Practice innovation, Australia-style

As a nation, Australia is just 106 years old. But in its blink-of-aneye history, the continent has developed a robust culture of innovation. This is the first in a new geography-wide series on regions of innovative excellence across the world.

Long ago in the dreaming, the period of creation before time when the essence of human nature came to be understood, the Aboriginal warrior Yidiki stumbled across a hollow branch that had fallen to the ground after a fierce storm. The larger end was teeming with termites so Yidiki blew through the smaller end to get rid of the insects. The branch made a strange and powerful sound. Intrigued, Yidiki now made the branch completely hollow by burning out the termites’ nest. He then used wax to mould the smaller end to fit his mouth. When members of his tribe heard the magical sounds of the hollow instrument they painted themselves in ochre and danced to its rhythms …

The origins of the didgeridoo, the world’s oldest wind instrument, classified by musicologists as an aerophone, has 1,500 years later been lost in the sea of myths. Australia’s Aboriginals insist, even today, that it was Yidiki, not just a brave warrior but an ingenious innovator, who gave the world this natural wooden trumpet, one that is said to open the hearts and lift the spirits of all who hear it.

The very soil of Australia seems seeped in innovation. The Aboriginals, the original custodians of this island continent, created, besides the didgeridoo, the aerodynamic boomerang, the woomera and the fish trap for hunting, used native flora and fauna for food and medicine, constructed thread, nets and boats, and most importantly, generated fire.

Issue Sep-Oct 2007

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