February 2, 2009 – 8:14 am
The Owlet-nightjar, known to the Warlpiri people as Jarlajirrpi, is commonly regarded as a familiar spirit of the Kurdaitcha man – part mercenary contract killer, part quasi-judicial executioner.
By Bob Gosford
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Also posted in Animals, Birds, Birds and people
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Tagged Aegotheles cristatus, Arrente, Australian Owlet-nightjar, Cuckoos, Jarlajirrpi, Jarnpa, Kirr-kirr, Kurdaitcha man, Nightbirds and Kingfishers of Australia, ritual executioner, Ronald Strahan, Stephen Debus, Warlpiri
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January 4, 2009 – 1:23 pm
The Luurn (Red-backed Kingfisher) Tjukurrpa is of prime importance to the groups of the western deserts region, since it represents one expression of a major initiation cycle, Tingarri, a Law bequeathed to them by Luurn and other ancestral beings.
By Bob Gosford
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Also posted in Animals, Birds, Birds and people, Yuendumu
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Tagged Balgo, Lurnpa, Luurn, Luurnpa, Red-backed Kingfisher, Sylvie Poirier, Tjukurrpa, Wirrimanu, Yuendumu
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December 14, 2008 – 8:04 pm
These market stalls contain “an assembly of skulls and skins arranged in a powerful, if often rather disturbing, display that can include horse and hyena heads, crocodiles, dried snakes and monkey skulls. The presence of so much decomposing flesh, crudely preserved with only ash or salt, makes for a very unhealthy background odour and a super-abundance of flies.
November 22, 2008 – 4:36 pm
Australia is an ornithological terra nullius – an ‘empty land’ – It is unforgivable that the most complete references to Australian Aboriginal ornithology are found in John Gould’s Handbook to the Birds of Australia, 1865 – published 138 years ago.
November 22, 2008 – 12:17 pm
I first saw the Wedge-tails free-flying at the Alice Springs Desert Park years ago and have been aware of the often violent interactions between the two captive birds and a pair of wild local Wedge-tails. Now the captive birds have been released.
November 19, 2008 – 2:40 pm
For too long, western scientists have either willfully ignored indigenous knowledge of Australia’s birds or damned it as ‘unscientific’. How we access and record what people know of and how they use birds, and the value of indigenous bird knowledge are important tools for species and landscape management.
