Wardan Aboriginal Culture Centre

I mentioned in the last post that the Wardan Aboriginal Culture Centre was an especially interesting experience. We got to see how the Wardandi people made fire, and we got to hear the didgeridoo. Here are some videos so you can see what it was like.

First up is the making of the fire. The video is relatively long, but that only serves as a testament to just how difficult it can be to start a fire without using matches or lighters or petrol or anything else like that.





Next we got to hear the didgeridoo. First, our tour guide showed us the basics of how the didgeridoo was used for story telling. Then he had us help him laid down a beat, while he played away on the didgeridoo. He uses circular breathing, so he said he can play nonstop for over half an hour before getting tired.





I think the song sounds a lot like techno, and it's pretty cool too. He definitely made playing the didgeridoo look easy. Afterward, when we went back to Margaret River to stock up before heading down to Walpole, we found some didgeridoos in a local gift shop. Now obviously I didn't dare trying to play one, knowing how many hundreds of people had probably put their mouths on the thing, but a few guys from the group did. Instead of producing the awesome music that we had heard earlier, all we managed to do was sound like a 5th grader trying to blow into a trumpet for the first time.

Poll: I'm pretty sure that I had no idea what a didgeridoo was before coming to Australia, though I often said the word a lot in my head cause I liked how it sounded. Did you know what a didgeridoo was before you read this post?