The Dig Tree

by Sarah Murgatroyd

  Even if food was plentiful, it was rare for everyone to congregate in the same place unless there were ceremonies to be held. Then several hundred people would gather in special areas to carry out sacred rituals. At the same time there would be feasts, dancing, singing, rock painting and the opportunity for stories, legends and gossip to be related around the campfire.

  Magic formed an intrinsic part of everyday life. Sorcerers could cure illness, change weather patterns and make men and women fall in love. Some could even cast spells powerful enough to cause death. One of the last of the Yawarrawarrka people, a man known as Wilpie, died in 1958 when he was ninety-three. He believed he had been sung to death by a sorcerer from Queensland with whom he had quarrelled the previous year.

  For Aboriginal people life is inextricably bound to the land, its features, rhythms, animals and its spirits. Every man is the owner and custodian of his own territory, a birthright passed down to him through the male line. A person’s identity is forged by their land. The two are inseparable and removal from that place means spiritual as well as physical destruction.

  The Aboriginal philosophy could not have been more different from that of their European visitors. After researching the tribes around the Cooper for many years, historian Helen Tolcher concluded that:

  Time had no past, present or future, but was a single unit within which man moved, either as a spirit awaiting birth, as a human being, or as the spirit of one dead awaiting reincarnation. When they were tired they slept, and when they were hungry they ate; unless the need was urgent a task could be put aside and equally well taken up at dusk, in the morning, or when three floods had passed by. The division of time into regular units had no relevance to this way of life.

  It was the land that shaped the needs of the Aboriginal tribes around the Cooper. The desert imposed a spartan semi-nomadic lifestyle, which was cruel when conditions were bad. It was nevertheless sustainable and enriched by sophisticated social structures and by a wide range of cultural activities. The Aboriginal people adapted, survived and prospered in conditions that defeated many who came later.

  Unaware of the subtleties of this life, Burke’s party travelled through Yandruwandha and Yawarrawarrka territory searching for somewhere to rest and revitalise. The footsore party ambled alongside the creek until it reached a magnificent waterhole, more than a kilometre long, surrounded by grass and teeming with game.

  The Cooper is home to more than two hundred species of birds. Its murky waters hide thirteen types of fish including plump yellowbelly (with flesh as sweet as any whiting), perch and bony bream. Down among the tangled tree roots are yabbies—freshwater crayfish, which taste like small lobsters and are now a delicacy around the world. The Aboriginal people made full use of these resources, trapping the fish and squelching their toes into the mud to feel for freshwater mussels or thukali. They were experts at mimicking the giant unsuspecting emus, which they lured into woven nets. And, as the writer George McIver noted, they were also skilled at catching the local waterbirds:

  The preliminary to capturing whatever ducks he may require is cutting a thick bush. This he places over his head and wades into the water—always at a distance not likely to frighten the birds. If the water is shallow, as is often the case…he will wade towards the birds, and so slowly, with his body underwater and his head concealed by the bush, that the bush which appears to be stationary is all that can be seen by the birds. When near enough, he will grab a duck’s leg from beneath, pull the bird underwater, and while there quickly break its neck. The captured bird rarely utters a sound when it is being pulled underwater. In this way he may capture half a dozen or more, if he so desires without scaring the other birds.

  Aboriginal people supplemented their protein intake with lizards, marsupials and snakes, but the core of their diet came from a wide range of plants and seeds. Local knowledge and persistence revealed mulga apples, succulent native figs, cucumbers, oranges, lemons and millet. There were coolibah seeds, pigweed and, most important of all, a small aquatic fern, resembling a four-leaf clover, known as nardoo, which grows in swampy country and provides seeds that can be ground into a paste and baked.

  After 20,000 years living near the Cooper, the Aboriginal people knew every inch of their land; they understood how it worked and what it had to offer. In the good seasons they ate a nourishing diet, and even during times of drought they could survive on what nature provided. But harvesting the local bush tucker demanded knowledge, skill and patience—qualities conspicuously lacking in the man who now sought to lay claim to the land for European settlement. Burke had no interest in the intricacies and possibilities of his new environment. He had come to conquer, not to learn.

