T G H Strehlow

by Journey to Horseshoe Bend (retail) (epub)

  Strehlow hesitated for a moment. ‘But how will you get on, Mrs Elliot?’ he faltered. ‘You’ve been in the saddle for seven hours already. You must be tired out. You need a good night’s sleep first.’

  ‘Never mind me,’ replied Mrs Elliot firmly. ‘I’m only a girl you might say, and the bush made me tough years ago – I can see the distance out as well as any of the stockboys. No, we must go back tonight. One of the boys and I will carry storm lanterns and ride ahead of the buggy. All your driver has to do is follow the lights.’

  And then she added the final warning, ‘It’ll be a bumpy ride through the table mountain country. Those gutters are pretty rough, and storm lanterns don’t throw much light. But at least it’ll be cool, and we can stop on the track and give you a spell whenever you want one. So please come back with us, won’t you?’

  Strehlow had watched Mrs Eliott with growing admiration. Here was a woman who was not only young and pretty, but strong, athletic, vital, and courageous. Her smile was warm and sincere, and her face still possessed the unspoilt charm of mature girlhood. Slim, tanned, and willowy, she looked almost ten years younger than her real age of thirty years. If she was prepared to stay in the saddle all night, then he too would, in God’s name, nerve himself up for that last terrifying stage to Horseshoe Bend. There he would find proper hotel accommodation and be linked by telephone with Oodnadatta so that he could obtain medical advice at once. And the further promise of a car and a doctor to come up to him had suddenly renewed his downcast spirit.

  ‘Mrs Elliot,’ he said, and his voice sounded unsteady as tears began to dim his red and tired eyes, ‘you have been wonderful, riding seven hours in this heat today. Yes, I’ll come back with you, if you think that you can ride all night as well. And I don’t know how I can thank you and Mr Eliott enough for what you have done for me.’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ replied Mrs Elliot cheerfully. ‘And now, please excuse me. I must rush out and organise everything. As soon as everything is ready, we must go. It will be a long, slow trail back, and the sun is going to be up nice and early tomorrow morning.’

  The station suddenly burst into hectic activity. The mission horses were brought up from the well so that they could be driven behind the buggy as replacements for the Horseshoe Bend team should the need arise. Swags were quickly rolled. Strehlow had a rushed meal with his wife in the log cabin, while Mrs Elliot hurried through hers in the station kitchen. The lanterns were filled with kerosene, and an extra can was taken for replenishment. Experienced hands lifted the sick man’s chair back on the buggy and wired it down securely. Then Strehlow was half assisted, half lifted to his seat, and Heinrich, Mrs Strehlow, and the Hermannsburg driver climbed up on the buggy. Four of the Horseshoe Bend horses were quickly harnessed to the vehicle, and then the travellers left, to the accompaniment of long-drawn-out farewell calls from the Idracowra population. The sun had already gone down, and soon the retreating cloud of dust was lost in the fast-thickening gloom of the approaching night. Then all colour went out from the western sky, and darkness fell over the sun-wearied land.

  Theo and his dark companions retired to rest soon afterwards. They would have to leave Idracowra early next morning if they wanted to do the thirty-five-mile stretch from Idracowra to Horseshoe Bend in one day.

