THE SONG MASTER

by Di Morrissey

  ‘You really want a baby this badly?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll keep trying for as long as it takes or as long as it’s feasible. It costs a lot of money, but I won’t give up. I’m taking Chinese herbs and I’m willing to try just about anything. I know I can get pregnant.’

  ‘Why did you wait so long?’

  ‘I’ve always been involved with fellows I didn’t think suitable father material. And I wasn’t ready to settle down, I was a dedicated career woman. But now I have Boris, and he would be a wonderful father. I sometimes get very depressed about it. I feel I’m not fulfilling my destiny till I have a baby.’

  Jennifer studied Veronica for a moment. ‘Would you like us to help you?’ she asked tentatively. ‘Barradja way.’

  Veronica didn’t answer. Back in the city, this might have seemed an odd offer. But she realised that in her heart, she’d been hoping she might find help from these people. She was beginning to see that they had a knowledge beyond what she’d experienced. ‘Jennifer, I’ll do anything, anything.’ She paused. ‘What’s involved?’

  Jennifer gave a little smile. ‘Baby-making isn’t sex. We take you in the wunggud water and do women’s business. I’ll talk to my mother.’ She touched Veronica’s arm. ‘You come with us, and trust your baby spirit finds you. I’ll tell you when.’

  Breakfast was over and Billy had issued instructions on tent sweeping, and a roster for doing dishes and meal preparation. Mick had volunteered to make damper to go with the last of their meat – steaks that would be barbecued with potatoes in their jackets, and served with salad. ‘It will be coming out of cans soon enough,’ said Billy.

  ‘Ardjani says the men can go hunting with him. Then we’ll have fresh meat,’ said Barwon.

  ‘Fresh what, though? I don’t know that I fancy baked local fauna.’ Veronica drained the last of the tea from the teapot.

  ‘You blokes are going hunting in a day or so. We’ll be staying here to do women’s business,’ said Beth. ‘Let’s deal with today’s plans first. Now, as soon as everyone is ready, we’ll assemble. The elders, including Lilian and Jennifer, are coming over to take us to Eagle Rock Station.’ She turned to Susan, ‘They’re getting quite excited about it.’

  ‘It’ll be lunchtime before this mob is ready to go.’ Billy looked over to see Alan strolling back from the river, his towel around his neck. ‘He hasn’t had his breakfast yet.’

  ‘Give him a coffee and make him wait till smoko. If they’re not here when brekky is dished up, tough. That’s a rule.’ Beth grinned. ‘I just made it up.’

  ‘You’re a hard woman, Beth. But coffee will do fine.’ Alan paused at his tent. ‘No espresso, I suppose?’

  Beth laughed, Billy scowled. Until his domain was shipshape, his sense of humour deserted him.

  They were grouped about the Oka as Ardjani, Rusty and Digger drove up in a flat-bed truck. Lilian, with Jennifer holding her baby, and the two boys were in the back.

  ‘Jennifer, you and the baby and Lilian come in the Oka with us. It’s cooler, more comfortable.’ Beth reached over and took the baby as the women jumped out.

  To Billy’s obvious pleasure, everyone settled quickly into the van and they were soon on their way to Eagle Rock. Veronica asked Jennifer where Jimmy was.

  ‘He’s gone to Derby with the rest of the mob,’ Beth answered first. ‘Besides, he couldn’t come with Lilian here. He cannot look directly on his mother-in-law. It’s the law that sons-in-law don’t look on the mothers-in-law.’

  ‘Sounds like a good law to me,’ said Mick.

  ‘Hear, hear,’ added Alistair.

  Jennifer smiled. ‘It means look on as face to face.’

  ‘How do you learn all these laws? Seems like it would be pretty easy to put a foot wrong,’ said Mick.

  ‘We’re taught from babies. Already, I’m teaching my little fella here. I tell him who are his skin mothers and sisters and uncles and brothers, and I show a little hand signal so, when he gets big, he can acknowledge what is his relationship with another person by that signal.’

  ‘What’s a skin relative?’ asked Susan, fascinated by the amazing complexity of Barradja relationships.

