While walking past a beach in Darwin, I saw a lone man facing the sea. His arms were spread wide, and he seemed to be declaiming something to the waves in Larrakia. I wondered if he was a local eccentric, until, later in the day, I saw a group of people on another beach in the distance. There was a man nearby, facing the sea in the same pose as the last man. From that distance, they were little more than silhouettes, but I could tell that they were Larrakia, or at least Aboriginal, same as the man on the beach earlier. This didn’t look like a coincidence, this looked like religion. Was that what it was? A ritual or ceremony to thank the sea for the bounty that the Larrakia’s ancestors have traditionally relied on?
On this occasion, I have been unable to discover the answer. Everything I’ve found on Aboriginal Australian cultures and religions is generalising, sweeping across the entire continent with a broad brush. Aboriginal rituals are at least sometimes secret and confined to certain groups of people, like adult men, but as this was performed in the open, if it was indeed a ritual, then I thought it wouldn’t be. Then again, maybe it was – and the Larrakia have every right to keep their secrets, after all. Or maybe it wasn’t a secret; maybe it was simply a small detail that been overlooked in a massive country.
But there is something else about Australia that intrigues me…
Wandering/Wondering 