Sometimes, one word may sound like another and yet have no connection whatsoever. Ratite, for example. The first time I heard it was when my prankster friend Barney brought it up over a cup of coffee. He was starting to tell me about a ratite farm in Australia. Naturally, I thought it had something to do with breeding rats, possibly for purposes of medical experimentation. Turns out, however, that ratites are a group of flightless bird that include the ostrich and the emu.
(About the latter: I’ve heard some pronounce the word ‘em-ooo’ but that is incorrect here in Australia where it should be referred to as ‘ee-mew’.)
Now, unlike the magpie, the raven and the mynah, the emu is a bird one won’t see too much of, yet I’m told its numbers are sufficiently plentiful as to place it under the category of ‘not threatened species’.
The very next railway station to where I live is called Emu Plains. A grand name indeed, it immediately conjures up an image of endless flat land populated by mobs of emu (mob, I’m told being the correct collective noun.) But let me tell you that that mental image would be totally misleading, firstly because Emu Plains is at the foothills of Sydney’s Blue Mountains so its land is already starting to get hilly and, by Jove, if you could show me one emu, let alone a mob, strolling through the bushland I’d accept that Emu Plains is well named.
As it turns out, that station is one of many that are named just because someone thought it sounded ‘nice’. (Seven Hills being another example of mis-naming because if you travelled there to see the seven hills you’d be lucky if you even saw one.)
Emus like their cousins the ostriches are slightly unfortunate birds in that their body structure doesn’t have a ‘keel’ (ratis, in Latin, from where we get ratite) to support their wings when extended, thereby rendering them incapable of flying even if they wanted to.
Which might explain why, psychologically, the emu can be a temperamental bird. It cannot be easy having wings that are useless while the ravens, magpies and other smaller birds of that ilk dart and soar on the wind currents above, sometimes majestically, sometimes crudely.
For all that, though, despite Australia’s rich heritage in rare birds it is the emu that finds itself a cultural icon, appearing on the coat of arms and on several coins. In keeping with its rare characteristics, its courtship and breeding routines are somewhat different as well. It’s the females that are known to fight over males and while they can mate several times and lay large clutches of eggs in one season, it’s the daddy emus that then get to do the incubating during which it is said he can, through starvation and lack of hydration, lose weight and look rather ‘past his prime’.
Emu oil
If one really wants to come across emus in large numbers one place to go would be the Riverina, an agricultural region south-west of New South Wales. It is here, according to my mate Barney, that some of the finest emu farms used to exist, and although their numbers have dwindled, a recent upsurge in demand for emu products has seen the fortunes of emu farmers go back on the upswing. Emu oil, apparently, is one reason for this. It is, again apparently, been known to help with inflammation, skin disorders, healing wounds and lowering cholesterol, apart from being used in beauty products and in moisturisers and shampoos. Ten times, it is claimed, as good as fish oil!
And Barney tells me that there are farmers in this region whose emus have grown so used to them that they will sit by their side sometimes with their heads in their laps while watching TV. It sounds like a cosy friendship, but given the emu’s legendary cantankerous temperament, it’s doubtful whether I’d seek that kind of proximity.
Kevin Martin is a journalist based in Sydney, Australia.