  AT SEVEN O’CLOCK NEXT morning the van was already moving through the luxuriant giant saltbush flat which spread south towards the sandhill edges from the right bank of the Finke. Theo, who had just said goodbye to his last local Aranda acquaintances, felt sad and rather lonely when Idracowra Station faded from his view. The donkeys, refreshed by their three days of rest, moved forward with vigour and determination. The saltbush flat extended east for close on four miles; and somewhere near its centre, about two miles from Idracowra, lay the sacred rain totemic site of Mborawatna. Its name was known throughout the Southern Aranda, Eastern Aranda, and Matuntara areas, many of whose rain sites were linked by myths with Mborawatna. According to the local beliefs, there had been two ancestral camps at Mborawatna at the beginning of time. One had been that of the rain ancestors, the other that of the rain ancestresses. It was the latter who had wielded most of the power to create rain; and the whole plain had been turned into a vast boggy swamp by the fluids pouring forth from their bodies – fluids that had created all the rainclouds in this country ever since the beginning of time. According to the Southern Aranda traditions, rainclouds still formed whenever the hot north-west summer winds swept over the saltbush flat of Mborawatna. At the beginning of time heavy thunderclouds had towered in multi-tiered array over Mborawatna; and the lightning flashes from these clouds had been visible from places a hundred miles distant, and even further. They had hence been seen also from Ilara, on the Palmer River; and two male kangaroo ancestors, who had likewise possessed the power of creating rain, had travelled to Mborawatna from Ilara, carrying a huge waningga whose edges were ablaze with lightning flashes. They had sunk down deeply into the mud as soon as they reached the boggy plain of Mborawatna. To save themselves, they had flung away their heavy waningga. But even this desperate act had proved unavailing. They had in the end sunk completely out of sight in this almost bottomless swamp, and had been forced to continue their further journey underground for many miles till they emerged onto firm ground again near another rain site called Puna. From here they had gone on to join the Loritja kangaroo ancestors at Itinja, near the source of the Goyder River.

  A short distance past Mborawatna the van moved over the saltbush flats of the Kringka, close to its point of entrance into the Finke. The name ‘Kringka’ signified ‘game tracks’ – an appellation explained by the putia myth, which related how a large party of putia or sandhill wallaby ancestors and ancestresses had left their home at Urkatura in the Musgrave Ranges in order to follow an Eastern Aranda messenger from Alatopa who had brought a young novice with him. The messenger and the novice had travelled back from Urkatura surrounded by the male putia ancestors. The putia ancestresses had moved as a separate group, and had performed their women’s ndapa dances over the whole of the distance traversed. After reaching the saltlake north of Pulkura, they had left behind a visible track in the country over which their dancing feet had taken them. Trees and shrubs had been broken down and sandhill crests levelled by this vast party of putia women: the Kringka watercourse was, in fact, believed to represent the trail once carved into a still plastic countryside by the feet of these dancing women. The putia party had paused from time to time at some local sites in the Finke Valley, and had then continued their journey north across the sandhills as far as Alatopa, in the Eastern MacDonnells. Here the novice had been initiated; and the weary putia travellers had thereupon turned into upright stones, which still rose up in considerable numbers at the final mythical campsites of the party.

  The saltbush flat stopped soon after the broad Kringka watercourse had been crossed, and the level of the country began to rise once more. A few miles further on the highest point of this rising ground had been reached. From here a brief glimpse could be gained of Chambers Pillar, where the fierce gecko ancestor Itirkawara had settled down to his last rest. The Pillar, about sixteen miles away, rose high into the air, looking almost like a distant, lopped-off factory chimney. But its shape was blurred by greyish-white heat haze, and the site of Idracowra Station itself was now indicated only by great clouds of red dust. For hot north-west winds had begun to roar over the countryside while the van was passing across the saltbush flat of Mborawatna: the rain ancestresses were awakening from their sleep, and these hot winds were bringing clouds into the sky – clouds that might pour down refreshing showers on this desiccated and parched country within the next few days.

  Beyond the highest point of the rising ground the level of the country sloped down again towards a vast pebble-strewn waste, from which an imposing array of table mountains raised their flat ceremonial crests of solid rock hundreds of feet towards the leaden sky. The van moved down this sloping country with ease; and for the rest o
f the day the party travelled up and down the rises and the falls of this barren waste, often following small watercourses between the bare, stony hills. Except for the two major box gum creeks which ran across this desolate area, the whole country looked like a forbidding desert gripped in the bony clutch of death. Even the trees and shrubs had suddenly vanished from the scene, and only a vast expanse of pebbles and stones stretched out before the eyes of the travellers, hour after weary hour.

