by Cara Shaw
They helped her latch the child to her breast, and then began cleaning up the site. They massaged her belly until the afterbirth emerged and Weena took it away with her digging stick to bury, singing a song of renewal as she did so. Nerala and the other midwife wiped Narramaroo down with gum leaves and water, and wrapped the placenta up tightly in sheets of paperbark to tie to her waist with hair string that had been made especially for the layette. Later the umbilical cord would dry out and break off, and the small package would be buried under the tree where Narramaroo had given birth, to preserve the sacredness of the place and to enrich the good energy for future birthing women. Nerala and the other midwife made up a poultice of cool white clay infused with tea tree leaves and packed it between Narramaroo’s legs, to soothe and heal her and to stave off infection. Each day while the new mother was recovering they changed the poultice and applied a fresh one.
The group stayed near the birthing tree for three days, sleeping, cooking and eating, nursing Narramaroo and her new-born until her milk came in and the new babe was drinking well. Narramaroo had decided to call the baby, a girl, Nerala after the midwife who had saved her baby, and the older woman flushed with pleasure. The atmosphere in the small camp was rich with the miracle of new life, and it seemed that the bush creatures knew it as well. A magpie had arrived in the camp and it warbled and fussed around the site. Nerala felt that the bird was a spirit, come to visit and check on the progress of the new-born child. On the third day it flew away and did not come back, and the women decided to leave as well. They walked back to camp to find poor Balin waiting anxiously by his campfire, and when he saw the women approaching he sprang to his feet in joy. He rushed over to Narramaroo and flung his arms around his wife and new baby, kissing them each in turn. Narramaroo lifted the babe to his face with eyes shining.
“Her name is Nerala,” she said, and Balin tenderly took the little one and stroked her tiny head.
“She is lovely, well done my wife,” and he wandered away to show off his new daughter to the rest of the tribe.
Wyomee and Kooloona sat patiently with Weena, waiting for their father and new baby sister to return so they could cuddle her and shower her with the love they had been holding back for the past three days. Their family was complete, and they settled back into their routine around the family gunyah.
One day, a few weeks later, Weena stomped crossly over to the their gunyah, and sighed heavily.
“What is it?” asked Narramaroo.
Weena sat down beside her with a furrowed brow and took the baby to nurse.
“Alaara,” said Weena.
“Oh,” replied Narramaroo.
Alaara was one of the girls in Weena’s initiation group. Her mother had passed away when she was a little girl and afterwards, her father Wallawa had moved into the men’s camp permanently. He had never shown any real interest in the child and had also failed to organise a proper camp for Alaara to live in. As a result she had spent all of her childhood moving and being raised by relatives, basically living on the fringes of other people’s family lives.
Alaara was difficult, there was no other way of putting it. If she had been more likeable or biddable, perhaps one of the families would have adopted her and absorbed her into their own family – as was the Duradjuri way, who always took responsibility for their own. Not Alaara. Presently she was living with her mother’s cousin whose patience with the girl was wearing so thin that she was keen to get her married as soon as possible. In order for this to happen Alaara had to be initiated. Thinawaal hadn’t even bothered to approach anyone else to mentor the girl, believing that Weena was probably the only older woman in the camp who would take her on. She was right. Nobody could pinpoint exactly what it was about the girl that was so disconcerting, except that she had a way of staring at people insolently and laughing at inappropriate times. She had no respect for her elders and was generally rude to them. She particularly disliked older women and was aggressive with them if they attempted to gently correct her behaviour. Narramararoo was careful not to have anything to do with her and kept her daughters out of Alaara’s way. She found her very unsettling and she felt for Weena, who was obviously discomforted by the girl.
However when Thinawaal had asked Weena for this favour, she felt compelled to say yes. Weena wanted to do this for the girl as this year was Alaara’s last real chance to be properly initiated as a Duradjuri woman. She wanted to give Alaara the best chance she could in life after a poor beginning, and thought there was a chance the girl could marry well.
Weena’s routine for initiating her girls was proven and well tried. For eighteen months or so before the ceremony, Weena schooled her charges in the importance of their totems and their responsibilities to the tribe as initiated women. She also taught them about their obligations to country and took them to the special sites in their region that were symbolic and sacred to Duradjuri women. The fertility pool was one such site – a place where no man was ever allowed and set aside especially for the women who desired children. To swim in this pool was to invite ancestor spirits to enter the womb and begin a new life – a very serious and considered undertaking for any woman. She showed them the birthing trees, the traditional places women went when they were ready, to strain against the comforting smooth trunk of an old gum, used by generations of women while giving birth. The proper songs to sing while gathering bushfoods, sand drawings that described the legends of the Duradjuri and how their people had come to live on the country after they descended from the Dreamtime through ancestor spirits. These matters and many more that were exclusively and privately kept secret amongst the women, which empowered them, nurtured them and gave them the strength to live their daily lives with confidence and wisdom.
