On a trip through the Cape York Peninsula, travel writer Susan Elliott meets Harold ‘Mooks’ Tayley – a Kuku-Nyungkul elder, Traditional Owner, bush medicine expert and healer sought out by travellers from around the world. He is also called ‘Kuku bugga’. But no, he ain’t cuckoo!
Travellers scoff schnitzels the size of their 4WD wheels, locals are dressed like extras on a Mad Max set and pub staff stretch their vowels soooooo faaaaaar their sentences could lap Australia.
My smile couldn’t be wider, nor my joyous roar louder at the Lion’s Den Hotel south of Cooktown, an outback tavern that’s a thirst quencher for those who have conquered the bumpy drive along the Bloomfield Track from Cape Tribulation, north of the Daintree River.
Watching from his favourite seat is Mooks – who, like a chameleon, is unseen until you spot him. Then he pops. His signature twirls of black hair loop behind his ears and curl down his chest, and with wisps of whiskers, he is a prize-winning portrait pleading to be painted. Mooks, however, is more into the art of walking and talking.
‘Kuku bugga’, I learn, is the local lingo for someone who likes to talk, and Mooks could probably do that underwater, as that is where he was born.
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‘Mum was working in a cattle station in Laura, and when she couldn’t get to the hospital, she called my grandad and grandma to the homestead and she had me in the Laura River,’ he says.
‘Mum needed to keep working and couldn’t look after me, so I lived in a bark shelter by the river with my grandparents.’
The town of Laura is 130 km from where Mooks now lives and works at Rossville Retreat, a property where you can camp, or ‘glamp’ in beautiful bush lodges. But not all who stay are simply passing through. Many people visit to spend time with Mooks, to walk his Country, learn about bush food and medicine and, in some cases, to be healed. Whatever the reason, everything starts with a smoking ceremony.
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‘Get some smoke on you!’
I’m on Intrepid’s Cape York & Torres Strait Explorer trip, travelling overland from Cairns to ‘The Tip’, the northernmost point on mainland Australia. And meeting Mooks is an unforgettable stopover on the journey.
‘Smoking ceremony is like a barrier for you,’ he says. ‘So, once you go through that smoking ceremony, you become one of us.’
Doused in smoke, we ‘head bush’ along a dusty, scrub-lined track that looks unremarkable, but is soon revealed to be a living supermarket and a free-for-all pharmacy.
‘This is our bush shampoo,’ says Mooks, as he tears leaves from a scrubby bush, scrunching them in his hands and adding water to make a foamy, soapy froth.
‘My grandma used to bathe me with this when I was a little baby. It’s good for the skin, good for the water, doesn’t harm the fish or anything, you can use the leaf for rash, sunburn, it does make your skin soft, like a sponge.’
From the same plant, the bark is used to relieve muscle pain, and from another tree, the leaves are plucked and crushed, releasing a menthol smell – and can be used to treat a variety of ailments. Next, we snack on lemony green ants with a snake weed chaser, a delicate purple flower that tastes like a mushroom. It’s good and would be the star of a salad.
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The gift of healing
At 15, life changed for Mooks.
‘My grandfather always said to me, “One day you’ll be helping many people”. I looked at him and said, “No, I don’t help anybody. I don’t want to help people.”‘
Fifteen-year-old Mooks wasn’t interested, but teen spirit couldn’t fight it. Young Harold had been born into a family of healers.
‘I knew that I had the power. And then one day, my grandfather and uncle said, “We’re going to take you to the ritual.” I ended up going bush with them and passed the healing.’
Years on, there’s a long list of people who have sought out Mooks for his treatments.
‘I helped a young girl from Belgium, a nine-year-old,’ says Mooks. ‘She had a brain tumour and from what I have heard, she is doing well. There was a young girl from Sydney with cystic fibrosis, she’s 21 now, a young boy from Texas with autism and a young girl in England had a brain tumour. I’ve been working on her for a few years, and she’s doing really well. I think she’s almost 20 now.’
Healers harbour their secrets, though Mooks does share that he uses his hands and his didgeridoo to draw illness from people. I suspect his kind eyes and soft voice are also an integral part of his treatment.
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Lost for words
Mooks is one of the few who speak Kuku Nyungkul, a dialect that is endangered. UNESCO has listed it in its Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, but Mooks is doing what he can to keep his language alive. A single dad of four children, he is teaching his 18-year-old son Aziah their dialect and believes he will be the next in their family line of healers.
‘If I’m healing someone who is family, I’ll get Aziah to place his hand on that person, but I’ll hold one of his hands, and I send my energy through him. He’s going to be powerful, he speaks my dialect, he knows about plants and he’s doing really well. His ritual is coming soon.’
We learn to throw boomerangs and handle artefacts that Mooks has made: a hook woomera (spear-throwing tool), clapsticks, a stone axe, but most surprisingly, a ‘laptop’. Well, that’s what Mooks calls it. It’s the shape and the size of a laptop, but a seemingly solid block of wood, with nothing but two open holes on one edge. Mooks challenges me to find the ‘on’ button, but I’m stumped. He picks it up and blows into one of the holes.
‘That’s my didgeridoo!’ he says. ‘And if it doesn’t work, it’s a didgeridon’t.’
We’re laughing as we board our Intrepid 4WD truck to leave Rossville Retreat, and if laughter is the best medicine then we have overdosed with Mooks.
Smiles are wide, laughter is loud and after two days in Rossville, my vowels are definitely longer. The place slows you down, and it feels good. Back at the Lion’s Den I don’t scoff but savour my schnitzel and lean back into my chair for a long yarn with my new friend, ‘Kuku bugga’.
Susan travelled with Intrepid on the Cape York & Torres Strait Explorer trip. Find out more about First Nations experiences in Australia with Intrepid and book an Australia adventure.
