Paid by the Dead...

Every day millions of US citizens see dead people. Perhaps as a statue on the street, a picture or photograph, or the name of a building or bridge we may not take much notice of it. But death is all around us. This is certainly reflected in our currency. With the exception of Benjamin Franklin (who has been 6 feet under for many years) every bank note shows a deceased former president. Are they the only notable people from the past worth recognizing? Hardly. But that is how it has been for over a century. And people tend to hate change.

In Australia, the currency also carries faces of the dead. The only exception is the five-dollar note, which depicts a rather youthful Queen Elizabeth II and sketches of the capital city of Canberra as it was redesigned beginning in 1913. But the remaining faces have all been laid to rest. However, unlike the United States these people are far less political yet more interesting and diverse.

The $10 note pays tribute to writers. There's bush poet Andrew Barton "Banjo" Patterson and poet/journalist Dame Mary Gilmore. Two pioneering individuals can be found on the $20 note: convict-turned-shipping-magnate Mary Reibey and Reverend John Flynn who founded the world's first aerial medical agency: the Royal Flying Doctor Service. On the $50 note you can find inventor David Unaipon (first Aboriginal to wrote and publish a book) and the first female representative elected to Parliament (in 1921 just a year after women were given the right to vote in the United States, though in Australia women voted since 1901) Edith Cowan. 

Last we have the highest denomination, the $100 note, which features the likenesses of world-renowned soprano opera singer Dame Nellie Melba as well as engineer and World War II commander General Sir John Monash. Australia's $1 and $2 coins, introduced in 1984 and 1988 respectively, along with the 5, 10, 20, and 50 cent pieces show the more natural, native side of the nation. From kangaroos to emu to a tribal Aborigine the images pay tribute to what was already on the continent before the influx of Europeans. Of course, they all can still be found there.

These iconic people will undoubtedly hold up to wear much better than Lincoln, Washington, and the others on US dollar notes. That's because Australia was the first country to make their notes out of a polymer beginning in 1988 to help curb counterfeiting. Having just received my converted currency from the bank I can see the advantages. It behaves very similarly but since it's a form of plastic it can't be ripped in two. Of course, nothing—even plastic—is infallible. Currency values fluctuate in uncertain times. Right now, the Australian dollar is having a bit of trouble. But nothing lasts forever. 

Creepy Outback Cryptid Critters...

Nearly every country has at least one story of a mythical or unexplainable creature. Having been separated from any nearby land some 48,000 years ago, Australia is naturally a place of exotic and bizarre animals many of which are found nowhere else on earth. The kangaroo, koala, and platypus were demystified by European colonization but there are other mysteries based on stories passed down by Aboriginal peoples which today remain unidentified beasts of legendary proportions.

Probably the best known cryptid said to roam across the continent is the Yowie: Australia's very own version of Bigfoot (a.k.a. Sasquatch). Named Narcoonah by natives in what is now South Australia this large hairy ape-like creature has reportedly been sighted by white settlers since the 1840s. As more towns sprung up across the country sightings continued to increase and still happen today. It is believed there are at least two "species" of Yowie ranging from the small 4-5 foot tall hominids to enormous 6-10 foot varieties. Yowie researchers believe it's possible that these creatures are some distant ancestor to Gigantopithecus which was native to China around 1 million years ago, intermingled with ancient man, and may have crossed a land bridge to arrive in Terra Australis.

As with reports of Bigfoot, Yeti, and similar creatures scientists say it's impossible for such a large creature to remain unknown and not result in at least one discovery of a carcass over the past few hundred years. That hasn't stopped countless people and researchers from trying to track the elusive animal. Australian Yowie Research and Australian Yowie Research Centre are a few of the many organizations dedicated to collecting reported sightings and hunting for evidence. Josh Gates of Destination Truth even went to Queensland in 2008 to try to hunt down the creature. But so far the only evidence anyone has produced is footprint casts, odd audio recordings, and unidentified images. You would be hard pressed to even find one of the Cadbury variety these days.