  The first of the two box gum creeks that crossed the camel-mail pad followed by the party was known as the Nine Mile Creek, and the second was called the Fifteen Mile Creek. Both creeks figured prominently in the myths of this desolate country which was, according to the Southern Aranda traditions, the land where Death had first come into the world. How this had happened was related in the myth of the two Ntjikantja brothers of Ndapakiljara, a place situated not far from the Finke River several miles below Idracowra. At the beginning of time a shell parrot ancestress was said to have come to Ndapakiljara. She had become pregnant by her own will from the winds that had been blowing upon her. She had given birth to twins, who had later assumed the shape of baby snakes belonging to the greenish-black and venomous ilbaralea species. After giving birth to her twins, the ancestress had once more turned into a shell parrot, soared up into the sky, and left her babies to fend for themselves. The two abandoned brothers grew at a magic pace to their full adult size, and then began to wander into the table mountain country that lay between the Nine Mile and Fifteen Mile Creeks. Sometimes they wandered about in the shape of ilbaralea snakes, sometimes in the guise of young men. When the mother finally returned to them, she swooped down from the sky like a bird, changed back into the shape of a woman, and offered one of her breasts to her sons. The younger brother, incensed at having been abandoned at birth, closed his mouth around her breast, turned himself into a snake, and bit it off. Then he resumed his human shape and hurled the breast to Bagatia, where it turned into a large breast-shaped hill.

  The terrified mother, shrieking with pain, changed into a bird once more. She flew south for hundreds of miles to gather a band of avengers to kill her two treacherous sons. At length she came upon a great horde of Tangka warriors in the Lake Eyre country. These had banded themselves together in order to kill several other totemic ancestors who had perpetrated deeds of crime and murder against their nearest kinsfolk. The advance of the Tangka avengers on their circuitous journey of perhaps six hundred miles or more to the Fifteen Mile Creek was of necessity a very slow one. They suffered severe casualties at Akara in the Simpson Desert, where hundreds of them fell to the spears of two ancestral eagle brothers who had previously murdered their cousin; and only a remnant of them escaped after the eagle brothers had finally had their arms broken by boomerangs thrown by a left-handed Tangka warrior. Even so there were still a hundred or more of them left, when the shell parrot ancestress at this point assumed leadership over them and guided them towards the lair of her sons.

  When the warriors approached the Fifteen Mile Creek, the two Ntjikantja brothers grew afraid. They turned themselves into ilbaralea snakes and sloughed off their skins. These skins, immortal like themselves, immediately became filled with flesh and bones. The brothers ordered these newly-formed snakes to crawl away towards the rough country where the Nine Mile Creek was to originate subsequently. Then they hid themselves till night had fallen. The Tangka warriors, having quenched their thirst at the Undunja waterhole, went on a little further to camp on an open flat at Uralterinja. The brothers came forward to the blazing campfires of the warriors and mingled with them, pretending to be two innocent local young men; and the shell parrot ancestress herself failed to recognise them. Instead she offered herself to all of the southern warriors in turn, in order to strengthen them for their grim purpose: after union with the ancestress no man might flee to save his life, no matter how savagely the Ntjikantja brothers, whose presence at Uralterinja no one suspected, should strike back at him. But the two brothers had a different plan for saving their own lives and for punishing the Tangka avengers. They roused the warriors in the darkest hour of the night and led them to a low rise a short distance away, where they challenged them to a spear-climbing contest. ‘Let each man stab his spear into the ground and attempt to climb up on it into the sky,’ they urged the surprised Tangka men. The southern warriors obeyed; but their spears proved useless for their intentions. At last a faint greying of the eastern sky showed that a new day was approaching. Triumphantly the Ntjikantja brothers thrust their own slim spear known as a walera into the ground. The spear immediately began to shoot upwards. It grew and grew till it touched the sky. At the order of the brothers, the southern warriors attempted to climb up on this magic spear; but they were unable to get very far and leaped down to the ground again. The brothers ordered the last inept warrior to descend, and gripped their walera with their own hands. The elder brother began his climb confidently; and he had no difficulty in penetrating into the vault of the sky. The awe-stricken Tangka men, who had gathered around the magic spear very closely when the elder brother had grasped it, fell back in shocked amazement when they saw his miraculous ascent. For the spear had turned into a serpent that rose into the sky and carried him with it. The younger brother followed in the same effortless manner. From the newly made opening in the sky the command of the Ntjikantja brothers came roaring down to the shocked warriors to pull the spear back to the earth. But none of the Tangka men had the courage to touch the magic weapon. Thereupon the triumphant brothers pulled the spear up into the sky so that no man could follow them. Proudly they proclaimed their new names to their duped enemies. The elder brother assumed the name of Koputangualka, ‘the Bushyhaired One’, from the huge crest of eagle plumes that he was carrying on his head. The younger brother called himself Natnitjintika (‘Climbed Up Sitting’), because he had climbed up into the sky, taking the walera between his legs. Blazing in the sky like two bright stars, the brothers now pronounced the curse that brought Death into the world – first of all to the Tangka warriors and then to all human beings of later ages that were to come after them: ‘You miserable death-doomed wretches, all of you must die now! You may never return from the earth while you are living, and you may never return after you have died!’

