by Kim Scott
The wheat dust, the light, perhaps the after-effects of the accident; it was impossible to comprehend the whole figure. Something like a skeleton, but not of bone, or not bone only. Some parts – the dark and burnished skull – were timber, and the teeth shone in pink gums. Kneecaps were smooth river stone, the fine and intricate hands and feet made of bone and seed and woven grasses. The timber of limbs and ribs glowed the colour of honey, coffee and caramel as if liniments and oils had been lovingly rubbed into their depths. Bright feathers decorated an upper arm, and jutted jauntily at the side of the skull. Neat cords of ligament and sinew, of neatly knotted fishing line and human hair wove together each mobile joint.
It must’ve been the still-spilling golden seeds that pushed, compelled the figure to make one step, two steps toward the girl and old man, and to reach out a hard and delicate hand. Its whole being seemed to smile.
Tilly clasped its hand firmly.
And now the wind of the storm came up again, and began to move musically through the figure, through the hollows and whorls of its meticulously carved sinuses and along and between its curved ribs. Timber limbs clattered rhythmically, and again a voice of thunder came rolling along the old river valley . . .
The figure teetered, began to tumble.
A voice called out Triumph. Victory. Called it out in the old language. Then: ‘Did it, Tilly.’
*
Dan had hardly moved. He wished he had followed the others toward the crash, instead of being so fixated on his son that he had remained at the edge of the Peace Park, glaring.
‘That is not your car to take as you please,’ he said again, rather feebly; Doug was out of earshot anyway. His son looked back across the distance between them – a vast distance, it seemed to Dan – opened the car door and slid into the driver’s seat. The windscreen reflected clouds, and Dan could not see his son as it drove away.
He turned to walk down the street, and glanced at the Peace Park: some dignitaries beside a microphone at the far side of the grassed area, looking around at the no-crowd. The dignitaries must have just stepped out of the building.
The sound smacked him; singing, a rhythmic tapping. Moving almost as one, a tightly packed crowd – those who had raced down from the Peace Park, those in the truck, the bystanders – was moving up the street from the river crossing. They carried someone – Tilly – held her in the air, on their shoulders, and her arms were full . . . of polished sticks? Gleaming bones? Bright feathers? Her arms were full of all these things. Tilly shone, she glistened in red light as if it was sunset, or sunrise. Wilfred walked alone in front of this solid little crowd, lightly clapping his hands and leading the singing.
Dan wiped his leaky eyes.
They walked . . . no, understated but undeniably rhythmic, they danced up the slope in a haze of golden dust, shafts of sunlight like spotlights against a backdrop of red and purple thunderclouds that glittered with lightning. The red river sent a leading edge, an investigatory cusp pushing at rocks and boulders, detouring, snaking between banks of sand.
There were so many coming up the street, not a small crowd at all. Dan saw many others joining the rear of the procession . . .
Later, those who had been in the street finishing their beers, having been pulled from the bar by the runaway truck, reported that a great many dark and thin-limbed figures continued to come up the hill as the river rose.
And so began the Peace Park performance.
*
Many years later, as an old woman collecting wood to make a secret campfire as she rested on her drive back to the little property on the river, or anytime just staring at dappled light laid across a forest floor of branches and sticks, Tilly would see the timber limbs as our own, fallen and broken; would see peeling bark as an unrolled sleeve, a fringe of leaves like decoration. Would see not timber limbs but the bones of something both new and ancient, something recreated and invigorated, and would think of when she first heard a voice rumbling from a riverbed, and how something reached out to her.
AFTERWORD
Although this is a work of fiction, it touches on real events, people and landscape. At one stage of the novel readers who know me well may recognise the old hairstyle of our Uncle Russell. And it is true our community has twins, though more than one set. A few of us drink too much, and some know about the inside of prison. We have a number of generous souls and courageous women. We are acquainted with brothers who own farms. I could continue like this, but it is the issue of beginning with real landscape that caused me to hesitate in writing this novel. Writing fiction, how does one do justice to stories and language ‘abiding’ in place; how does one do justice to such stories and language even as they are being ‘revived’ and consolidated in a home community and place of origin? Perhaps it is impossible.
Taboo is a novel. It exists in a tradition of stories-in-print and this author chose to proceed in what might be called a trippy, stumbling sort of genre-hop that I think features a trace of Fairy Tale, a touch of Gothic, a sufficiency of the ubiquitous Social Realism and perhaps a tease of Creation Story.
