For more than 50,000 years, Aboriginal Australians have incorporated astronomical events into their oral and written traditions and used the motions of celestial bodies for navigation, time–keeping, food economics, and social structure. Aboriginal people made careful observations of the sky, measurements of celestial bodies, and incorporated astronomical events into complex banks of knowledge commonly shared either through the genre of narrative, or the genre of information, and often accompanied with symbolic representations knows as visual texts either drawn into the sand, painted, or carved, into rock or timber: by time–keeping using celestial bodies, the rising and setting stars as indicators of special events, observations of variable stars, the solar cycle, and lunar phases (including ocean tides and eclipses), as well as astronomical measurements of the equinox, solstice, and cardinal points.
Extracted from: http://www.emudreaming.com/Further_reading.htm
That's quite an achievement!
Detail:
Tchingal, the Emu, and Bunya, the Possum, are visible in the night sky in MAY.
Stand facing SOUTH. Looking straight ahead, measure THREE hand spans UP from the horizon. Here you will see the bright stars of the Southern Cross (Crux). The Pointers and two very bright stars just to the left of Crux. The brightest and furthest to the left is alpha Centauri, the nearest brightest star to the sun. The “Pointers” and the bright stars make up the old constellations of Centaurus. These bright stars also make up Tchingal – The Emu.
This is the story of Tchingal the Emu and Bunya the Possum. They were in a fight and Bunya hid in a tree so has always had the reputation for being a coward. You can see both Tchingal and Bunya in the night sky near the Southern Cross.
(Extracted from research by the late Robert Mate Mate - Gapinparu Elder – Victoria)
The Cache.
The Cache is located at S23 33.ABC E145 16.XYZ where
N=No of stars which make up Crux
A=N-1
B=N+3
C=N-4
X=N+3
Y=N-3
Z=N-0
