by Barbara Wood
Finally, Joanna had found that the women did not call themselves women, but "daughters of the Dreamtime."
And they, in turn, had been fascinated by her. They had seen her follow the songline of the Kangaroo Ancestor, and when they had asked her who her totem was, and Joanna, remembering what Sarah had told her years ago, had said, "kangaroo," they had nodded in a knowing way. They decided that she was related to the clan, and that, because her skin was the color of a ghost, she must therefore be possessed by the spirit of an Ancestor.
They had opened up to her then, telling her their secrets, answering her questions about the spiritual links between mothers and daughters, the songlines that bound generations together; the women had spoken freely about their rituals, which involved the land, reading the stars, predicting the future, healing and bringing forth life.
But when Joanna had asked, "Do you know Djoogal's clan? Do you know Karra Karra?" they had suddenly closed up, their faces blank.
While they watched Coonawarra entertain the other women with her antics, Joanna said to Beth, "They seem happier than usual. I don't think there's anything to be afraid of." But Beth kept her eye on them. They seemed happy, she thought, but they were nervous as well. Nervous about what? she wondered.
As Joanna watched a young girl named Winning-Arra join in the antics by throwing her digging stick as if it were a spear, and then hopping up and down on one foot, imitating one of the men in the clan and causing the women to laugh, she looked at the baskets and dilly-bags on their backs and marveled again at their ability to draw such a bounty of food from such a seemingly barren land. She thought of the skeleton she had found, whose spectacles she had taken, and of how the man had starved to death in what he had no doubt thought was a foodless desert. And yet here were Coonawarra and Winning-Arra and all the others, helping themselves to roots and seeds, wild nuts and berries, honey ants, grubs and lizards—all of which would be turned into a tasty feast for the clan. They were in the middle of a vast, boiling desert, where the air was as dry as the sand, and trees grew no higher than one's waist, and yet there was Coonawarra with her hairstring belt strung with hundreds of fat, wriggling witchetty grubs which, when roasted, tasted, Joanna thought, very much like hazelnuts. And Winning-Arra had trapped two of the plump lizards they called goannas, while other women proudly displayed rats and snakes and snared birds, promising a great feast tonight, at which the air would be filled with delicious aromas.
Joanna watched her new "family" in fascination. Except for old Naliandrah, whose job it was to remain at the camp and make sure the fires didn't die out, all the females of the clan were away gathering food, from the very oldest great-grandmother, to the youngest baby at its mother's breast. There were prepubescent girls with gangly arms and legs; lithe adolescents, who moved with fluid grace; and young mothers and older matrons—women shrunken small from lives spent between sand and sun. Their bodies were decorated with tribal scars, and they were adorned with necklaces and belts made of human hair, feathers and dingoes' teeth; sometimes the women were painted, if the food collecting happened to carry a particular religious significance for them.
Joanna saw the powerful bond between these various female relations and the other generations. She saw with envy the stairway she had imagined long ago—the descent of women from great-grandmothers to daughters. The smallest child could look at a white-haired woman bent over her digging stick and see the generations through which she had descended. Perhaps, Joanna thought, that was why these people had no need for words meaning past, present and future. They were all here, now.
Joanna looked at Beth, standing at her side, and wished she could have known her grandmother, Lady Emily, and even her great-grandmother, Naomi. Beth resembled the Makepeace women, Joanna thought. She had the rich brown hair, the same high forehead and thickly lashed eyes. And she was growing tall. Beth had celebrated her thirteenth birthday two months ago; she was developing into a lovely young woman. Like Joanna, Beth still wore European clothes, although her skirt and blouse were starting to show wear. She wore her hair long, Aborigine style, and her complexion, like her mother's, had darkened in the sun.