  ‘I am my baby’s blood mother, but my sisters and other mothers are his skin mothers. And then all their skin sisters are part of his kinship. It’s a system of relationships, where different people can be many things – mother, father, uncle, aunty. There are no strangers to our children, everyone has a connection with each other by family kinship, or even by friendship.’

  ‘Imagine how secure these children feel,’ said Beth. ‘They’re told of their connection with everyone and everything around them, plants, trees, rocks. They are taught their relationships to those, as well as people. It’s all part of developing their sense of self. Self-esteem, as we call it, is in-built.’

  ‘I imagine then that these people don’t need confidence building, consciousness raising, self-help, spiritual growth, find-yourself workshops,’ mused Alistair.

  ‘It comes to us as a birthright,’ said Lilian quietly.

  ‘It’s something that puzzles most white people, who generally perceive Aboriginal culture as dead,’ explained Jennifer. ‘My children will be told how they must behave to other kin, the work they must do, the laws they must observe. They’re taught about their surroundings, physically, spiritually and artistically. They learn the stories, songs and dances connected to all these things. They get these instructions almost every day of their lives.’

  ‘Even that young?’ Veronica peeped at the chubby baby boy lying in Jennifer’s lap.

  ‘Yes, I talk to him every day. Even from the sound of my voice, he’s learning. We believe you take in knowledge not just from words. Knowledge flows between people, like feelings.’

  ‘It’s like reading to little kids. My young son loves that, even though he doesn’t understand any of the reading. It’s the story, and having me close to him, I suppose,’ said Alan.

  ‘Do you read him art books?’ Mick was teasing, but could imagine Alan showing his son art publications with magnificent colour plates.

  They were now quite used to Veronica producing a microphone at any time of the day or night. She was pleased she’d recorded Jennifer’s explanation of kinship and was beginning to see material for a series of radio programs. ‘So, Alan, you’re the art expert, tell us about the Wandjina gallery we’re going to see.’

  ‘That’s the business of the elders to tell. I want to hear their stories about this site. White documentation is pretty sketchy. There are the records from when George Grey found the Wandjina rock paintings, but then it was more than a hundred years before they were re-discovered in 1947. Some photographs were published in the 1950s and there are all sorts of garbled versions of what the Wandjina paintings mean and who painted them.’

  ‘Thanks to the white law men here,’ added Beth. ‘Where we’re going is the Wandjina spiritual sanctuary. It’s a unique place on this earth as it holds the history of ancient human culture embodied in the Wandjina. And that is a philosophy, a spirituality and a symbol which evokes extraordinary power over whoever is in its space. The Barradja is one of three Wandjina tribes whose continuous culture dates back 60,000 years.’

  ‘Makes our colonisation of two hundred years seem a drop in the bucket,’ said Mick.

  ‘Around here it’s not even two hundred years,’ laughed Beth. ‘Colonisation of some parts of Western Australia didn’t happen till the latter part of the twentieth century. There were still Aboriginal people coming into Wyndham from the bush forty years ago. There are photos in the Wyndham pub. That’s in my lifetime. And the community of Balgo, in the desert south of Halls Creek, wasn’t established until 1964, which was when many of the locals made their first contact with Europeans. And in 1984, north of Warburton in the same area, Aborigines were still arriving from the bush, having never seen a white person.’

  ‘That’s pretty contemporary history,’ agreed Mick.

  Barwon, next to Beth, w
as quiet and thoughtful.

  Susan, sitting behind him, asked, ‘Ever thought of making a documentary about all this?’

  ‘TV was my other life. Now, I’ve got a lot to learn about this part of my life. I don’t know much about it. My personal stuff, anyway.’ He looked rueful.

  Beth spoke softly. ‘We’re working on that. Ardjani has asked Jimmy to talk to the old women in Derby about your family . . . and about the abandoned baby . . . our two lost souls, eh?’

  Susan touched Barwon’s shoulder. He stared out the window, but he wasn’t seeing the passing landscape.

