Poor Fellow My Country

by Xavier Herbert

  ‘I tek him now.’

  ‘You can’t carry-him-up all that lot. Where you mate?’

  ‘Me-two-feller carry-him-up horse, eh?’ The coals glowed as if in challenge.

  Jeremy grinned and nodded, rose and went up to the store-cave. When he came back, carrying a calico sack of flour on each shoulder, puffing rather hard, the old man rose to meet him, took over the sacks, and with seeming effortlessness, despite his apparent frailty, went on with them down towards the horse-yard, while Jeremy returned for the other things. Besides what had been ordered, Jeremy added a can of treacle, a couple of clasp knives, a small bolt of the magic turkey twill.

  While only Betsy was in the yard, a number of the station horses were close at hand, some fossicking for spillage from the feed-trough, others dozing in the shade. The hay-loft stood just behind the yard, erected in the limbs of a couple of convenient ghost gums. There was also now a plot of tropical lucerne, bright behind a stout wire fence. Jeremy brought in Big Ben and Black Andy to pack, and Red Rory to ride. The Pookarakka shook his head when asked if he wanted a mount, and when the cavalcade was ready to start, went loping ahead with his own sugar-sack of stuff and a couple of spears.

  They travelled about three miles, towards the high-climbing Sun. Bobwirridirridi halted, put his sack in the fork of a tree. They unpacked, with no more conversation than a couple of jests about their age, ‘Flour-Bag’, as they called themselves, with reference to the white in their hair. When they were done, the Pookarakka wasted no ceremony on taking leave, merely saying, ‘Mummuk, yawarra, old-man.’

  Jeremy asked, ‘How long yawarra?’

  ‘No-more long time. I come tell him you time finish.’

  ‘You bring him young feller then?’

  ‘Eh, look out!’

  Jeremy must know that an initiate remained under a ban of silence and isolation for a long while after the ceremony, and must go on the long journey called Look Him Road. The red eyes were quizzing him. The old man said, ‘You give it tucker for walkabout, time finish bijnitch?’

  ‘Yes . . . when you come. Mummuk, yawarra.’ He mounted, waved, headed away.

  Bobwirridirridi watched him out of sight, heard him out of hearing, then turning towards the near escarpment, put claw to mouth and gave the call Tjangaluma. It was answered from back in the rocks. He proceeded to strip off his sweat-soaked khakis.

  Before long, there again were the painted mantis figures of the morning, now unhooded, and recognisable, a couple at least, as the same men who had rejected Prindy with his Wrong Side bride, indeed perhaps the same as had shown such interest in him as the protégé of General Esk so long ago. They pounced on the pile of stores, looking it over, talking in lingo. The Pookarakka more or less ignored them, soon turned from them with his own supplies, heading for the escarpment.

  He came through the great rocks to where the fig trees began, into a bit of clear space that was evidently an ancient camp site. On one side was a pool of water under a leaning slab of rock, on the other a similar rock formation, but dry beneath, with two figures squatting in its shade, one behind the other. The outer figure was slight and white-ochred from top to toe, wearing only a small bulkung belt and brow fillet, and on upper arms cane delera with tufts of dyed feathers. Despite the paint and the fact that he squatted on heels and knees with head drooped so that his face was unseen, his identity was made plain enough by a tuft of fair hair from which the ochre had been shed. He sat still as stone, with hands on knees. The other, painted like the rest, was sitting at ease, with an arm on a knee supporting his head, in his hand a switch like that used to beat Savitra. He was that old Googoowonjin, Boss of the Pigeon Bijnitch. He would be known now as Pirri-Pirri, guardian of the neophyte.

  The Pookarakka only glanced at the pair, and stooped at the pool to drink. The Pirri-Pirri yawned, stretched. Prindy did not move. Nor did he move when the others came with their loads, although Googoowonjin dropped his switch and rose to join them. The newcomers dropped down in the shade, to open the tin of treacle and pass it round for licking off sticks with evident relish, and then to broach the box of trade tobacco and pass the pipes around. Bobwirridirridi went over to take the place of Pirri-Pirri. None of the others seemed even to see the boy.