  The arrival of the explorers must have been an astonishing experience for the Yandruwandha, as if aliens had appeared from over the horizon. Their land was suddenly being invaded by strange figures mounted on giant four-legged creatures that snorted and spat their way through the sandhills.

  Today the descendants of the Yandruwandha have long been displaced from their traditional lands, but they still possess much of their tribal history and language. Stories of the explorers’ stay on the Cooper have been passed down through the generations to Arran Patterson and his family. Arran’s great-great-great grandfather Kimi was a young man when the expeditioners arrived at Cooper Creek in November 1860.

  From the Yandruwandha point of view, the explorers behaved rudely. The waterholes along the Cooper were the equivalent of family homes and, as in most societies, Aboriginal people observed certain protocols when entering the territory of others. It was polite to stop a certain distance away and wait for a tribal representative to approach. He would find out where the stranger had come from, what his business was and, most important of all, what totem group he belonged to. Then, a member of that same totem group would come forward and escort the guest into the camp, where he would be fed and looked after. It was acceptable and even expected that ‘foreign’ tribes might visit an area for special events, and particular camping places were set aside for outsiders. Provided the proper courtesies were followed, there was no cause for conflict.

  The Yandruwandha watched in amazement as these new strangers charged straight towards the water and began paddling around in it. They did not call the men ‘whitefellas’ but pirti-pirti, which means ‘red fella’. Presumably Burke and his men were sunburnt after their long march across the desert.

  Wills was to notice that the Aborigines often gesticulated vigorously at them whenever they approached a waterhole. The explorers interpreted this as aggression but, a century and a half later, the Yandruwandha themselves believe their ancestors may have been trying to communicate in sign language, which was used across Aboriginal Australia to bridge the gap between the different tribal dialects. Rather than trying to frighten the men away, the Yandruwandha might have been asking, ‘What are you doing?’, ‘Why are you here?’ or, most pertinent of all, ‘How long are you going to stay?’

  Groups like the Yandruwandha who lived in harsh environments were always anxious to conserve their food supplies, and they moved around so as not to exhaust a particular waterhole. Visitors who camped one or two nights could be tolerated, but what if they were to stay longer?

  In fact the explorers were hardly a danger to the local food supplies. They did little more than take a few pot shots at ducks. Neither Burke nor Wills made any real effort to establish relations with the local people, despite the fact that the Yandruwandha showed no immediate aggression and often approached the explorers with offerings of fish or invitations to dances and ceremonies. All such advances were rejected. The rebuffs were sometimes delivered with a bullet in the air just to make sure the message was clear.

  Burke may have had good reason to fear the Aboriginal people. Tales of their aggression and barbarism were common currency back in Melbourne and it was not unheard of for tribes to attack settlers and in some cases to kill them. He was also justified in worrying about the theft of his equipmen
t, as much of it was highly desirable to the locals. The Aborigines were more inclined to share property than the Europeans, and they expected that their gifts of fish and nardoo would be reciprocated with objects such as knives and axes. These were particularly soughtafter, since the Yandruwandha (in common with all Aboriginal people) had no metal of their own. But, although Burke tossed them a few trinkets, he ignored them as far as he could. Wills was equally dismissive, even cruel in his assessment of the indigenous people:

  A large tribe of blacks came pestering us to go to their camp and have a dance, which we declined. They were very troublesome and nothing but the threat to shoot will keep them away; they are, however, easily frightened, and although finelooking men, decidedly not of a war-like disposition…from the little we saw of them, they appear to be mean-spirited and contemptible in every respect.

