Yorakal

Yorakal is a limestone cave system that mazes itself under the ground providing chambers for the Mambara people, including storage and passages. Each cold season the surrounding Mambara villagers migrate to the cave for protection, ceremony and celebration.

Cave Entrance
The cave opening is a small and inconspicuous crevice against a limestone cliff that protrudes out of a depression with the surrounding forest. The entrance is offset to the very left hand edge of the wall. A small opening has cut a slit in the cliff face that creates an arrow head entry wide enough for two villages to walk side by side through and the height of two. The surrounding limestone rocks almost completely hide the entry from the outside, but upon entering the narrow tunnel at the entrance the cave opens up to the cavernous main chamber with an ornate entrance carved above the end of the tunnel. The entrance carving keeps dangers and evil spirits from entering. A gate disguised with rocks from the cave’s entrance are lowered over the entrance when not in use. This hides the cave entrance from the outside and protects those inside from the elements and jimbas, large giant creatures that raid and pillage Mambara villages.

Inside the cave, there were smaller alcoves and many tunnels leading to smaller cave chambers with shallow ceilings and drip stone decorations. The villagers had use tools to carve out new tunnels and compartments for storage, and housing of the different villagers. Many cave walls have been smoothed and small holes carved for belongings. Bricks have been fashioned from the limestone to create privacy in some caves, whilst others prefer the simplicity of bringing wood, bark and leaves to build small camps within larger cave chambers for their families. For although most villagers did get along they had found from experience that it was best to keep those from different areas separate for the harmony of all others. Only the elders and spiritual leaders were afforded individual chambers for their living quarters, with multiple families sharing chambers throughout the remainder of Yorakal.

Cave Glow Grubs
Where the sunlight stops filtering through the cracks, the villagers rely on lanterns to see or the glow of grubs to illuminate the paths at night. These grubs that glow they call a bright blue effervescent colour that bathes the walls in an eerie blue, leaving corners darkened where they are less in numbers. Their bodies are small but sticky bead like strings hand from them, creating a dangling light effect and an impression of thousands of tiny drip stones. The villagers do not eat the grubs as they believe they are a good omen and that they will maintain vigilance over them when the moon rises, similar to that role performed by stars when outside the cave. It is a belief that these are totems to the stars themselves, which represent the ancestors of the people.

Yorakal River
Central to the selection of Yorakal as the cold season retreat from the villagers was the availability of water that flowed through the main cave via a small creek and filled cavities / pools to easily source water from. Explorations had been made deeper into the cave to discover the source of the water, but it was largely fed from underground rivers that were too dangerous to explore. The creek left the main chamber of Yorakal via an underground river too. The water has a white discolouration and some claim that the water is white because it is milk from the bosom of MOTHER as gift to the people during the harsh winter season. The creek however shows evidence of being considerably larger in the past with the floor of the cave decorated with stone that appears to be frozen in a cascade along the floor. These frozen waterfalls are revered by the locals as a reminder that nothing is forever and that all of GOD’s creations, even rivers and rock, suffer hardship and tests during their time on the land. Within some alcoves dripping stones hung from the roof of the caves, but villagers removed those that were too low and may have hurt them. However given the small stature of the villagers and generally the high ceilings of the caves it was not an issue. These dripping stones now provide decoration to caves, and villagers have taken to sculpting them to identify their culture and please the spirits. The dripping water can be drunken directly or collected by the villagers, saving them having to go to the main chamber to source water for their drinking.

Sacred Bora Cave
The sacred bora cave for the Wirrinun ceremonies required those who entered to crawl on their bellies using their arms to propel them along a now smoothed tube into the chamber. Only the Wirrinun or Beerinun could enter the chamber first, and by themselves. Elders always had to wait to be called into the chamber. The chamber over the years had been decorated with carvings to honour the totems of their people and GOD. At the roof of the chamber was a hole that looked towards the sky. The opening was only a narrow rounded hole that the elements entered. At the base to catch the falling snow was a basin that the Wirrinuns had carved, with each adding their own sculptures or drawings to the basin. No one was to drink the water in the basin, as this was considered to be water for the GOD when they delivered their messages.