But although she stood strong and straight now, Beth's convalescence had been slow. Joanna had thought, in the early days, that because Beth had wandered for so long in the desert without food and water before the Aborigines found her, she might not survive. But Naliandrah had worked her magic. When Joanna had inquired about the medicinal properties of the roots and berries that Naliandrah was feeding to Beth, the clever-woman had explained about the Rainbow Serpent, the maker of all rivers and waterholes, and the All-Mother in the sky who was the mother of everyone, and how it was their power, not that of the roots and berries, which healed her daughter. At first it had taken all Beth's strength just to eat and drink and speak; but after a week she had been able to sit up. It had been a long time before she could stand and take her first steps, and Joanna and Naliandrah had helped her walk to the river.
When Joanna saw the look of deep concentration on Beth's face as she watched Coonawarra, she thought again about the women's unusual behavior. Although laughter and clowning were always a part of the daily collection of food, she realized from their high-pitched howls and exaggerated dancing that today was different from the previous one hundred and fifty days she had lived with them. They seemed to be more keyed up, their laughter more spontaneous and shrill. And, in a way, she saw that this could be unsettling.
Finally, the food-gathering came to an end and the women returned to the camp. Joanna and Beth, wearing long dark skirts and white blouses, walked among shorter, black-skinned women, who wore nothing more than a coating of emu fat and ash over their bodies. Like their companions, Joanna carried baskets on their backs, leaving their hands free for digging. The women sang as they went, because the Witchetty Ancestor had provided bounteously today, as had the Goanna Ancestor, and the Galah Ancestor, and one never took without showing appropriate gratitude.
Before they reached the encampment, which was beside a sweet-water well among volcanic boulders, the women could hear the songs of the men as they sang thanks to the Wallaby Ancestor, who had also provided in plenty. Coonawarra danced up and down and talked about how she was going to eat tonight and never have to eat again!
Joanna and her daughter had their own miamia, with their own smoking fire, and a pole on which to hang their possessions. Since Aborigines had very little in the way of personal possessions, the poles outside the other miamias were hung with little more than a dilly-bag, a spear and sacred stones and feathers to keep Yowie the Night Beast away. But the pole outside Joanna's miamia, on which she now slung her basket full of squirming grubs, was draped with Captain Fielding's naval jacket, John Makepeace's leather satchel, two wallaby-skin blankets, which they hung out to air every day, and a collection of combs she and Beth had made out of bone and wood.
"Beth," she said, "go and get some water for washing, and I'll speak to Naliandrah. Maybe she'll tell me what's happening."
Naliandrah was crouched over her fire as usual, stirring the embers and murmuring magic spells.
"Naliandrah," Joanna said, sitting down beside her, "Do my daughter and I have anything to be concerned about tonight? Do we have anything to fear?"
The small sharp eyes, almost invisible beneath heavy brows, and glinting with intelligence, met hers. "You have fear, Jahna," the clever-woman said. "You always have fear."
Joanna had long ago explained to Naliandrah the reason for her journey into the desert; she had told the old woman about her mother, about the poison-song that she believed had been sung and her feeling that something awaited her at Karra Karra. Naliandrah had listened expressionless, her eyes shuttered secretively. And when Joanna had finished telling her story, the clever-woman had said nothing.
Now, she startled Joanna by saying, "You come to the end of your songline, Jahna. Very soon now."
Joanna stared at her. "What do you mean?"
"You see tonight,
at corroboree."
The corroboree was held when the moon was high. The feast of roasted wallaby and lizards and birds, accompanied by wild honeycomb and berries, was shared, as it was every night, according to a very complex system of priorities and taboos. There was no grabbing or fighting for the food; portions were handed out according to strict rules: A man who had killed a wallaby first gave servings to his parents and his wife's parents, to his brothers, and to the men who had hunted with him; they in turn shared their portions with their families, or with men to whom they owed a debt, sometimes leaving nothing for themselves. The women then portioned out the fruits of their day's foraging according to family bloodlines, marriage, ties and other criteria that Joanna had so far not been able to unravel. The young people observed strict taboos: A boy who had caught a goanna could not eat it himself, but had to give it to his parents; a woman could receive food only from a man who had undergone initiation; a girl who had begun to menstruate was forbidden certain foods.