  After about an hour of lazing with such abandonment to ease that it looked as if they intended to stay there, in the manner of their kind, the idlers sprang into activity, loaded themselves up again, this time to the limit with addition of their own belongings — weapons, dilly-bags — those with the sacks balancing them on their heads. The proper Pirri-Pirri resumed his role, at least to the extent of rousing the boy with a sharp word, setting him on his way, and following, himself well laden. Prindy carried nothing. Bobwirridirridi took the rear.

  Through the tumble of rock and tangle of roots, up the red wall, they went almost with the facility of rock wallabies, scarcely faltering, despite the heavy burdens, the balanced sacks, which, even while hanging only by toes on some ledge they deftly passed from one to another when passage with them became otherwise impossible. The smaller white figure showed distinctly against the red. Perhaps it was that caused the buzzard-kites to gather, used as they were from the Dream Time to attending on initiations, lending their magic eyes in watching for intrusion, in return for pickings of the accompanying feasting. They would even know where the Ring Place was and be there wheeling, whistling welcome.

  The party did not stop till it reached the top, then dropped down in shade again, to smoke and laze as if the journey were over. The great grey smooth-humped masses of rock, seeming to quiver in the heat, to burrow under the masses of wind blown bushes about them, truly might have been the creatures of the Dream Time they were supposed to be, come to life again. Then that sudden access of activity again, with the heading South of East, over and round the rock masses. Soon ahead there was seen to rise a mass of different shape and colour, a sort of rampart, reddish black, a harder bit of the country, lagging behind the general weathering of the ages. The kites wheeling above it showed it as the party’s destination. Soon they came up to it, a long wall as it seemed, disappearing into the scrub North and South, some forty feet in height. They did not have to climb it. Hidden by a clump of spiny wattles was a cleft, barely wide enough to let a skinny man through or a wallaby, as to be seen from the ancient polish on the walls. Again they had to pass weapons and sacks from one to another. Thirty feet or so of cramped passage brought them suddenly into the open; not such a region as they had come from, but a little country of its own, walled all round, the middle a sandy flat grown with coarse grass and stunted trees, a couple of hundred yards across by twice that in length. That there was water was indicated by a goodly little growth of pandanus at the southern end and sudden whirring upflight of small birds.

  The procession headed for the pandanus. There was water aplenty. They dumped their burdens to drink. As Prindy came up, the Pirri-Pirri signed him to drink, and when he had done so, directed him to go to a solitary tree close by the rock wall. Prindy dropped again into that statuesque posture. The others carried their loads to the wall, which here was riven by numerous clefts, somewhat like that by which entry had been made, only horizontal instead of vertical and not giving passage through. Some of these clefts were quite wide at the outside, serving as good shelters, like the overhangs of the cliffs below, and were painted. However, the paintings were not of striking quality, appearing to be more recording of events than traditional, not done with much care. Mostly it comprised stick-insect drawings of what might be taken for Ring Place proceedings. There were a couple of what looked like battle scenes, which might have recorded some time when the celebrants fell out. There were numerous stencilled hands; in fact layers of them, the signatures of generations of tribesmen. It was evident that for some reason, perhaps its inaccessibility, the place hadn’t been used for several years.

  Another spell of idling — then a springing into greater activity than ever. Now the task was to clear the middle of the arena.
Small trees were uprooted, then chopped up and the branches thrown into heaps. When cleared of such growth, some men went in search of more branches and saplings, while the rest stayed to clear the grass. When the last of the grass was out, digging began in the middle with sticks and hands. All except Pookarakka and Yalunga the initiate, laboured, the latter still sitting under the tree, the former watching from the rocks.

  The hole was dug to a depth of a couple of feet, just big enough for someone to crouch in. Then the diggers got saplings and bent them in the ground above the hole to make the frame for a whirley. Boughs were heaped on. Then attention was given to setting up half a dozen lean-tos of boughs about the perimeter of the Ring. Thus while the Sun went down behind the wall through which they entered, and the day rusted away. But there was Old Igulgul, almost at the full, beaming over the other wall.

  Fire leapt near the waterhole. A couple of men who’d left off work about sunset were back with a kangaroo and were chopping it up with the tommy-axe. The hair of the squatting Yalunga could be seen gleaming fair through its shedding paint.