  Apart from the fact that Wills’ hostility was unfair, the explorers’ behaviour also robbed them of vital information and squandered any possibility of hiring a local guide. Whilst their actions may make sense when viewed in the context of their age, an age when it was common to regard Aboriginal people as ‘hostile savages’ or ‘ignorant blacks’, Burke and Wills did not have the wit to realise that, whatever their cultural differences, local people were the best judges of their land and its resources. Unlike explorers such as Gregory and Leichhardt, they lacked the vision to see beyond their prejudices. They were in too much of a hurry even to plunder the Cooper’s most precious resource—the wisdom of its indigenous people.

  If Burke and Wills had shown even an ounce of friendliness, they might have begun to understand how to harvest the local food sources. If they had lingered long enough they could have realised how to communicate using smoke signals and messagesticks as the Aborigines did. Would they have learned lessons that changed the course of the expedition?

  Eleven

  A Sense of Perspective

  ‘Some call it desert

  But it is full of life

  Pulsating life

  If one knows where to find it

  In the land I love.’

  Jack Davis—Aboriginal poet

  While Burke and Wills explored the comparative paradise of the Cooper, William Wright made his way back to Menindee. His instructions were to ‘follow-up’ the main party as fast as possible. Out in the desert, swollen with confidence and divorced from reality, this seemed like a good plan. But when he rode back into town on 5 November 1860, Wright realised he was in an impossible situation.

  Burke had plundered the best of the expedition, leaving Hermann Beckler in charge of the ragtag remains. This party of five was now camped eleven kilometres along the Darling River from Menindee, at a shady spot near the junction with Pamamaroo Creek. Signs of the camp can still be found today.

  Wright came back to find that Beckler had disappeared on a botanical expedition to the nearby Scrope’s Ranges. Ludwig Becker was ensconced in his small furnace-like tent, sketching, writing and observing the local wildlife. Everyone else had lapsed into sullen indifference. Apart from taking the animals out to graze, they lounged around in the heat, swore at the flies and escaped to Thomas Paine’s Hotel in search of inspiration at the bottom of a rum bottle.

  Wright was supposedly third-in-command of the most prestigious expedition in Australia, yet he had no written orders, dubious official status and little financial credibility. Solid but uninspiring, he lacked the natural authority of the ruling class and admitted later: ‘I did not rightly know what to do.’ Returning to find ‘a mere station manager’ was now in charge, Beckler refused to accept the appointment until it was confirmed in writing from Melbourne. This placed Wright in an untenable position. He was charged with carrying six tonnes of supplies a distance of 600 kilometres over arid terrain in the middle of summer using: a doctor who refused to accept his command in Herman Beckler; a lame naturalist, Ludwig Becker; the second blacksmith, Alexander MacPherson; a journalist, William Hodgkinson; and Belooch, a dispirited sepoy. The animals were even worse—ten mangy camels and seven feeble horses.

  To mount a decent relief party, Wright calculated that he needed at least ten more strong horses, ten packsaddles and four bullocks for meat. The cost would top £400—more than three years’ wages for a station manager. Conscious that Burke’s men were dependent on him the embattled Wright struggled to assemble a suitable party. Then on 10 November news came that a horseman had ridden into town with urgent dispatches from Melbourne. He was at Thomas Paine’s pub demanding fresh horses.

  Trooper Lyons was nothing if not determined. He was a police officer from Bendigo who had been told to deliver his messages personally to Burke—and that was what he intended to do. Wright objected, arguing it was madness to rush off into the desert without proper preparation, but Lyons insisted he must be allowed to catch up with the main party. The trooper carried with him news of John McDouall Stuart’s retreat from Attack Creek in northern Australia, as well as letters from the Exploration Committee urging Burke to make haste. The dispatches were all unnecessary. Burke knew about Stuart from the newspapers on the Moolgewanke and he was already travelling as fast as he could towards the Gulf. As the argument continued, Wright felt himself at a disadvantage. His advice was sound—but to Lyons he was simply an unco-operative, illiterate sheep farmer who had no authority to flout the committee’s orders.

