Australian lore, bush tucker, and digeridoo music

The chef was Capes, an aboriginal man we met at Monkey Mia. A dozen tourists from England, Scotland, Canada and Australia followed him into the bush, where he threw a broken branch of acacia onto a fire he'd built earlier. For the promised bush tucker, he spread the coals with a stick and laid out two whole mullets, turning them by the tail with his bare hands at the right moment. When they were done, he deftly flipped them open on a branch of dry wattle. Cooked to perfection, the moist white meat was soon cool enough to eat with our fingers.

In the deepening darkness, our host pointed up at the Southern Cross, called by his people the emu in the sky. For them, the seasonal changes in the constellations - seen in the shifting position of the emu - revealed the right time to harvest the huge bird's eggs.

Another cultural lesson involved the importance of kinship. Capes, he told us, was a nickname; his real name was much longer, and saying it in full meant naming several forebears. For small groups of semi-nomadic people, awareness of kinship and clan designations enabled rules that prevented marriages between people who were too closely related.

At last it was time to play music. The women got clapsticks, while the men and boys were given the chance to try playing the digeridoo. Capes explained how the instrument is made demonstrated how to play it. Then the two young boys and the men in the group had a go. Easier said than done, the men acknowledged, but the boys began to pick up the technique.