Kakadu Pt. II: They Will They Will Rock You

As thrilling as it was to see crocs from the safari boat, and to splash around in their deserted swimming pools, it was Ubirr that revealed Kakadu’s true beauty to me. It’s in the northeast quarter of the park, a totally different landscape than the uniformity surrounding the billabong. There you have the same trees, the same flat land. In Ubirr you get real geography: shapely mesas, bald bluffs, islands of trees in seas of grass.

Aboriginal people lived at Ubirr for 20,000 years. They are the world’s oldest continuous civilization; scholars’ best guess places them at 65,000 years old. Now this may sound like a non sequitur, but bear with me. I always ask Young Earth Creationists how they explain China and India. Those cultures go back waaaaay further than October 22, 4004 BC, which is when Bishop Ussher dated “Let there be light.” (It bothers me that creationists don’t celebrate Earth’s birthday, since they know the exact date.) Now I’ll ask them about Aboriginal people instead, to add about 60,000 years to the discrepancy.

Ubirr is home to some of their best preserved, most replete rock art. That makes it one of the premier sites for rock art anywhere on the planet. I’ve seen some beautiful rock paintings in South Africa and the American southwest, but I must confess they pale in comparison to Ubirr.

These paintings serve many functions. One of them, which I’ve never heard tell of in discussions of any other rock art, is to tell visitors what’s on the menu. Notice how anatomically precise some of these paintings are. They show which internal organs are good eating.

Oh, and here’s a thing I’ve never heard tell of when discussing any other hunting culture: the technique here in Ubirr (and in lots of other places in Australia) was not to kill your prey but to paralyze it. They had different techniques for different animals, wringing this one’s neck, shooting that one in the small of the back, and in the case of the file snake, sticking its head in their mouth and yanking straight down. Ozzy Osbourne, eat your heart out.

I know, I know. I’m vegetarian. I should find this revolting. But it’s pretty damn clever, keeping your prey’s vital functions going until it’s time to cook it. You don’t need a refrigerator. Living meat doesn’t spoil.

Bonus points to Ubirr for being the only place you can still spot a thylacine:

Everything I’ve learned about Australia’s Aboriginal cultures has been utterly fascinating, and I haven’t learned nearly enough to say anything intelligent about it. Someday I will have to revisit all of this and do my homework properly, but for now I’ll just say when you go to Kakadu someday, don’t skip Ubirr, don’t skip the Warradjan Cultural Center, don’t just come for the crocs and the birds.