  Conclusion of work on the Ring Place was announced by a great Tjangaluma to which the rock walls rang. Then the workers came trooping to the camp, to drink, to dash water on their sweaty dusty bodies, then come to the fire, which already was a heap of coals. A sack of flour had been opened. The men began to make small dampers, working in pairs, one extending cupped hands, while another, having filled these with flour, added water from the billy-can, the first then kneading. The dampers were tossed on the coals, as well as lumps of meat. When the billy was finished with, it was filled to boil for making tea. Still no one took notice of the ghostly figure now squatting in the full glare of Igulgul. It wasn’t until the rest were stretched out to sleep off repletion and surely fatigue that old Googoowonji, the regular Pirri-Pirri, came to his charge with a couple of dampers and the billy. Prindy ate and drank eagerly. Afterwards he resumed his posture, but soon dropped head to knees, and in that position at last rolled over and slept. The Pirri-Pirri himself already was asleep.

  Prindy was wakened by a cut of the switch. Now Igulgul was high, the loafers up and setting about redecorating themselves. The Pirri-Pirri signed his charge to rise and follow, and took him to the Ring Place where he directed him into the wirrianwah, the whirley over the hole in the middle, to squat facing westward, then shut him in. A mopoke was calling away beyond the western wall . . . Mopoke . . . Mopoke . . . the Coast is Clear!

  Igulgul was at the zenith when the men, fully decorated and accoutred, went to the Ring, severally and silently, to take up positions around it. Bobwirridirridi, painted in a way of his own and carrying a brace of boomerangs, stole in behind the wirrianwah. A long pause. Then with a shout to make the rocks ring, the standing men leapt with levelled spears at the heap in the middle, thrust their weapons through the top of it, and bursting into a chant in which the Pookarakka joined with accompanying clash of boomerangs, danced back to the perimeter, only to shout and rush again. Once again they did it. After that each man did an armed dance about the hidden Yalunga, while the rest clapped, stamped, chanted; except two, who squatted with didjeridoo and minga sticks, to give the accompaniment. The Pookarakka had disappeared.

  So it went on, each celebrant doing a different turn, acting out his own Dreaming and the Great Traditions of their Cult, in song and dance. Igulgul joined in more and more, by casting lengthening shadows, Moon Shades, of the active participants to move with them, foot to foot, in magic-woven patterns.

  The Old One was halfway down the sky when there was Tjangaluma in the background. At once the dancing stopped. The dancers swung to answer: Yoodle-oodle-yoodle-oo-doo-doo!

  As the ululations died away, another sound intruded, a whizzing, buzzing, moaning, seeming to fill the arena like an invisible whirlpool: Bidooz, bidooz, bidooz, bidooz, bidooz — while out of the blaze of moonlight came the Pookarakka, swinging the magic source of it, the Bidu-bidu, symbol of the Voice of Koonapippi, Creator of All Things, The Earth Mother, so oddly purloined to be set up as the Deity of Masculinity — Bidooz, bidooz, bidooz, bidooz, bidooz — All Weak Things, Women, Children, Tremble at My Voice — as indeed the very earth seemed now to do.

  The Pookarakka marched round the ring, swinging the invisible thing by its long cord of hair with such vigour that it seemed to respin the moonbeams, while the others followed him in procession ululating — Yoodle-oodle-yoodle-oo-doo-doo — Bidooz, bidooz, bidooz . . .

  Chanting cut into it:

  Marunga, marunga

  Ma widji, widji ma

  Koonapippi, Koonapippi

  Koonapipeeeeee!

  And interminably the Oldest Voice in Creation: Bidooz, bidooz, bidooz . . . Igulgul saw it out, tired of it before they did, having watched it so often, and really being of another persuasion, given to encourage the breaking of laws instead of ruthlessly enforcing them, dropped out of sight behind the wall, causing the silver mushrooms that grew thereon to blacken and wither and become rags against the blaze of the Celestial Snake. At that last moment, the celebrants, with a final Tjangaluma, broke off, went back to the camp, all except the Pookarakka, who remained, with Bidu-bidu hidden in the coil of hair-string on his knees, as Pirri-Pirri. The others had damper and tea, were soon asleep. The mopoke could be heard again.