  The grass was high around the wheels of the Oka, the trees clustered in shady clumps, and through open spaces they saw a pile of boulders and rocks ahead. Dotted between them were patches of pink feathery mulla mulla flowers. They’d been driving for an hour, when the truck in front stopped and Rusty waved to Billy to pull over. He parked the Oka and they got out, joined by the three old men. It was a relief to be out of the van, but it meant stepping over rocks, weaving between prickly bushes and wading through patches of tall grass.

  ‘Do you think we’re on Eagle Rock Station?’ asked Alistair.

  ‘I didn’t see any boundaries or fences,’ said Mick. ‘Could be, though.’

  Ardjani stopped and he signalled to Lilian, who walked forward. He spoke to her in language, while she listened silently, nodding occasionally.

  ‘What’s he saying?’ whispered Susan to Rusty.

  ‘He tell her this her father, grandfather country. Now she got to take care of this place.’

  Ardjani set off with Lilian one step behind him. She glanced back at Jennifer, who hurried to catch up, the baby balanced on her hip.

  The others fell silent and watched as Ardjani led the women to a rocky outcrop.

  ‘This very important for Lilian to be in her right country,’ said Rusty.

  Ardjani stopped. He lifted up his face and began chanting, a call that rang out with power and authority. Digger turned to the group. ‘He be tellin’ the ancestor spirits who is comin’. That he bring Lilian to see her father, grandfather country. That he bring Lilian’s daughter, Jennifer, and her baby to their country. And that he bring friends, who are good people.’

  Ardjani’s chant stopped and he paused, head cocked as if listening for a reply. Then he turned to the two women and made a little gesture towards the rocks in the grass. He stood back while they both walked forward.

  The rocks were sharp edged, less than a metre high, with faint scratch marks on them. They didn’t look much different to other rocks they’d seen that day. But then the mother and daughter dropped to their knees beside the rocks and began pulling away the grass that partially obscured the site.

  Ardjani walked back to join the group. ‘Lilian find the stones of her daddy and grandfather. This is mahmah stone. It is everything in creation, in nature, inside the earth, and what grows. It holds their spirits.’

  Barwon stood apart from the group. Ardjani’s words had carved into him, and he reached out and rested his hand against a tree, not yet knowing that, to the Barradja, this was a gesture of seeking and longing.

  After a few minutes, Ardjani started walking back to the vehicles and everyone followed quietly, leaving the two women at this sacred place.

  Back at the van, Beth passed around drinking water and mugs, this practical act defusing the emotive silence that had fallen over the group.

  ‘We’ll come back for the women later,’ explained Ardjani.

  ‘We have to keep going, if they’re to show us the Wandjina,’ said Beth. ‘They don’t like staying in spirit places after the sun goes down.’

  It was a hot climb, clambering between giant red sandstone boulders. Alistair took frequent rests, sitting on a rock, rubbing his knees. Susan trod carefully, steadying herself. Mick, his face wet with sweat, handed her a stout branch he’d been using as a walking stick. ‘Use this, I’ll get another one.’

  Shortly they were in a small amphitheatre formed by large rocks, some as high as a two-storey building, and in the confusion of blocks they could see shallow overhangs and curving canopies of ledges that looked cool and inviting.

  They moved closer and Ardjani stopped, again holding up his hand to signal those behind to wait. This time his chanting sounded more of a song than a call, the musical notes echoing against the cliff face. He sang to his ancestors. And he told them about the people he brought here, who wanted to understand and learn their stories, their power and knowledge.

  Ardjani paused for a moment. He turned back to the group crowded behind him. ‘The ancestors say it’s okay. We can go in.’

  Everyone forgot their sweating, aching bodies. The excitement and expectation was palpable. This was what they had come to see. At the base of the main shelter, Ardjani turned to his sons and spoke sternly, ‘Josh, Luke, you stay here. Till you initiated, this place, these images are taboo.’ The boys, their exuberance dampened, squatted under a shady overhang watching their father and hugging their knees. They knew this was a powerful place, and they sat close.

  The group straggled behind Ardjani. They followed around boulders and into the rock shelter. The Wandjina, larger than life, silent, mouthless figures with their halos of clouds and lightning, stared down at the group of black and white Australians who peered back.

