Ian Hunter By Michael C, Nic and Laura
| On Monday, the 12th of February, 2001, Ian Hunter came to our school to tell us of the ways of the Wurrundjeri aboriginal people. Ian Hunter is an Aboriginal carpenter, his Aboriginal name means 'wombat' and he is in the Wurrundjeri tribe. His mother is aboriginal and his father is Irish, that's why he looks white. He showed us how to get a boomerang to come back to us. He also told us about a stick which tricked emus, it was in the shape of an emu's head and neck. |
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Ian Hunter explained some of the Aboriginal language to us; for example Yarra means hair. When the white people were asking an Aborigine what the Aboriginal words for things were, they pointed at the river behind the Aborigine and asked what it was and the Aborigine thought he was pointing at his hair, so he said "Yarra." Boomerang isn't the real Aboriginal word for it. |
| Ian also had some animal fir. He had a skirt made out of fur with some Velcro which he used for dancing. He had a piece of Possum fur which he said they used for wrapping up in when it was cold. He said when he first went and danced, the paint was supplied, then when he went to dance and it wasn't supplied he went to a hardware store and bought some paint and painted himself and his friends with house paint. He had some fire sticks, something that looked like a guard made out of thick bark. He also had some rock that he said you used for painting your body when you danced in corroborees. |
Ian dancing with paint on his body and a skirt on him. |
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He sort of told us a story
on the Didgeridoo. Near the end of school, Ian showed us how to make fire with
two sticks. One of the woods he used was soft and the other was hard. The
soft one was drilled into the hard wood. There was a little spark of heat
and Ian placed some stringy bark on the heat spark, and the bark
caught fire. Then we learnt how to throw a boomerang. Ian chose some of the kids boomerangs and some of them worked but most of
then
didn't. Then it was time to go home.
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Click
here to see the video of Ian Hunter playing the Didgeridoo