In narratives of identity, particularly, I like to emphasise land and language. However, as writer, artist and cartographer Tim Robinson (1996) says of Ireland and its indigenous language: ‘In talk about land and language, there is always a whiff of a third element, blood. The three have historically made up a deathly stew.’
Taboo is written in modern Australian English; the ‘default country’ for which, Jay Arthur (2003) has explained, is England. England is narrow, green and wet; inevitably therefore, Australia becomes wide, brown and dry. The word ‘drought’ unfairly labels our naturally irregular rainfall. The Todd ‘River’ cannot account for its waters going underground near the continent’s heart, and does ‘river’ adequately explain those series of pools with more distributaries than tributaries and which rarely reach the sea? Australian English place-names tell their own story: Lake Disappointment, Mount Misery, Useless Loop. Starvation Harbour. The Barren Ranges, Cape Arid, the Doubtful Islands . . .
And then there is Kokanarup.
Cocanarup is a word derived from the ancient Noongar language of south-west Western Australia, and a place name on official maps. A report concerning aspects of the region’s history by Noongar author Roni Forrest (2004) uses the name Kukenarup. In this novel I write Kokanarup. Cocanarup is a real place. Kokanarup is not, although I am perhaps trying to make it so. Cocanarup sits on the Phillips River, and near the town of Ravensthorpe. This Cocanarup is the origin site of – some people say ‘massacre’, others resist the term – a series of incidents involving killings of Noongar people in the late nineteenth century. Reports of the time vary, but most agree that the catalyst was the killing of a European, John Dunn, at Cocanarup Station in 1880. A Noongar man Yandawalla (a.k.a. Yungala) was arrested and charged with the crime. Reprisal killings of Noongar people seemingly occurred both prior to and following the trial even though, or perhaps because, the accused was acquitted of the murder.
Half a century later, a newspaper describes a visit to the Phillips River:
‘. . . one of nature’s beauty spots. It is situated in a rough boulder strewn gorge, the steep sides of which are carpeted with luscious grasses, daisy everlastings, and rock fern, over which tower the tall Yate and smaller Jam trees, the blossoms of which feed hundreds of screeching parrots and parakeets. By following the watercourse up into the gorge one comes to a small waterfall forming a cul de sac, and there . . . jambed down a deep crevice between two huge rocks, lay a whitened human skull.’
The article continues to explain how the human skull came to be there, and after referring to the aforementioned trial, continues:
‘. . . members on the station were then granted license to shoot the natives for a period of one month, during which time the fullest advantage was taken of the privilege. Natives were shot from the station through Lime Kiln Flat, Manjitu
p and down to where Ravensthorpe is now situated. In the course of their guerrilla warfare the whites arrived one day at the Carracarup Rock Hole, and, knowing it was a watering-place for the blacks, they crept quietly over the hill until they could peer down to the hole. There they saw two natives who had just risen from drinking. Two shots broke the stillness of the gorge and two dusky souls were sent home to their Maker. The bodies were left lying at the rock hole where they dropped as a grim reminder to the rest of the tribe of the white man’s retribution.’ (Western Mail, 1935: 8)
I used these historical reports in Taboo, along with snippets of other true events and places. This novel is artifice and – though perhaps not so cleverly as the strange being that prowls its entrance and exit – is made-up of bits and pieces.
Along with the ‘language of the default country’, Australia has its own unique languages, and they have been crushed and discouraged. Obviously, the author agrees that more recently attached languages are also of great value.
Noongar language is endangered. But, listed as ‘extinct’ in the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) catalogue until 2009, it was updated to ‘living’ in 2015. Elsewhere, it has been classified as ‘threatened’ (Lewis et al., 2013), and statistical data says it was spoken at home by 163 people in 1996, 213 people in 2006 and 369 people in 2011 (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2015). It is stronger than that. The written language seems frail; even its name spelled in various ways: Noongar, Nyoongar, Nyungar, Nyoongah . . .
But, despite a harsh colonial history, Western Australia’s vernacular is imbued with this language. There are all the place names, for one thing – many names of towns and localities derive from Noongar language and a glance at a map demonstrates their uniqueness. Noongar words provide the common names for Western Australian plants (jarrah, karri, tuart . . . ) and animals (chuditch, quokka, numbat . . . ). A peculiarly Western Australian word for spear – gidgee – is derived from Noongar. Such usage shows the pervasive connection of land and language, and hints at what such a heritage – an ancient tongue, its narratives of a unique environment and community – might contribute to a sense of regional ‘belonging’ and identity.
