It's never been about some cultural requirement to not climb it, we know that and there is plenty of genuine evidence regarding indigenous climbers themselves and past traditional owners not giving a crap about it.
They just haven't seen any benefit in climbing the thing really.. There's no tree cover, plants, game or water up there (other than the odd hole that fills during a wet season when it isn't needed).
To me the whole banning climbing (it's not about costs, maintenance and rescues) is about gaining and demonstrating ownership and control of the land (rock in this case) by having an ability to place restrictions and rules that others must respect and obey.
The current Traditional owner and board chairman Sammy Wilson basically admits as much himself "'If I travel to another country and there is a sacred site, I don't enter or climb it, I respect it. It is the same here for Anangu ". "It is an extremely important place, not a playground or theme park like Disneyland"
There's not some long held cultural belief in staying off the rock or anything. It's just the indigenous traditional "owners" of today, like the idea of gaining and demonstrating ownership and demanding respect, in their minds, by enabling restrictions that prove they have control and ownership.
Their predecessor traditional owners held more to the traditional cultural views that no one owned the land and if you were silly enough to want to climb it then go for it.
I get the newer generations more determined desire for demonstrable, controlled ownership and control of access. Some could argue that's fair enough and their right to do so. I do find it somewhat ironic though, that a land which is supposedly not "owned" by anyone, finds itself being claimed and demonstrably "owned" now, by the very cultures who always claimed no one owns it and that it can never be owned.
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I'm wondering when science will eventually discover the current descendants of the people who roamed the area thousands of years before even the Pitjantjatjara (of which there is already decent evidence) and that the Anangu have no more ability to "own" the rock than they.
It's all a pissing contest really. "It's ours now, and you mob can bloody respect that".
They just haven't seen any benefit in climbing the thing really.. There's no tree cover, plants, game or water up there (other than the odd hole that fills during a wet season when it isn't needed).
To me the whole banning climbing (it's not about costs, maintenance and rescues) is about gaining and demonstrating ownership and control of the land (rock in this case) by having an ability to place restrictions and rules that others must respect and obey.
The current Traditional owner and board chairman Sammy Wilson basically admits as much himself "'If I travel to another country and there is a sacred site, I don't enter or climb it, I respect it. It is the same here for Anangu ". "It is an extremely important place, not a playground or theme park like Disneyland"
There's not some long held cultural belief in staying off the rock or anything. It's just the indigenous traditional "owners" of today, like the idea of gaining and demonstrating ownership and demanding respect, in their minds, by enabling restrictions that prove they have control and ownership.
Their predecessor traditional owners held more to the traditional cultural views that no one owned the land and if you were silly enough to want to climb it then go for it.
I get the newer generations more determined desire for demonstrable, controlled ownership and control of access. Some could argue that's fair enough and their right to do so. I do find it somewhat ironic though, that a land which is supposedly not "owned" by anyone, finds itself being claimed and demonstrably "owned" now, by the very cultures who always claimed no one owns it and that it can never be owned.
.I'm wondering when science will eventually discover the current descendants of the people who roamed the area thousands of years before even the Pitjantjatjara (of which there is already decent evidence) and that the Anangu have no more ability to "own" the rock than they.
It's all a pissing contest really. "It's ours now, and you mob can bloody respect that".
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