation of young men, which in itself is a ridiculous and barbaric tradition. Those that know of this will know exactly what I am talking about.
What they explained to me when I was there was the reason they did not want people to climb the rock was because if someone fell and was killed they had to mourn them and even if someone was injured it upsets them.
Seems these recent excuses of it being sacred and not climbing have just been made up recently.
The locals you talked to, were they of the Mala clan, or the Kunia clan.? More than likely they were from far away, just trying to make a quid out of the tourists, their information may be regarded as rubbish. The government of the tribe is in the hands of the well informed old men, not the physically active youth. It is the old men who maintain the ancient laws and decide the correct time for the performance of the rituals on which the social and philosophical life of the tribe depended. the full knowledge of the mythical past and the rights associated with it belongs to only these tribal elders. It is not the duty of a priestly class to preserve the traditional myths and their rites but a number of groups of initiated men each of whom is responsible for memorising the traditions and songs of their clan territories and transmitting them unaltered to the succeeding generations.
The initiation ceremony may seem barbaric to the European, but it is part of the essence of the clan's existence, whereby the young start their journey of knowledge , each step gaining more knowledge , leading to their becoming the well informed old men. What seems ridiculous to us, has sustained the aborigine for thousands of years. Until the coming of the European, and the Missionaries, who broke the cycle . I see mention of paint sniffers, and other such stories. I've seen it , I lived in the Territory, travelled all over it. Visited Papunya, Yuendumu, Docker River, yes there are problems, but there are also good stories. But good stories don't make the European feel superior. Sacred or not, if the owners don't want it climbed, it shouldn't be. I can't help feeling that there is a much deeper reason for this action than Uluru sites being sacred.
I’m pretty sure the dinosaurs died out when they stopped gathering food and started having meetings to discuss gathering food
A bookshop is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking
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