Initiation and Dedication
Australian Indigenous initiation rites have always been mysterious to outsiders. Even this academic paper written in 1899 where the writer met with aboriginal people still conducting the ceremony had trouble ascertaining details of the event. (As an interesting aside, the rituals indicated in this paper occurred only a couple of hours drive away from where I currently live, so it's tempting to visit the sites referred to).
Varying initiation rites have been recorded, but for the most part there has been over a century of elders being killed before knowledge could be passed from one generation to the next, children being stolen and indoctrinated into the ways of a new culture without the opportunity to learn the traditions of their people, and "complications" from government agencies if physical signs of initiation (such as lost teeth, missing finger joints, piercings, or scarification) were detected. Without the physical signs of initiation and dedication, or the passing of cultural knowledge, many of the old ways seem to have been lost. However, the lore may still exist, it might just have gone underground. Even though I've broken bread with elders, and have been taught certain elements of knowledge from the various groups I've spent time with over the years, I certainly don't have any form of initiation marks, and my ancestry doesn't trace back to Australian Indigenous bloodlines...my mother has done extensive tracing of the family tree from her side, and my father's side is a mystery.
Despite this, the loss of heritage, disruption of cultural connection, and outright genocide of communities is all a major part of Walkabout. A massive loss of traditional culture has become a defining element in the modern culture of indigenous communities. The old ways are gone, new ways have replaced them. In a post-apocalyptic world, especially one where the internet has been eliminated and most digital storage has been disrupted or corrupted, everyone has suffered from a loss of heritage and disruption of cultural connection. Those who had already suffered this kind of loss and who had built up resistances to it by ensuring their secrets were passed along orally to carefully chosen descendants would probably be more resistant to it when it happened again. I'm not saying that Indigenous communities will be the new "magical black men" of the setting, nor am I saying that the truth will be revealed by "going native", instead it's more a case that everyone is back on a more even footing. To survive in this new world, ev eryone will need to decide if they want to hold on to the heritage, culture, and stories of the past, or if the want to forge their own new stories. A successful blending of the two, linking the past with a movement forward will be a delicate path to walk but possibly the one with the highest likelihood of success.
The key characters in Walkabout are called Wayfarers, they are marked as separate from the communities around them because they have been chosen by the spirits as agents in the physical world. Like a dedication and devotion to a community group, they have a symbolic permanent physical marking that represents a character's connection to the loosely affiliated community of Wayfarers. Originally I was going to use scarification to symbolise this connection to the spirits, through an initiation rite during a coming of maturity ritual. The idea is that young adolescents traditionally have gone through a rite of passage to show their readiness to ascend to the responsibilities of adulthood, then a second rite shows that a person has shown responsibility in the community and now they are ready to move to even greater responsibilities. The idea behind the rite still basically works, but the use of scarification doesn't. The physical signs of dedication to the Wayfarers shouldn't conflict with the signs of membership to another community. Even in the first drafts of the game, the method of showing devotion to the Wayfarers was either temporarily through bodypaint or permanently through tattooing.
(This was reflected on the character sheet by marking temporarily on an illustration of the body with pencil, which could be rubbed out, or permanently with pen)
In modern Australian culture, tattoos are more common than they had been in the past with estimates ranging around 15% of Australians having one (or more). In most cases Australians with tattooes aren't doing it for reasons of criminal reasons, but to show their affinity with something. That affinity could be shared with a musician (or specific lyrics), an animal (or mythical traits associated with that beast), a place (with variants including flags, sporting mascots, or postal codes), brands or logos (often linked to high fashion items or types of vehicle), or a community of people (including and religious symbolism or common affectations associated with the group). I like the ideas of tattoos as a permanent symbolic connection to demonstrate how seriously they take a specific relationship. I know quite a few Australian Indigenous people with tattoos, even though this is something that has been brought to their communities by the recent waves of immigrants. So this is certainly not a new thing, but an adaption of the culture to new ideas and new technologies. It's probably important to note at this stage that not all of the Wayfarers are descendants of Indigenous Australians. The spirits who imbue the wayfarers with power look for anyone who might be capable of channeling their power and improving the world, and this usually requires a level of maturity and understanding rather than impulsiveness. Potential wayfarers need to understand the problems in the world before they can be expected to help solve them.
The placement of the Wayfarer marking doesn't disrupt other initiation marks from neo-tribal groups. However, certain community leaders will be wary of anyone possessing such a mark (because Wayfarers tend to disrupt the power structures they have built for themselves). The dispossessed and downtrodden in these communities will often see Wayfarers as folk heroes whose changes to the world might be for the better.
Other ways of showing devotion to a community or concept might be to dress in a certain style of clothing, have a certain style of hair, or affectations like painted nails, sunglasses, or symbolic jewelry, but these can be changed quickly, if things get difficult. Tattoos may be hidden by clothing or make-up but are a more permanent representation of a characters connections. I'm still going to use the tattoos as a conduit for magical power (like in previous versions of the game), but I need to be more careful with my descriptions of this being a Wayfarer thing rather than a traditional Australian Indigenous thing.
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