But mysterious creatures are not only confined to land. To the north of Sydney lies the Hawkesbury River, known by Aboriginals as Deerrubbun. It has been a popular spot for thousans of years where the Ku Ring Gui and Dharug tribes believed the Dream Time was found. Prized for its abundant seafood the Hawkesbury might hold another aquatic animal. It's said to be the home of a prehistoric monster.

Similar to Scotland's Loch Ness Monster, the Mirreeulla (or "giant water serpent") was introduced by the Dharuk to early settlers through stories of capsized canoes and vessels blamed on a monster of the deep. It's been described in cave art and recollections as a large bodied animal with two sets of flippers,an eel-like tail, and the head of a snake mounted on a long neck—like a living plesiosaur would be envisioned. Reports of the creature happened throughout the 20th century. More recent sightings have occurred in August 2009 and March 2010.

But there are so many others. The legend of a very peculiar creature called the bunyip. Reports of black panthers. Sightings of extinct animals in Tasmania. Australia is a land of oddities, both known and unknown. Who knows what the next fishing line will pull out of a New South Wales waterway? Or what glint of an animal will be caught in car headlights?

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream...

Normally I don't dream very often. If I do, I don't remember it at all. Once every several months I'll wake up recalling a dream. Yet for the past two nights in a row I've experienced a plethora of dreams all night long which I recall much of in the morning. These have been quite varied, from strange bedfellows to odd happenings and yes, even a few frighteningly ghost-themed ones. In fact, dreaming seems to be an Aussie connection of mine. Four years ago, I visited a university campus in my dreams (and hopefully I'll see if the exact place does exist in December) to find my friend Joel. Almost a year later, I had a dream of Joel visiting me to tell me about a visit to the United States. It was only after telling him about it I learned that at the time I was sleeping he was discussing a summer stay in the states working as a camp counselor.

There are many different theories of dreams and possible meanings behind them. Some appear to look into the past, others foretell of future events. And some are so bizarre they can only be chalked up to the mind dumping out a ton of random thoughts and images in a heap of insanity. Psychologists have tried to explain the meanings behind symbols found within dreams. Famed psychologist Carl Jung and French sociologist Émile Durkheim even theorized that some dreams (and creative thought) could be the result of tapping into some "collective unconsciousness" shared by all of humanity. But for Australian Aborigines there was something more sacred behind it.

What the native peoples of Australia refer to as "Dreamtime" isn't solely a sleep state of being. It encompasses a range of beliefs and experiences from the creation of the world ("The Dreaming") to future events. To them, the past, present, and future coexist. Time is eternal; its layers all happening simultaneously. They believe we can all access this time both through real experiences and dreams or waking visions. To experience a dream about a visiting ancestor was an opportunity to learn something they wanted to pass along to us. All dreams were a profound and meaningful experience.

To better understand why dreams were so revered, it's important to understand what Aborigines believe about the time when we sleep. During the night when we rest, they feel that our souls leave the body (what we would call an out of body experience or OBE) and enter the Dreamtime. Here we mingle with all time, past and future, and encounters can range from communications with the dead to the prophetic. According to Aboriginal beliefs an eternal part of every person existed before being born and continued to exist after the death of their physical body.

This made their view of death slightly different from ours. There was a period of mourning for the loss of a tribal member during which they would inflict wounds on themselves with clubs, shells, and rocks. At which time the wounds healed the mourning period would reach an end. The spirit of the deceased would go to "sky camp" but the dead could return, either through a real-life encounter or dream, to cause harm or warn of danger. While they held views similar to what we consider to be ghosts, these experiences were often quite different. That's not to say that ghost stories aren't part of their culture. There most certainly are tales of spirits and haunted places where few would dare to enter.

Ghostly encounters are believed by many in modern times to be mere hallucinations and dreams mistaken for reality. Yet the line between real vision and dreamed illusion remains difficult to discern. Is everything we dream pure fiction and coincidence? The millennia-old culture of the Aboriginals didn't think so. While we may never agree on the origins of precognitive thought, past life memories, and strange encounters with ghostly phenomena the mind is capable of some remarkable things. For all we know our everyday experiences are the dreams. Who can say what we might wake up to discover.