‘How d’you mean?’
‘I take it you’re of German origin?’
‘A fair way back.’
‘Have you ever been to Germany?’
‘Not yet. I hope to go.’
‘Well, you must know something of its legends . . . of the nymphs of the Rhine and the giants of the Alps, and all the rest. Even as a stranger there . . . I spent a bit of time with the Army of Occupation . . . I couldn’t help but feel the wonder of the place, because of its legends and history. It’s the same everywhere . . . Britain, France, Egypt, Asia Minor . . . everywhere but here, where we live in a land the wonder of which, as damned and doomed Colonials, we’ve been unable to see. What wonder is in our lives is taken at second-hand, moth-eaten, only half comprehended, from our origins.’
‘Well, we’ve got no real history yet.’
‘I didn’t say history alone . . . but legend, tradition . . . which this land’s packed with.’
‘Aboriginal legend . . .’
‘What’s wrong with that? Are the legends of the Ancient Druids any the less satisfying to the English because based on culture long ante-dating the coming of the people who became the English . . . or the legends of Germany because dating from the Visigoths or someone?’
They were passing the dark kitchen, when after a pause, Jeremy said, ‘See that tree ahead there, by the woodheap. That’s a mangan, a native plum. Apart from the fact that it has a good story concerning its origin in the Dream Time, it’s supposed to have the power to attract and spellbind lovers, so that they may be crept up on and killed.’
‘Why killed?’
‘To Aborigines, love’s always a matter of law-breaking. You only fall in love with someone Wahji, or Wrong side to you, that is, not as permitted by laws of relationship. You fall in love only through magic . . . Charada, as love-magic is called. The Moon’s involved in it . . . the Willy wagtail, too. Love is very real to Aborigines . . . not the fake thing it mostly is to us . . . a magic thing, and also a tragic thing.’
‘Do they still kill people for it?’
‘Wrong side Business? Any whiteman who claims to know what the Murris do or don’t do is a fool. They’re a very secretive people, for all their seeming primitive simplicity. Well, here’s your mangan. A common enough tree. When you come on it in your wanderings, knowing its power should add a bit more interest to surroundings otherwise meaningless to you . . . but, of course, be careful if there’re any Kweeais about.’
‘Kweeais?’
‘Young lubras. It’s the ladies who hold the secrets of Charada.’
‘You sound as if you believe in these things.’
‘In the power of Charada? I certainly do. It’s a power of the mind . . . the greatest force in the Universe, surely. As to the magical power of the tree, I accept that.’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘As part of an environment I don’t want to feel alien in . . . my own native land. According to the blackfellow there’s magic in everything . . . every rock, tree, waterhole . . . even in the things he makes . . . his spears, dilly-bags. In fact, if you take the trouble, you yourself can find wonder in everything. We do in scientific things . . . what we see through a microscope, what takes place in chemical reaction. As geologists we’d find it in the rocks through rationalism. As zoologists in the pools, botanists in the trees. The blackfellow’s reverence for things strikes me as much more intelligent than the blank disregard of the mass of our own people . . . who’d still be simple-minded enough to believe in the divinity of Christ and the sanctity of the Virgin Mary, the Holy Ghost, and all the rest of it.’
They were nearing the garden gate. Jeremy broke off to halt and look toward the Moon, against which, a short distance away, stood a biggish tree so thickly leafed as to look like a woolly black head. He said, ‘There’s another tree reputed to have special powers . . . kumbitji, the ironwood. It’s believed that if you sleep under one at night you won’t ever wake up again . . . unless you’re a koornung.’ After a pause he added: ‘Two to one our old Pookarakka’s camped there. Let’s have a look.’
Sure enough, as they approached, there was a flicker as of movement in the deep shadow of the tree. However, there was neither sight nor sound of anyone’s presence when they reached it. Jeremy said, ‘He’s done his famous disappearing trick.’
Bishoff asked, ‘How does the tree kill lesser men?’
‘With its poisonous breath. As a matter of fact, at a certain time of year the young leaves do contain a poisonous glucocide. In my early days of unbelief I did some experimenting to see what truth might be in it. Certainly it gives off CO2 at night, like any other plant, and to a markedly greater degree because of the density of foliage . . . but in nothing like lethal quantity. It’s a general belief. Few if any whitemen . . . bushmen . . . will sleep under one.’