It seemed to Joanna to be a happy, noisy affair, despite all the rules and taboos, and the clan ate well. But the feeling that tonight was different continued to trouble her. She thought the group was louder than usual, that laughter came too quickly. And when the feast was over, she was surprised to see that not all the food had been eaten, which was contrary to the Aborigines' custom. Joanna had learned that, because they frequently suffered periods of famine, when food was plentiful they gorged themselves until their stomachs stuck out and they could eat no more. But tonight, she noticed, there was a studied curbing of the appetite, as food was gathered and saved—something she had never seen them do.
While the men went off to prepare for the dance, Joanna returned to her miamia for wallaby blankets for herself and Beth. The night was growing chilly and the dance, she knew, could last until dawn. She looked up at the moon, which hung in the sky like a polished silver coin, and wondered if, at that moment, Hugh was looking up and observing the same moon. Was he nearby? she wondered. Would he come soon?
Before returning to the campfire, Joanna checked the compass, as was her habit every night. The needle was now spinning.
She joined Beth in the large circle around the campfire, where the women chattered excitedly, speaking too fast for Joanna to understand. She kept her eye on the empty center of the circle, where the men would soon be dancing. The clan held corroboree most nights; while some dances were of special religious or ritual significance to the men, which women could not witness, or to the women, which men could not witness, some were just for entertainment—telling stories, dancing comic dances, acting out a memorable hunt. Tonight's corroboree, Joanna knew, was going to be different.
While the men and youths were getting ready for the performance—painting themselves, putting feathers in their hair and adorning their bodies with shells and animal teeth—the women chewed on the leaves of a poisonous shrub named pituri, which had the strength to kill but which, when taken in small amounts, was a powerful stimulant. Joanna saw their constricted pupils, and heard their rapid speech.
Finally the dancers were ready.
The first time Joanna and Beth had witnessed a corroboree, they had seen a disorganized, madcap kind of dancing, which appeared to have no order, no sense to it. But they had learned that every movement was significant, every gesture, every hop had a place in a story. And now, here in the vast desert beneath the ghostly glow of stars and moon the dancers, their faces illuminated by firelight, came out into the circle.
Naliandrah sat with Joanna and Beth, and they watched the dance begin.
A man named Thumimberie was known to be the best dancer in the area. When the main tribe got together for a massive corroboree, clans from all over came just to see Thumimberie dance. As the dance tonight got under way, he hopped around from foot to foot, bending and swaying, gyrating in the center of the circle. Then another man joined him, his body painted red and blue, with twigs and leaves in his hair. He and Thumimberie performed a frantic kind of a dance, coming together and jumping apart, almost as if they were fighting. The women sitting in the circle picked up spears and boomerangs and began to strike them together in a steady rhythm.
"What story is this?" Joanna asked Naliandrah.
"Very important legend, Jahna," the clever-woman said. "You watch."
The men danced around the fire to the almost deafening beat of the drums and boomerangs. The women began to sing; they lifted their voices high and chanted words Joanna couldn't understand.
"Please, Naliandrah," she said. "Tell me this story."
The old woman explained that this was the legend of the Devil, Makpeej, and how he had once done battle with the Rainbow Serpent.
Joanna watched the two men kick up the dust around the campfire; their dance was both warlike and like a waltz. She heard Naliandrah's papery voice tell the story of Makpeej and his pregnant wife, who were known to be spirits sent by the dead, because their skins were white.
Joanna was stunned and then mesmerized as she watched another dancer join in the ceremony. He wore a long grassy wig, and his body was painted white from head to foot.
"But Makpeej was evil," Naliandrah said, "he made the Rainbow Serpent angry, and so the Rainbow Serpent swallowed Makpeej."
More dancers entered the circle, a line of men weaving in single file, their bodies painted the colors of the rainbow. They encircled the white-painted man and he disappeared.
"But because Makpeej was evil," Naliandrah said, "the Rainbow Serpent vomited, and out came a girl child, white like Makpeej."
