OddThinking

Many people around the world are familiar with the iconic Australian animal – the kangaroo – but people who aren’t from Australia (“unaustralians”) will be unfamiliar with their place in a great Australian ritual. This is an attempt to explain a small piece of the Australian culture.

It starts when the family turns up at the picnic spot, in the national park. As Mum unloads the Esky from the boot of the Holden, Dad will point out “Hey! Look over there! There’s a kangaroo!”

The kids get excited and cry out “Skippy! It’s Skippy!”. The father suggests “Perhaps, if you are very quiet, it will let you pat him! Shhh! Move slowly and quietly so you don’t scare it!”

The children will creep, hands outstretched, towards the kangaroo. They get closer… and closer… until the impatient smallest child reaches the kangaroo first, and pats it gently on the back. The kangaroo will keep chewing the grass, oblivious. The other children – and then the adults – reach it, and also start patting. Initially, there is a lot of cooing amongst the family, but before long, the family gets bored and returns to the picnic.

The kangaroo has grown up in the national park and is used to this treatment. It has played its part in the ritual, and now it is time for the reward. While the family throws a football around, it bounds over to the unattended food and starts rummaging around. The first time it is shooed away with a laugh, but as the picnic progresses, and the family members get tired, the persistent attempts start to irritate. The kangaroo – at first a novelty – has already become a pest.

The wonderful thing about this ritual, is, in the very next time that family visits a national park, the whole episode is played out again.