‘Would you?’
‘No.’
‘Why . . . when you’ve disproved it scientifically?’
‘Because I’d feel I was flouting the conventions of the country.’
‘Eh? From what I’ve heard, you’re the most unconventional man in it! I was told you even hung a stuffed french letter on the Anzac Memorial in Port Palmeston one Anzac Day . . . to the eternal outrage of the RSL.’ The young man chuckled: ‘Is that a fact?’
‘To make a denial would be to deprive the community of one of its favorite furphys . . . and the way I stand with my old comrades of the RSL, to confess, it would be like laying me down some night under the kumbitji. When I said conventions of the country I meant literally of the land . . . Terra Australis. For all that I was born of the land and would wish to be born nowhere else, I still feel that I’m the descendant of intruders, and am bound to watch my manners.’ As they turned from the tree, Jeremy raised his voice: ‘Where that Pookarakka? I want him learn him me something bijnitch . . . I give it present.’ No response.
As they neared the garden gate again, Jeremy asked, ‘Do you hear something?’
‘Yes . . . singing, isn’t it. That’s not blacks singing, is it?’
It was a single voice, a sweet thin soprano, coming from the direction of Ah Loy’s house, now to be seen as bars and triangles of bright light vying with dappled moonlight in the shadow of the mangoes.
‘No . . . that’s young Prindy . . . the quarter-caste boy you saw at the yard. Let’s get closer and listen. He makes up songs of his own . . . a really remarkable thing in anyone like him!’
‘How’s that?’
‘Well, Aborigines live by tradition, which naturally cancels out originality. Crossbreds, if they turn away from the Old People, as they call them . . . and mostly they do . . . go for the poorest of whiteman’s music . . . Yankee hillbilly stuff.’
At the mangoes they stopped to listen. Now the words were plain:
. . . My Road, My Rown Road
I go look dat Road, my Rown, my Dream Road
Road belong ’o I, must-be find him by-’n’-by
My Road, my Rown Road . . .
Jeremy murmured, ‘Your Road is the way you must go through life as the reincarnation of a Dream Time ancestor. Each child is taught its Road. This boy’s would be that of the Goanna . . . because that’s his Dreaming. But calling it My Rown Road . . . Own Road . . . suggests that he’s seeking a Road of his own . . . ah!’ The singing stopped abruptly. ‘He’s heard us. He’s got the sharpest hearing I ever struck in a human being. We’ll show ourselves.’ As they neared, Jeremy called, ‘Anybody home?’
Scurry of bare feet and a glint of gold that was surely the fair head, as they came round the back verandah. Prindy must have been sitting singing outside and ducked behind the wide trunk of a mango.
The two men halted at the glaring doorway. Inside an acetylene lamp flared on a kerosene case, on either side of which, in hide chairs, sat Ah Loy, who was making a saddle, stitching with double needles, and Nelyerri, who was examining a bright silk dress. Jeremy called, ‘Evenin’.’
Ah Loy responded with a wide Chine
se grin: ‘Come on in, Mullaka. Have dring o’ tea, eh.’ He looked at Nelyerri: ‘Light him Primus.’ She rose, clutching her dress.
Jeremy said, ‘No thanks . . . just finished supper. Only looked in having a stroll. Brought you some readin’ matter. This is Mr Bishoff, new Stock Inspector, Willy.’
Bishoff shook hands heartily, while Willy Ah Loy all but kowtowed.
Nelyerri started for inside. Jeremy said to her, ‘Getting ready for the Races, Nelly?’
She turned, met his eyes, then dropped her own dark gaze to her stumpy bare chocolate feet, answering, ‘Yas, Mullaka.’
‘I heard the boy singing . . . but he bolted before I could speak to him.’
She drew in her breath: ‘He too-much myall dis time.’
‘How’s that?’
Willy answered, ‘Aw . . . he runnin’ too-much round bush . . . sometime two-t’ree day.’
‘What . . . with the Murris?’
‘No-more . . . himself-himself . . . all-same koornung.’
‘Might-be he stop now . . . that old koornung, Cock-Eye Bob been come.’