There is little literal Noongar language in Taboo. I would have it speak to a wider audience and do more than posture difference.
Tim Robinson again:
‘We, personally, cumulatively, communally, create and recreate landscapes – a landscape being not just the terrain but also the human perspectives on it, the land plus its overburden of meanings.’ (1996: 162)
Robinson is talking about Ireland. Although my ancestry includes Irish people along with Noongar, that land is a world’s distance from home and it is Cocanarup, much closer, that inspired me and has a rhythm with which I would resonate. Taboo offers a little band of survivors following a retreating tide of history, and returning with language and story; a small community, descended from those who first created human society in their part of the most ancient continent on the planet, provides the catalyst for connection with a story of place deeper than colonization, and for transformation and healing. But of course Taboo is only a book, only a novel. Cocanarup is Kokenarup is Kokanarup is Cocanarup…
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to acknowledge the inspiration gained from the Wirlomin Noongar Language and Stories Project and, in particular: Hazel Brown, Roma Winmar, Iris Woods, Olivia Roberts; Jason, Justin and Graeme Miniter; Albert Knapp, Bobby Woods; Darryl and Errol Williams; Ezzard Flowers, Russell Nelly, Helen Hall, Henry Dabb, Connie Moses, Gaye and Aubry Roberts; Clint Bracknell and Ryan Brown. I would also like to thank my sons – Sebastian and Declan – for their great strength and support. And finally I would like to express my gratitude for the tact, patience and encouragement of Geordie Williamson and Mathilda Imlah at Picador.
Extracts from earlier drafts of this novel appeared in Review of Australian Fiction (‘Departure’) and Kenyon Review (‘Collision’).
About Kim Scott
KIM SCOTT grew up on the south coast of Western Australia. As a descendant of those who first created human society along that edge of ocean, he is proud to be one among those who call themselves Noongar. His second novel, Benang: From the Heart, won the 1999 Western Australian Premier’s Book Award, the 2000 Miles Franklin Literary Award and the 2001 Kate Challis RAKA Award. His third novel, That Deadman Dance, also won the Miles Franklin Literary Award in 2011, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the Western Australian Premier’s Book Award. Kim lives in Fremantle, Western Australia, and is currently Professor of Writing at the School of Media, Culture and Creative Arts, Curtin University.
Also by Kim Scott
TRUE COUNTRY
BENANG: FROM THE HEART
KAYANG AND ME (with Hazel Brown)
THAT DEADMAN DANCE
Kim Scott
That Deadman Dance
MLIES FRANKLIN LITERARY AWARD WINNER 2011 REGIONAL WINNER 2011 COMMONWEALTH WRITERS’ PRIZESHORTLISTED PRIME MINISTER’S LITERARY AWARDS 2011SHORTLISTED INDIE BOOK AWARD 2011
Bobby Wabalanginy never learned fear, not until he was pretty well a grown man. Sure, he grew up doing the Dean Man Dance, but with him it was a dance of life, a lively dance for people to do together . . .
Told through the eyes of black and white, young and old, this is a story about a fledgling Western Australian community in the early 1800s known as the ‘friendly frontier’.
Poetic, warm-hearted and bold, it is a story which shows that first contact did not have to lead to war.
It is a story for our times.
‘Enchanting and authentic . . . an enormously readable, humane, proud and subtle book.’
THOMAS KENEALLY
‘A novel of great power and originality, beautiful, heart-rending and superb. I was enthralled from the first page to the last by the strange urgency of the story; and yet the voice in which the story is told is not urgent but is modest, unhurried, calm and often deeply reflective.’
ALEX MILLER
‘Musical, sometimes ecstatic, sometimes wistful . . . like an exquisite symphony of possession, loss, hope and betrayal.’
WEST AUSTRALIAN
First published 2017 in Picador by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 2000
Copyright © Kim Scott 2017
The moral right of the author to be identified as the author of this work
has been asserted.
All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available
from the National Library of Australia
http://catalogue.nla.gov.au
EPUB format: 9781760555108
The author would like to acknowledge that early draft extracts from this
work were first published as ‘Collision’, Kenyon Review, March/April 2017.
Gambier, Ohio: Finn House, Kenyon College; and ‘Departure’, Review of Australian Fiction, Zutiste, Inc., 2015.
This is a work of fiction. Characters, institutions and organisations
mentioned in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination
or, if real, used fictitiously without any intent to describe actual conduct.
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Kim Scott, Taboo