  And now the first glimmers of orange and red appeared in the eastern sky. Terrified, the Tangka warriors picked up their useless spears. As soon as the morning light was strong enough for sighting tracks, they began looking for the footprints of the Ntjikantja brothers, not realising that they had just seen them with their own eyes vanishing into the sky. As soon as they sighted the two snakes that had come into being from the sloughed-off skins of the two brothers, the Tangka men rushed forward, killed them, cooked them, and devoured them, flinging only their bones away. After the meal they lay down and rested, happy in the belief that they had accomplished their dreaded errand with unexpected ease. But the bones of the two immortal brothers came together again of their own accord, and soon two ilbaralea snakes crawled away once more. Moreover, their bodies had grown to a much bigger size than before. The surprised Tangka men pursued them again. They killed, cooked, and ate the two snakes as before, and flung their bones away a second time, only to see the snakes returning to full life once more. After several repetitions of this death and rebirth cycle, the two ilbaralea snakes had grown to such vast proportions that the Tangka men no longer dared even to approach them for fear of being swallowed by two gigantic monsters that could not be killed. The track carved out by the fleeing snakes turned into the ever-broadening bed of the Nine Mile Creek. Where this creek entered the Finke, a large waterhole called Tjikara was formed. The two ilbaralea snakes, who had long since turned into huge water serpents, rushed into the depths of this waterhole and disappeared in it forever.

  From that moment of time the two Ntjikantja brothers who had ascended into the sky had looked down in deep malice upon the earth and its human inhabitants in the form of the two Magellanic clouds; and all men and wome
n had been compelled to die at the end of their days. The curse of the Ntjikantja brothers had taken away from mankind all hope of immortality. Uralterinja, the site where the Tangka warriors had made their camp on the edge of the Fifteen Mile Creek, had come to be regarded as accursed ground; and the dwarf box gums standing on it, which vainly tried to grow any taller, showed that the deadly magic of the brothers had saturated with its venom the whole of the camp ground of the southern visitors. The low rise from which the Ntjikantja brothers had made their successful ascent into the sky was looked upon fearfully as the very home of Death. Only men of mature years who belonged to the local snake totems were ever allowed to be taken to this dreaded site on special secret occasions. All men of other totems, as well as all women and children, were banned on pain of death from entering the several square miles of prohibited country that constituted the private domain of Death. Its very name was kept a secret that could be divulged only to the older snake totemic clansmen. To discourage idle speculation and to lessen the danger that curious prowlers might seek to catch an unauthorised glimpse of Death’s own home, the rest of the local population (and this included all younger Southern Aranda snake men who had not yet been shown the secret site) were told the official lie that the Ntjikantja brothers had ascended into the sky at Tjikara.