What have I done today?
Well not much it seems. I have been running, got my punctured tyre fixed, stuffed around on the internet, mostly creating this blog. Listened to the Country hour and slept on the tail gate of the car. Not a whole lot else it seems. One thing that is rather handy is some one at, or near the caravan park has an unsecured wireless network by the same name as our home wireless, so my computer automatically connected to it, alerting me to its presence. Very beneficial for a cheeky email or two.
Another thing I have done today is eat way too much for dinner. It only just hit me, but 200 g of steak, an entire large eggplant and 500 ml of custard is more than comfortably fits in my stomach.
But this is not the sort of riveting commentary I started this blog to write. So whilst I stuff around in Kununurra trying to work out jobs, logistics and travel lets go back a few weeks… to the Tiwi Islands.
There are three islands that lie north of Darwin, approximately 50 km offshore. These are the Tiwi islands. Bathurst, Melville, and a small one in the entrance to the straight between the two that I will mention when I discuss the creation story. There are two options for tours to Tiwi, fly or boat. Flying you get to spend 6 hours on the island, by boat only 3. Luckily I wasn't paying, and we took the plane. A six seater single engine Cessna. With my cousin and I crammed in the back seat it was comfortable for the duration of the half hour flight, no longer.
We landed on Bathurst island and were rushed over to meet our guide as our Cessna had taken a bit longer than the twin engine 9 seaters. Our guide, John, was a local Tiwi man in his late 30s or early 40s - although I am a notoriously bad judge of age. His ankles were about the size of my wrists, and the rest of his body was in proportion. Not too tall, but mighty skinny.
First stop on the Tiwi tour was the museum in Ngui. Ngui is the largest town in the islands with 1500 people, and almost all the people on Bathurst island live here. 500 people live in two small settlements on Melville island, and nobody lives on the third island, except the good spirit. The first stop in the museum is a picture board of the basic creation story. Mamukala an old good woman lives underground, but bad spirits roam the earth. She comes above the ground and fights the bad spirits off. Then she leaves her two daughters and son on Tiwi. Soon the daughters want children, and are unhappy, so the brother went to the small island where the good spirit lives. He asks the good spirit where he can find someone to make his sisters pregnant. The spirit says that he will go into them that night and make them pregnant. The obvious happens, and I think that is the end of the story. 
The third, and by far the smallest of the three Tiwi Islands.
Well not much it seems. I have been running, got my punctured tyre fixed, stuffed around on the internet, mostly creating this blog. Listened to the Country hour and slept on the tail gate of the car. Not a whole lot else it seems. One thing that is rather handy is some one at, or near the caravan park has an unsecured wireless network by the same name as our home wireless, so my computer automatically connected to it, alerting me to its presence. Very beneficial for a cheeky email or two.
Another thing I have done today is eat way too much for dinner. It only just hit me, but 200 g of steak, an entire large eggplant and 500 ml of custard is more than comfortably fits in my stomach.
But this is not the sort of riveting commentary I started this blog to write. So whilst I stuff around in Kununurra trying to work out jobs, logistics and travel lets go back a few weeks… to the Tiwi Islands.
There are three islands that lie north of Darwin, approximately 50 km offshore. These are the Tiwi islands. Bathurst, Melville, and a small one in the entrance to the straight between the two that I will mention when I discuss the creation story. There are two options for tours to Tiwi, fly or boat. Flying you get to spend 6 hours on the island, by boat only 3. Luckily I wasn't paying, and we took the plane. A six seater single engine Cessna. With my cousin and I crammed in the back seat it was comfortable for the duration of the half hour flight, no longer.
We landed on Bathurst island and were rushed over to meet our guide as our Cessna had taken a bit longer than the twin engine 9 seaters. Our guide, John, was a local Tiwi man in his late 30s or early 40s - although I am a notoriously bad judge of age. His ankles were about the size of my wrists, and the rest of his body was in proportion. Not too tall, but mighty skinny.
First stop on the Tiwi tour was the museum in Ngui. Ngui is the largest town in the islands with 1500 people, and almost all the people on Bathurst island live here. 500 people live in two small settlements on Melville island, and nobody lives on the third island, except the good spirit. The first stop in the museum is a picture board of the basic creation story. Mamukala an old good woman lives underground, but bad spirits roam the earth. She comes above the ground and fights the bad spirits off. Then she leaves her two daughters and son on Tiwi. Soon the daughters want children, and are unhappy, so the brother went to the small island where the good spirit lives. He asks the good spirit where he can find someone to make his sisters pregnant. The spirit says that he will go into them that night and make them pregnant. The obvious happens, and I think that is the end of the story.
The third, and by far the smallest of the three Tiwi Islands.The first half of the creation story, in pictures.
I wonder if there has been any missionary influence on the story over the years?
Parts 2 and 3 of the Tiwi story will come later on; when I have not much else to write about.
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