A smaller dancer appeared, painted white, reeling and staggering around the campfire, while the clacking of the boomerangs grew louder.
"Now, Rainbow Serpent must destroy white child," Naliandrah went on, "but a young woman of the tribe called upon her totem ancestor, the Black Swan. She and the white child climbed onto the back of the swan and they flew away into the west, into the sunset."
Joanna stared at the twenty or so men who danced and stomped over the dusty ground, their bodies glistening with sweat. She looked at the faces of the women in the circle, their passionate expressions illuminated by the flames. The chanting filled the night in a maddening rhythm.
Joanna felt Beth at her side, stiff and tense. "Mother," she said, "do you know what this is?"
Joanna heard urgency in her daughter's voice, saw a mixture of both fear and excitement in her eyes.
Joanna turned to the clever-woman. "So you do know," she said. "You've known all along who my grandparents were and what they did here. Naliandrah, please tell me what happened to them."
But the old woman shook her head. "I can tell you nothing, Jahna. The answers are within you. You must find them for yourself."
No one slept that night. The dancing continued, and food was again brought out; everyone ate, fires were stoked, emotions ran high. Even the women, stimulated by pituri leaves, jumped up to dance their own dances. At dawn, when Joanna expected the tired people to drag themselves off to their own campfires and miamias for a day of sleeping, as they usually did after a corroboree, they surprised her by picking up camp and trekking eastward again.
The clan always traveled very light, needing to be unencumbered in order to survive. Naliandrah had the honor of carrying the precious smoldering firebrand, so that a fire could be struck at the next encampment. The rest of the women carried digging sticks, baskets and grindstones—and their babies. The men carried only their weapons, in case they encountered wallaby or emu along the way. Before they left the Woonona site, they slapped mud on themselves as a protection against insects.
Joanna walked with Naliandrah, who "sang" the landmarks along the ancient route—billabongs, waterholes, and queer rock formations, all of which had been created by the ancestral spirit-powers. She showed Joanna a sacred site where the family obtained ocher for their corroboree; it was called the Dog Dreaming. There was a dry gully that was the White Crane Dreaming. And a dead acacia tree that was the Ant Dreaming. Yolgerup's people made
salutations to the spirits who dwelled in such spots and were careful that no one walked on the sacred ground, no rock was disturbed, no twig touched.
And as they walked, strung out in a long, scattered line, with the rising sun in their eyes, Joanna noticed that despite the previous night's feasting and dancing, everyone was very energetic and lively.
"What's wrong with everyone?" Beth asked. "They're acting as if they're drunk. Look at Coonawarra. She's so nervous that the slightest sound makes her jump. And Yolgerup—he should be exhausted after last night. But look at him over there, walking with those men, talking, waving his arms. What is going on, Mother?"
Joanna put an arm around her daughter and said, "I'm sure we'll find out soon."
As they walked through the morning, and sunlight crept across the red desert, Joanna thought she heard, on the wind, strange sounds up ahead.
"Mother," Beth said, "do you hear—"
And then, suddenly, Yolgerup brought his people to a halt. When Joanna and Beth caught up with them, they saw that the clan had come to the edge of a great plateau. The world seemed suddenly to drop away from their feet, and they saw, stretching before them a vast plain.
"Oh Mother!" Beth breathed.
Joanna could not believe what she saw: Camped on the sands below were hundreds, perhaps thousands of Aborigines, their campfires creating a smoky pall that hung over the encampment for as far as one could see.
"Beth!" Joanna said, filled with wonder at the sight. "It must be a meeting of the clans!"
"But Mother, I've never seen so many Aborigines. Where did they all come from?"
Joanna gazed out at the breathtaking scene as Yolgerup's people hurried down to the plain. When she saw people from the various camps come running to greet them, when she saw the happy embraces, and people holding babies up and tugging on gray beards and when she heard everyone talking at once, their cries of joy as they pointed at one another and laughed, Joanna understood the clan's agitation over the past few days: It had been because of this enormous event.