Weena was an intuitive teacher and enjoyed imparting this knowledge to the younger women in the tribe, and who would continue this legacy with their own female children and the children of their relatives. Weena loved sitting with her charges in the evenings after their meals, telling stories, singing, drawing, even acting out various scenes so the girls could remember the lessons even more clearly – which sent them all into fits of laughter. Not Alaara. Granted, she would turn up to the lessons, but Weena thought that this was mostly because she had nowhere else to be. She yawned through Weena’s stories and refused to memorise the songs. She squabbled with the other girls and made groaning noises when she became too bored. Her behaviour not only frustrated Weena and annoyed her, but also caused her great concern. She had to find a way to initiate Alaara or she would be unmarriageable and her future security doubtful.
Narramaroo was only half listening to Weena as she complained about Alaara when she spied a movement on the outskirts of the camp. She watched for a moment and when all was still, she returned her attention to Weena. Then she noted the movement again, and stared once more in the same direction.
“Narramaroo! Why aren’t you listening to me?” exclaimed Weena crossly.
Narramaroo put her finger to her lips and pointed towards the edge of the camp, and Weena followed her gaze. They both could see a figure moving in the bush.
“What do you think it is?” said Weena nervously.
Narramaroo felt a strange uneasy sensation pass over her skin, and she stood up to stare intently into the foliage.
“Weena, I think it’s a person…”
The figure moved into the open and Narramaroo gasped, then retched. Weena also stood, handed Narramaroo the baby and ran to the men’s camp.
The man who had entered the Duradjuri camp was Gudderah, a member of Narramaroo’s old tribe from the north. After she and Balin left, relations – as Balin predicted, completely fell apart. The men desperately wanted to reunite with their wives and children, and went to the head man and the karandajin to plead their case. The head man was easily swayed as he too wanted his tribe to return to normal. He could see the cloud of unhappiness and discontent that now governed the people
and it upset him. His own wife was bitterly unhappy and not only that, he had sisters and cousins who now resided in the women’s camp and he missed them. He had begun to question the domineering ways of the karandajin, especially after meeting Balin whom he felt was a peaceful and sociable man. He discovered that he agreed with the desires of the people and decreed that they should all live as one again. The camp was set back to rights within hours and that night there was a celebratory dinner and dance. The people retired together to their gunyahs with their families for the first time in over two years, both happy and relieved.
During this the karandajin was nowhere to be seen. He had left the camp after the head man had made his decision and was absent for days. When he returned he stood on the outskirts of the camp calling out the names of the men who had been a part of his inner circle when the division between the men and women had been enforced. The head man came over to speak to him but the karandajin averted his eyes and continued calling out. About five of the men who were the original members of the medicine man’s group gathered their things and followed him away from the camp. The head man watched them sadly, regretting that some of the best warriors of the clan had chosen to leave. There was nothing he could do; these men were under a spell and he seriously doubted whether he would see any of them ever again.
The karandajin led the men away, all the while ranting and chastising them for their stupidity in allowing dangerous spirits to once again overtake the tribe. He told them that for their personal safety and for the good of country, they must undertake certain scarification ceremonies to drive out the evil that possessed them all. The warriors were frightened out of their minds. This small group had dedicated themselves to the medicine man when he still lived in the camp. The men who followed him had been affected psychologically by the intensity of the man’s personality, and now feared that if they strayed away from his dictum angry spirits could destroy them. The group walked south for a few hours until they came to a barren spot that was surrounded by a few large rocks.
“This is where we will make camp,’ muttered the karandajin angrily, and despite being ravenously hungry the men began collecting rocks and tinder to build the main campfire.
The karandajin sat to the side, singing and tapping his clapping sticks. When the fire was burning fiercely he ordered them to place their spears in the coals and when they were burning hot he drew them out to commence the scarification. Under his direction the men laid the white-hot spears on each other’s skin, over and again until they fell to the ground shaking in pain. Two of the men passed out, and the others sat near the fire, eyes glazed over in shock. The next day the process commenced once again while the karandajin shouted at the spirits he believed enslaved them all. Soon the men began to suffer, and when one of them approached their leader to ask about food, the man ignored him, and continued to sing in monotone. The men were starving and their wounds were suppurating with pus as the proper procedure for scarification was being ignored, and the same areas were being burnt over and over again.
One morning when the group awoke, they saw that a fellow member had died during the night. The pus on his body had dried and his eyes stared, vacant, to the sky. The karandajin ordered that the body be dragged away, and it was Gudderah who approached him about a proper burial.
“No burial!” the man screamed. “He broke the law!” and he went away to gather more brushwood for the ever-burning fire.
The men were seriously frightened now, they could see that there was something wrong with the karandajin, whose obsession with spirits had obliterated any sense he had left. Shortly after this another man died, and only three men were left. The karandajin had moved into a permanent trance and his body was wasting away. He sat next to the fire staring into space muttering, clapping sticks tossed on the ground beside him. Gudderah spoke with the remaining two men and advised them that they should all return to their home camp, they vigorously disagreed and then left the area to try and find some bush food, unable to hunt as they had burnt all of their weapons during the scarification ceremonies. Gudderah waited until dark and when the others were asleep he crawled away quietly and began to walk south, not knowing or caring about his fate as long as long as he was as far away from the insane karandajin.