‘Nutching stop. He been find dat old bugger long o’ bush, bring him here.’
‘Go on, eh!’ Then Jeremy chuckled: ‘Might-be he grow up koornung.’
But father and mother looked anything but amused. Jeremy added: ‘What about me taking him back Lily Lagoons . . . given him to Darcy, start school.’
Nelly raised her head with a jerk, stared evident hostility at Jeremy, then dropped her gaze again, scowling.
Looking at her, Willy said, ‘Goot idea, I reckon.’
Her breast heaved to a deep breath, which she exhaled forcefully, exclaiming, ‘No-more!’
Willy said, ‘All-day you reckon you don’ wan’ him grow up blackfeller . . .’
Her eyes blazed at him as she hissed, ‘He no-more blackfeller.’
‘All right . . . you give him Mullaka grow him up whitefeller.’
The handsome dark face began to jerk.
Jeremy cut in quickly: ‘All right . . . when you’re ready.’ He added: ‘We’ll be getting along now. If you see Bobwirridirridi, Willy, tell him I want to have a yarn with him, will you?’
Ah Loy grinned widely again: ‘Spone I see dat old bugger, I bolt.’
Jeremy chuckled: ‘Oh, well . . . goodnight. See you mornin’. I come kitchen early cup o’ tea.’
Man and woman answered together, ‘Gootnight, Mullaka . . . gootnight, Mist Bishp.’
The two men went on through the garden. Again a flicker of movement in the shadow of the clump of bananas beside the water-tanks. Bishoff was about to comment, but was stopped by a touch from Jeremy, who said loudly, ‘Spone that Pookarakka come Lily Lagoons long o’ me, I feed him plenty bread and milk.’ He kept them going. At a little distance he murmured, ‘That ought to fetch him . . . if that was the old chap and not his apprentice.’
‘What’s the lure about bread and milk?’ asked Bishoff.
‘He can’t eat solid food. He’s had his gut burnt out with arsenic.’
‘How come?’
Jeremy left explaining till they were through the back fence of the garden and on that pad by which Prindy had come home: ‘It happened a good while back . . . during the War . . . ’16 or ’17. I was overseas at the time . . . mixed up in the filthy business, to my eternal shame.’
Bishoff glanced at the rugged face beside him, made more so by being against the moonlight, its shock of grey hair limned with silver, asked, ‘Why shame? I’d’ve thought it’d be the adventure of a lifetime. I wish I’d’ve been old enough to have a go.’
‘That was the trouble . . . the appeal to the immigrant adventure-seeking in us . . . at the cost of the greater, more positive, adventure, of establishing ourselves truly as a nation.’
‘I’ve heard you’re bitter about it because your brother was killed.’
‘My brother’s only a symbol of what we sacrificed in our stupidity. My bitterness is for the way our stupidity was exploited by the very people we sacrificed for . . . the British . . . and their agents here . . . the bastards!’ The deep voice was vibrant with feeling. Bishoff glanced again.
They were still heading along the fence northward, with the silver and jet wall of the timber of the creek on their left. After a moment Jeremy went on: ‘I’m telling you about Bobwirridirridi . . . so that you may get to understand the blackman better, and not make the mistakes most people do. You won’t understand the country without understanding something of the original owners of it . . . or of the second dispossession of it . . . that is the robbing of us, the first robbers, but at least the ones who slaved and sweated and risked our lives . . . gave our lives in many cases . . . to make it ours. Actually that bloody war and the consequences of it that burn my own guts out with anger, are part of the story. His becoming a koornung coincides, you might say, with the selling out . . . or rather abject surrender . . . to the enemy, Britain . . . which is to say British Imperialism, economic as well as political . . . in the shape . . . shape of a bloody octopus . . . of Vaiseys Limited.’