  Burke had apparently promised Wright that he would stop at least twice on his way to the Cooper to rest his animals, so in the end the station manager agreed that it might just be possible to catch him up. He arranged with Lyons that once the messages were delivered, the trooper would bring back the extra horses and camels Burke had mentioned to shuttle the rest of the supplies up to the Cooper. Wright instructed the blacksmith, Alexander MacPherson, to accompany the trooper, and he enlisted an Aboriginal tracker named Dick to show them the way. On 11 November, the trio set out towards Cooper Creek.

  Burke was restless. Taunted by the unknown terrain to the north of the Cooper, he took off alone on an impromptu reconnaissance mission, but returned without finding water or a way forward. On 16 November Wills took up the challenge, beginning a series of solo journeys to explore the surrounding desert. He soon discovered that the land around the creek was divided into distinct types—none of them particularly appealing to an aspiring explorer.

  In some areas he found huge tracts of sandhill country. It stretched before him like a giant ploughed field of fiery orange, furrowed with salt lakes and claypans that were dotted with small trees and shrubs. In other areas, the sand solidified into rock and Wills had to pick his way through the ‘gibber plains’ that had repulsed Charles Sturt. The surveyor stared out over this vast landscape, feeling the heat that made the air throb and the stones quiver in the sunlight. It was a land without scale. Perspective returned only when a few rocky outcrops appeared on the horizon; their distinctive flat tops offered reassurance and a landmark to aim for. In such an immense intimidating space, they were the only affirmation of progress.

  When the stones relented, open woodland took over. This unexpected feature is now sadly depleted by the loss of topsoil, loosened by the hooves of imported grazing animals and blown into oblivion by the desert winds. Before the cattle stations were set up, fine stands of mulga and gidgee trees were interspersed with patches of grassland around the creek beds and waterholes. Now there are only fences whose posts are suspended in mid-air, dangling in the breeze from rusted wires, as if searching for the soil that once anchored them to the plains.

  Wills returned to the depot disappointed. The waterholes were shrinking fast and there was no obvious way north. Determined to try again, the surveyor decided to take McDonough on his next scouting trip—a journey that nearly proved fatal for both men. After setting out with three camels and travelling 130 kilometres, Wills and McDonough looked for water until they were exhausted. Thinking their camels were just as tired as they were, the two men turned them loose. While McDonough prepared supper, the surveyor settled down to
conduct his scientific observations. To their horror, the camels staged an immediate recovery and the explorers looked on in despair as the ‘exhausted’ animals trotted off into the distance. Wills remarked sardonically that they were ‘not nearly so done up as they appeared to be’.

  Losing the camels put the pair in a desperate position. They were stranded in the extreme heat with no pack animals and thirty-five litres of water in a leaking goatskin bag. Wills and McDonough were forced to abandon all their equipment and search for water on the return trip. Later, in a letter to his sister, Wills admitted, ‘it is dry work travelling in the middle of the day with the temperature varying from 90 degrees to 105 degrees in the shade and about 140 degrees in the sun…I can assure you there is nothing like a walk of this sort to make you appreciate the value of a drink of cold water.’

  The two men trudged fifteen kilometres when, by chance, they found three stagnant pools to replenish their leaking water bag. Over the next two days they marched another 115 kilometres to the creek, stopping for just a few hours to rest when the sun was at its height, and sipping their limited supply of stinking black water. When the exhausted pair reached the Cooper, they had just half a litre of liquid left between them. McDonough conceded that without Wills’ determination he would never have survived the journey. The camels fared rather better. After a year frolicking across the desert, two of the errant beasts were discovered near Adelaide—healthy, happy and, it appeared, none the worse for their experience.

  At Wright’s makeshift camp on the Darling, confusion reigned. In the unrelenting heat, the mood veered from morose lassitude to outright aggression. Petty disputes festered. Hodgkinson in particular seemed to antagonise everyone. Beckler lost patience first with him and then with Ludwig Becker, who was tired and grumpy after too much physical exertion and too little food.