Gudderah walked for weeks, surviving only on water and the food he managed to gather along the way. Physically he had deteriorated and he looked like a little bundle of dark coloured sticks. The barely healed scarification wounds re-opened on his chest and seeped with pus. He rested under a tree near a creek and packed the area with gum leaves and clay, and spent most of his time sleeping until it healed enough for him to continue on. At this point Gudderah was focussed only on staying alive and he had no thought of anything else. He knew he didn’t want to die so he battled on while a great sadness settled over him.
On a dry cool day he noticed spirals of smoke rising in the far distance, and hope blossomed within him as he adjusted his direction. The smoke became his beacon, his reason to live as he inched further and further towards it, sleeping where he fell, and rising a few hours later. When he reached the outskirts of the camp he huddled near some bushes, delirious, and he thought he was hallucinating when he saw two women – one holding a baby, talking by a fire next to a gunyah. He heard one of them scream and saw the other jump up and run away, and at last he laid down and closed his eyes; body, mind and soul at the last frontier of his endurance.
Weena ran straight to the men’s camp yelling Balin’s name who jumped to his feet in alarm.
“Weena! What on earth…!”
Weena gulping and pointing, couldn’t make any sense and Balin held her tightly to calm her down.
“What is it? Show me,” he said and he followed her over to their family gunyah where Narramaroo stood, clutching Nerala in fear.
When she saw him she too pointed mutely in Gudderah’s direction and shook her head. By this time most of the tribe had gathered around Narramaroo and Weena, and held back while Balin walked hesitantly over to where Gudderah lay. When he got closer he halted in shock and crouched down to try and discern what it was that lay on the ground. The figure was so tiny he couldn’t ascertain if it was a man or a child and whatever it was appeared to be little more than a skeleton. The bones were covered in a thick horny hide, that when he reached out to touch it, felt bumpy and hard. The head was massive and covered from the neck up in a woolly ball of hair, which had grown into the beard to make one huge knotted mass. Bugs and insects crawled around in it and Balin recoiled. A menacing black crow circled above them and let out a morbid cry that slithered nastily over the camp. While he crouched there the creature opened its eyes and Balin felt a flash of recognition. He swallowed hard as a surprising wash of tears threatened to overtake his normally solid demeanour.
“Gudderah?” he whispered. The eyes flickered and Balin knew at once it was he, a warrior he had become a little friendly with when he was visiting Narramaroo’s old tribe. He stood and returned to the others and sought out Narramaroo.
“It’s Gudderah, I think he’s dying. He must have made the long walk here and got into trouble along the way.”
Narramaroo’s eyes widened in shock. Balin had his own suspicions about Gudderah’s plight, although it was clear that the man would be dead very shortly and therefore they would never know. He took a possum cloak and went back with one of the other men to lift and carry him over to the men’s camp where he could die in peace.
Gudderah weighed nothing and Balin could have easily carried him like a child. He didn’t even consider doing this as Gudderah was a man and a Duradjuri warrior. The action would have been unseemly for both of them. They settled him near the main campfire in the men’s camp, still on the possum skin and Wowhely taking pity on him, sat beside him to begin the death vigil and wiped the poor man’s mouth periodically with water. At times Gudderah pointed to his mouth and Wowhely trickled more water between his lips from a deep coolamon.
Uncharacteristically Alaara sat just outside the camp watching everything. Just before nightfall she disappeared and then returned with her coolamon dripping with honey and gave it to Wowhely who glanced up, surprised.
“He’s hungry,” she said simply, and retired to her cousin’s camp.
Wowhely fed Gudderah the honey throughout the night, and in the morning Alaara returned, taking up the spot where she had been the day before. Balin arrived at the camp a little later on, expecting to find that Gudderah had died in the night and to assist with the disposal of the body. Wowhely gave him a vexed look.
“He’s still alive,” he shrugged.
Balin offered to sit with Gudderah and Wowhely left to fetch something to eat. He looked over at Alaara who remained in her place and stared at him, straight in the face, possibly the rudest action a young uninitiated woman could ever make to an older married warrior.
“What do you want?” he said irritably.
“Nothing.” she replied.
Balin ignored her, as he had always found the girl to be most insolent. Wowhely returned and stood next to him, arms folded. “I thought he’d go in the night,” he said, “he looks as if he has picked up.”
“Mmmn,” said Balin, not at all sure what to do.
“I’m not sitting with him any longer,” said Wowhely defensively, “I’m already sore from being up all night.”
Balin was in agreement, he didn’t want to be there either. While the circumstances were unfortunate, he was a busy man and his family and tribe needed him.
“I suggest we make him comfortable here, and when he slips away I’ll arrange a burial ceremony for him. It’s the least I can do considering it was my family who found him.”
Wowhely nodded, relieved that they had reached a solution.
“I’ll look after him,” they heard Alaara say.