Carnivorous Nights_ On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger - Margaret Mittelbach [108]
“When you look at the journey of the moonbird and where he goes, he goes in a figure eight. He travels from Tasmania and he goes up through Japan, where he's harvested by the Ainu people. Then he goes from there up to the Arctic, down Canada, and then he pulls into the native community up there. Then he comes across the Pacific and comes to New Zealand to the Maoris and they also harvest the muttonbird. The moonbird is significant to a lot of indigenous cultures because of the journey he takes.”
On the muttonbird migration, the birds travel nine thousand miles in each direction, crossing the Pacific Ocean and traveling to the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere and the northernmost part of the Pacific. In search of an endless summer, the muttonbirds average 220 miles a day on their flight. Each year in September, the birds return to Tasmania en masse—usually all on the same day.
The muttonbirds were one of the last threads connecting the aboriginal people to their past. “We lost a great deal through the colonization process,” Darlene said. “In that process language was taken.” And their culture was nearly decimated.
We knew the tiger had been an important animal to aboriginal people. Was there any chance the tiger survived, or was that lost, too? We asked Darlene what she thought.
“I'd like to think the tigers are still out there. A lot of people tell me they are. But I don't know. I've been up in the skies and looked down at this little island, and I don't think there's too much where there hasn't been a human imprint.” She sighed. “Tigers are really symbolic in aboriginal culture in terms of dreamings and dreamtime. Our old people related stories of animals and their symbols, like the quolls with their spots and dots, or tigers with their stripes.”
But such tales are hard to come by. War, murder, disease, and dislocation had destroyed the thread of stories that had been passed down for more than ten thousand years on this island at the edge of the world.
“There are strands of old myths and stories that survive. But we've had a lot taken from us. It's like trying to find the missing pieces to a jigsaw puzzle.”
22. MYTHICAL CREATURES
In the aboriginal languages of Tasmania—it's believed there were about a dozen of them—the Tasmanian tiger was known as corinna, lorrina, kannunah. At least those were the names recorded by early settlers. Today, the people of aboriginal descent who survive in Tasmania are often forced to turn to European recorders of history to access their own languages and stories.
How did the tiger get his stripes? In the book Touch the Morning by the Tasmanian writer Jackson Cotton, a series of stories tell the origin of Tasmania, how the aboriginals came to live there, how the devil got its snarling voice. The tales are said to be collected from aboriginal people by the author's ancestors, a Quaker family that had been in Tasmania during the early years of colonization. The story of “Corinna, the Brave One” was told to them by “Mannalargenna, the chief of a Northeast Coast Federation of Tribes.”
Palana, the little star, was the son of Moinee. As a boy he loved to wander in the bush and had many happy adventures. One day, however, he had a nasty encounter with Tarner, the big boomer kangaroo.
Tarner was huge and powerful, and in a very short time Palana, even though he was the son of the great Moinee, was in dire trouble. The boomer knocked him sprawling and attacked him with his huge heavy hind feet.
Somehow Palana managed to get up, but when he tried to run away Tarner caught him in his arms and quickly throwing him again to the ground, began to stamp the life out of him.
Palana screamed as loudly as he could, “Help! Help!”
The echoes chased around the bush,