Australian cave discovery shows grass was burned for magic, cures and curses for 25,000 years

AI Summary

Archaeological studies in Australian caves within the traditional lands of the GunaiKurnai people show grass was burned for ritual purposes like magic, healing, and curses for 25,000 years. These caves, including Cloggs Cave, have long been sacred sites as noted in historical ethnographic reports and oral traditions.

The GunaiKurnai, an Australian Aboriginal nation, are the acknowledged traditional custodians of Gippsland and the southern Victorian Alps. Within their territory are caves known from 19th-century ethnographic reports and oral traditions to have been settings for magic, healing and cursing rituals by powerful learned women and men called "mulla-mullung," as well as by other spiritual practitioners. Archaeologists have shown that people have been visiting one of these caves, Cloggs Cave, for such activities over the past 25,000 years.