"Stones taken from Australia’s Ayers Rock have been returned to the desert monolith’s Aboriginal custodians by tourists who believe they are cursed.
Hundreds of visitors who casually pocketed chunks of the sacred landmark and took them home found they brought nothing but bad luck, including illness, marriage break-ups and even death.
National park rangers receive at least one package a day of what have been called “sorry rocks” pilfered from the landmark, now known by its indigenous name of Uluru. While most of the rocks were small, a German family returned a chunk weighing 9kg and a couple from South Australia posted back a large 32kg slab.
Not all Australians applauded the idea of returning the souvenirs... “What a load of crap! I've had my little piece of Ayers Rock for 14 years and I'm the most contented bugger on Earth,” said one person."
(Posted at Arbroath, from original story at the Telegraph. Wiki information HERE.)
The research on the "Sorry Rocks" is a part of a larger PhD study on - as far as I can discern - the joint history and joint significance of the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park as as place of cultural significance. The study is being conducted by Jasmine Foxlee, A PhD resarcher with UNSW (she was presenting at an academic conference I was presenting at and I sat in on her very interesting talk).
ReplyDeleteThe media of course picked up on the "cursed" aspect and pushed the paranormal angle. As far as I know though, Jasmine found that people returned the rocks for a myriad of reasons; many of them to do with guilt (it's against the law to take chunks of Uluru home with you) and respect for the Anangu (indigenous Australian) people, for whom Uluru has huge cultural significance. (After all, Londoners wouldn't be too chuffed if tourists chipped off chunks of St Paul's Cathedral and smuggled them home in their suitcases, would they?)
Jasmine paid particular attention to the letters that visitors wrote when they returned the rocks. She reported "The letters also offer
an inimitable opportunity to
explore the relationship between
souveniring and visitors’ desire
to remember Uluru, and the
personal levels of interaction
some individuals seek with the
landscape and other cultures.
With this insight it is possible to
appreciate the interplay between
the personal experience of place
and the broader social, cultural
and political constructions of
place that exist at an evolving
cultural landscape like Uluru-
Kata Tjuta National Park".
Interesting stuff, very interesting.