According to a report published on Monday in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, scientists have discovered proof that shows how aboriginal dental traditions were able to impart knowledge over 500 years.
In a number of rocks in Australia’s Victorian Alps, small fireplaces with bulging, fat-trimmed sturdy artifacts were discovered, which matched the description of the 19th-century Gunaikurnai treatment rituals.
The discovery is thought to date the end of the last ice age and is believed to be 12 000 years older.
According to the authors of their document, “knowing the lifetime of oral traditions and “intangible history” has significant implications for understanding knowledge exchange through social networks down the generations.
What did the historians discover?
Two of the most significant discoveries are those involving a little, too-small stove for cooking or cooking, and a rod of trees wood that has been trimmed and smeared with animal or human fat.
After looking for the interpretation of the places, Gunaikurnai elder Russell Mullett discovered Alfred Howitt’s works from the late 1880s.
Howitt described Gunaikurnai healthcare men and women, called “mulla- mullung”, who were involved in healing festivals.
Before putting the rod in the ground and starting a small fire, they may attach everything that belonged to the sick man to the conclusion of a rod that had been smeared with fat.
” The mulla- mullung had finally chant the name of the sick man, and once the rod fell, the charm was complete”, a Monash University statement said.
Casuarina timber was also mentioned in Howitt’s statement regarding the ceremony.
oral history spanning a thousand times
There is no other known movement whose imagery has been preserved for such a long time, according to Jean- Jacques Delannoy, a European geomorphologist and study co-author.
” Australia kept the memory of its first citizens intact thanks to a strong oral tradition that made it possible to transmit it,” Delannoy said.
” But in our societies, memory has changed since we switched to the written term, and we have lost this feel”.
With the assistance of Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation ( GLaWAC ), excavations were conducted at Cloggs Cave in 2020. The Gunaikurnai, who have long lived in the region, had been excluded from past excavations in the area.