  As they moved closer, the sense of power that radiated from this place seemed to become more intense, and the figures gradually lost the appearance of paintings and became part of the texture of the rock.

  Susan whispered to Alan, ‘I can see what is meant by the concept of these spirits being pressed into the rock face.’

  ‘It’s to do with the pigment “fossilising” into the rock, so it becomes like a varnish. Much of the ancient art has disappeared, but that’s not to say it wasn’t there. Archaeologists are finding ochres and fragments of painted rock that are 60,000 years old.’

  ‘Is that white ochre in the background of these paintings?’ asked Veronica.

  ‘They sometimes used a white clay among other things – calcite, burnt selenite, gypsum – and a rare mineral found up here, huntite.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to upset any of these spirits,’ said Mick in an aside to Alistair. ‘You feel you’d be struck dead by lightning if you laid a hand on any of this.’

  ‘The energy that radiates from them is tangible. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.’ Alistair sat down on a small boulder smoothed and almost polished by thousands of years of being used as a seat. The others found similar rocks, or squatted on the dirt floor of the rock shelter.

  Ardjani stood by some of the largest paintings. The staging, thought Alistair, was magnificent, great theatre, the space-like figures of incredible antiquity providing a backdrop that gave Ardjani the enhanced charisma of a thespian holding centre stage.

  Beth settled cross-legged on a little ledge close by Ardjani, almost as if sharing the stage, but clearly in a minor role. Alan, with his artist’s eye for composition and content, relished the moment.

  Veronica sat down with the tape recorder in her lap, the microphone pointed towards Ardjani. Barwon hung back, unsure of which group he belonged to – Aboriginal or European. He edged apart from the others, squeezing himself into a seat in a crevice between two rocks.

  Ardjani, with his fine sense of timing, ended the long silence. ‘The Wandjina spirits lay down here.’ Shaking his index finger emphatically at the rock paintings, he began to tell the story of the creation of the earth by the Wandjina. ‘The creator spirits came as Wandjina in human form, and they walked, walked,’ he repeated, ‘making the land as they travelled.’

  Pointing to the halo-like shape around the heads of the painted figures he explained, ‘This lightning and cloud . . . this coming down him like a coat, is rain. The Wandjina is rain god. He has no mouth because it is hidden in mist, and he knows much that is beyond our knowledge and understanding. He speaks to our minds. This mist, here in the painting, separates us from the Wandjina, they have
high understanding above us.’

  Ardjani brushed a hand across his face, drew a breath and, with a stronger voice, he told of how the Wandjina had created the rivers, mountains, trees, landscape and, when their main work was done, they merged themselves into the rock wall to stay forever and watch over the people of their land. ‘This place is like our Garden of Eden, where everything begin, all land, all people, all animals, all plants, in the Barradja country. When the Wandjina come, everything is yorro yorro – standing up new, alive. Here is the seed of our culture, all this is wunggud – earth power place. This is where the wurnan law comes from. Wurnan is the sharing system that links all the Barradja people together, no matter where they gone to. We keep the law in the songs that have been passed down to us, and we hold them, learn from them and trade them on. This is our way.’

  Like an oracle, Ardjani spread his arms, gesturing to one of the figures that was fading in parts. ‘He look sad, this one. No one look after him for long time.’

  ‘We have to fix him,’ said Rusty.

  ‘Okay. We the custodians. We got to come back here and do ceremonies, fix up the paint to make the Wandjina strong, so they can work and look after our country. It is the job of each generation. We need the Wandjina make rain, make everything grow.’

  He moved along the gallery and pointed to a painting. ‘This one is freshwater turtle, he sings of the heart, he is love. And this one is sugarbag, he is the sweetness of life. And all these, they are thunder, rain, and the lightning brothers.’ He swept out his arms again as if to embrace all the paintings. ‘These in our country hold our stories.’

  Ardjani moved to stage right, stepping across the ledge to a cluster of smaller drawings nestling into a niche in the curve of the rock face. ‘I now tell you the story of this one . . . Dhumby.’