Jeremy paused for a few paces, resumed: ‘Just as it is now, most of the stock bred in this country was overlanded to the Southern States. Shortage of men for droving, through the War, soon put an end to that. Horsemen were the first to enlist . . . cavalry. Kitchener in his visit here had organised that. So most cattle runs, all of them small, still run by their founders, were out of business. That didn’t mean they’d be sold up, or anything of the kind that may happen down South. Their lease-rentals were low. They could maintain things with their blacks for practically nothing, seeing they didn’t have to pay them, and could feed them largely off the run. Anyway, there was no real excuse for the surrender to Vaiseys. Of course Vaiseys were already in control of grazing in the South American countries and Africa and supplying the world. What they were after here was a vast meat-canning industry. Cattle will breed in unlimited numbers here with little attention. They never fatten. But lean meat is what the canner wants. Bully beef was then in demand as never before. A huge meatworks was built at Port Palmeston. It was hailed as an act of the first patriotism. The Big Boss, Alfred Vaisey, was made a lord for it.
‘As I’ve said, it all happened while I was away helping to make the world safe for British Capitalism. I came home to find what I deserved in the circumstances, that Lord Vaisey had become my boss, too. The difference in my case was that I didn’t consider it the great honour that the other graziers did, and promptly put in my resignation . . . with results you’ve probably heard of, namely that I have to maintain the scrap of leasehold I was able to hang on to by making a show of mining, as it’s primarily a mining lease, and a living as a quack veterinary surgeon, am an utter stranger to the wife who bore my sons, and not much less a stranger to my sons. You haven’t mentioned it . . . but I guess you’ve met my first wife, now Mrs Eaton, wife of Vaiseys General Manager for Australia, all set to become Lady Eaton with next Imperial Honours.’
Bishoff made a sympathetic sound.
Jeremy said, ‘Don’t get the impression that Vaiseys also dispossessed me of my wife. I was the cause of that bit of the change in my fortunes. I’m afraid I rather abandoned the lady to them. Not that she doesn’t suit them and they her, as you must have noticed. And I’m well suited now as husband of a halfcaste wife.’
That seemed to embarrass Bishoff somewhat. As if to discomfort him more, Jeremy remained silent till the younger man spoke: ‘You were telling me how the old koornung came to be poisoned with arsenic.’
‘Yes . . . in effect how he became a koornung. Lord Vaisey, in his patriotic zeal, was taking over every property he, or his henchmen, rather, could lay hands on. They even went after holdings where the stock were still being speared by blacks. There were a couple of small runs just then opening up over in the Western Sandstone Country . . . Queen Victoria and Alice River Districts. Wonderful place-names round these parts, aren’t they . . . named after Queen Victoria and her brood. You’d think the expl
orers and early surveyors, tough fellows for a certainty, would have been above such sycophancy. Not only Royalty, of course, but some Bigwig. My own father, who was as good an Irishman as any, except when doing his duty as a policeman to the Queen of England, named two places he found during expeditions in that way . . . one after his immediate boss, the Police Superintendent, the other after the Administrator’s wife, both of whom he actively disliked. As I found, the places had specially pleasant-sounding Aboriginal names. He didn’t even ask these, as he admitted to me when I asked him years later. When I asked him why he’d named them as he did, he answered, “Ye’ve got to be politic, me boy.” But I’m digressing. I guess I want to give you some idea of what this country’s really like, before your fellow silvertails and the squattocracy bind you with their prejudices. You went so far as to consult me as a colleague in trouble with the stock . . .’
‘I consulted you as an expert.’
‘That’s nice of you . . . when your predecessor, old Stinker Daggenhart, spent the best part of his service trying to get me deregistered because I don’t hold a degree.’
‘That old dodderer . . . with his lion-hunter’s hat!’
‘He’s a graduate of Leipzig University and a Fellow of the Royal Zoological Society.’
‘And look at the muddle he’s left the job in!’
‘Well, it’s nice to have you on my side to start with, anyway. But let’s get on with the story. I like to finish a story I start. Besides, this one should give you a truer view of the Aboriginal Problem, so called, than the distorted one that’s surely awaiting you. To me the Aboriginal Problem is a fundamental one, not only in this region, where it’s still a very important issue in every aspect of life here, but for Australia generally . . . because only the other day, in terms of history, we stole this land we’ve been so quick to call our own, stole it with murder and mayhem and about the lowest forms of meanness a human being could stoop to . . . and we have to reconcile the matter someday, either by acknowledging the fact that we’re bloody-handed thieves and being proud of it, or giving back what we stole, and not as an act of charity, but of downright humility.’
Poor Fellow My Country Page 5