  Soon day dawned. The little birds, after a wary survey, flitted in to drink. The Sun rose. The kites rose with it from their scattered roosts, floating in their lazy way on the first heat-eddies in the air, circled into congregation over the arena. They saw the scraps, whistled, then came spiralling down silently to snatch and go aloft again, gobbling on the wing. Nobody stirred below.

  It took the Sun, almost literally, to burn the celebrants back to activity. They came to slowly, drank, ate, touched up decorations. Thus while the Sun climbed. Then sudden activity. Accoutred as at last night’s opening ceremony, the group converged on the Ring Place, and again with a yell that even rocked the sailing kites above, charged the wirrianwah. The ceremonial continued much as last night, only with increasing tempo, despite the growing heat. The billy-can was replenished many times and passed around.

  With the Sun exactly overhead, the dancers massed again, to go prancing round the wirrianwah, yelling and clashing weapons, reaching a seeming pitch of frenzy at which it seemed their frequent simulated murderous assaults on the Yalunga must culminate in bloody reality — when the regular Pirri-Pirri, who had disappeared, was suddenly there amongst them with a blazing fire-stick. With a flourish he put it to the shrivelled leaves of the whirley — Poof!

  The eucalyptus-charged leaves exploded in a ball of fire and smoke, leaving only the burning frame with full view of the sacrificial figure crouched head down in the hole. His behaviour at that fearful moment would establish the worth of his manhood. A boy who would leap out in panic — well, they had a name for him, Nutching. The dancers shouted their acclamation while whirling about and snatching at the frame and tearing it from the ground to extinguish the embers with bare feet. Smoke and dust for a moment obliterated everything, except the Voice — Bidooz, bidooz, bidooz . . .

  As the air cleared, the dancers formed themselves into a compact squad, facing the bowed boy and chanting:

  Marunga, Marunga,

  Ma widji, widji ma

  Koonapippi, Koonapippi

  Koonapipeeeeee!

  One from each side peeled off, to come leaping to the hole, stooped and seized Prindy by the armpits, hauled him up and out. He staggered between them, tears and mucous streaming. The squad opened to let them in its midst, the men from either side then falling in behind, to drop to hands and knees, and with the adroitness of much practice, form themselves into a kind of table, a sacrificial altar, onto which, almost as it was formed, the neophyte was pushed, so that he fell with legs dangling to the ground. As he fell, the rest shouted and rushed round to form a half-circle facing him. Behind the circle the Pookarakka appeared, whirling the Bidu-bidu. One of the two handlers flung the boy’s a
rms backwards, where ready hands of the living altar grabbed them. The other parted his legs, while hands at this end fastened about his ankles.

  The chanting rose high:

  Ma widji, widji ma

  Koonapipeeeeee!

  The Voice shook the air — Bidooz, bidooz, bidooz!

  One of the handlers fished from his bulkung a package wrapped in paperbark, took out a blade of quartz, handed the bark to his mate, who formed it into a little bowl. Standing between the divided legs, the man with the knife flung back the apron of the boy’s bulkung, to reveal white-painted genitals. Without ado he seized the darra with left hand, inserting his little finger into the prepuce to pull it from the glans, then with the right made four deft and deliberate cuts, each causing the whitened body to wince, and so in a moment removed the foreskin.

  The other man shoved the little coolamun forward to receive the bloody bit of skin and knife, whereupon the operator took the vessel and held it under the stripped member to catch the trickling blood. Flies joined in, no one bothering about them, except the initiate, who shivered to the contact. Perhaps an ounce of blood ran before clotting set in. Then the operator raised the bowl to his lips, blew the flies away, and sipped, passed it on to his mate, who sipped and passed it on.

  Someone handed the operator a dripping dilly-bag, from which he drew the healing pipe-clay, waved off the flies and encased the bloody glans. Then someone gave him a roll of fine paperbark to apply as bandage. With the darra dressed, he turned it back to lie on the boy’s belly, pulling over it a looped piece of the belt to hold it in place, pulled down the apron. Both custodians then drew the boy to his feet. This was greeted by a great shout and the instant disintegration of the altar, and a wild dance about the dazed boy. The Pookarakka stood clear, whirling the Bidu-bidu. Through the dancers, the custodians led the boy to an open bough shelter bigger than the rest, where he was seated again, now with head up, facing West.