Strandloper

by Alan Garner

  “Eh! On your shoulders, Grandad. Whatever is it?”

  “That’s for thee to see, and me to know,” said Grandad.

  He woke. He reached for the comfort of the woman, but there was nothing. He started to fall, and his other arm held him. It was morning, and he lay on a branch of the hollow tree. Below him sat the men.

  His face hurt, and he tasted blood at the back of his throat. He lifted his hand. His nose was swollen, and through the middle of it he felt a wooden peg. The men sang and clapped their sticks.

  He looked at his body. It was painted all over red.

  22

  MURRANGURK STOOD ON the shore of Beangala in the Dulur country. He scratched the sand with his spear, making marks. Het. He turned his head and looked at them and scratched again. Het. Beside him, his kal sat, watching. Murrangurk tasted dust and charred wood in his mouth.

  He felt Nullamboin speak to him, and looked up. Nullamboin was sitting under a tree. What are you doing? I smell burnt food.

  I smell nothing, uncle.

  Nullamboin walked down to the shore. His kal followed him. He looked at the scratches.

  “Why do you cut sand?”

  “I am seeing.”

  “But why cut sand?”

  “I am seeing.”

  “That does not make you cut sand.”

  “It is a word,” said Murrangurk.

  “I don’t hear it,” said Nullamboin.

  “It is a word seen.” He scratched again. “Het.”

  “That is not a word.”

  “It is a name,” said Murrangurk.

  “A name? What name?”

  “A woman.”

  “No woman is called ‘Het’! There is no Het among the Beingalite. It is not Wurunjerri-baluk, or Bunurong, or Kurung, or Gunung-Willam, or Jajaurung, or Wotjobaluk, or Gournditch-Mara. Who speaks Het? Where did you hear it?”

  “I can’t see,” said Murrangurk. “It is from before.”

  “When you are dead?”

  Murrangurk looked at the water.

  “I dreamed her: in Tharangalkbek.”

  “What was her name and her People before she died?” said Nullamboin.

  “She wasn’t dead,” said Murrangurk.

  “She was mulla-mullung woman?”

  “No. She did not come by the Rainbow or the Hard Darkness. It was her country.”

  “No man, no woman, is called Het,” said Nullamboin. “It is not a name.”

  “I dreamed her,” said Murrangurk.

  “That is no need to cut sand,” said Nullamboin.

  “It will make the word stay.”

  Nullamboin breathed through his nose and looked at Murrangurk.

  “If you cut sand?”

  “Yes.”

  “If you cut bark?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wood?”

  “Yes.”

  “Rock?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can it be drawn?”

  “Yes.”

  “Show me ‘Mami-ngata’.”

  Murrangurk scratched the sand.

  “That is ‘Mami-ngata’?” said Nullamboin.

  “Yes.”

  “Show me his big name.”

  Murrangurk scratched ‘Bunjil’.

  “That is ‘Bunjil’?”

  “Yes.”

  Nullamboin shouted, and rubbed out the mark with his foot.

  “Is it still there?”

  “No,” said Murrangurk.

  “But you could cut it, in another place, and it could stay? In wood or rock?”

  “Yes. It is how to make words.”

  “And it would be for those to see, if they came, or it could be carried far off and seen by strangers.”

  “It could.”

  “So any girl, or woman, or boy that has not been Smoked, or young man will be able to speak as elders and mulla-mullung?”

  He took a crystal from his bag.

  “What is this for those who do not Dream?”

  Murrangurk scratched ‘wallung’.

  “Wallung?”

  Murrangurk nodded.

  “Now the flesh name.”

  Murrangurk scratched.

  “Thundal?” said Nullamboin.

  “Thundal, uncle.”

  Nullamboin cried out and rubbed the sand. He turned, his kal at his heels, and strode away.

  “Then all will see without knowledge, without teaching, without dying into life! Weak men will sing! Boys will have eagles! All shall be mad! Why have I danced this thing?”

  “Uncle!”

  Murrangurk hurried after him. His kal stayed by the marks.

  A wave washed in from the sea, and Het was gone. The kal followed the men.

  “Uncle! We must go to the fires! A wordholder is coming!”

  “I don’t feel him,” said Nullamboin.

  “You are angry,” said Murrangurk. “But my shoulder tells me.”

  Nullamboin changed direction, and they ran.

  The women and the young men were returning home, and Brairnumin was with them. He was helping to carry the body of a kowir. As Murrangurk and Nullamboin reached them, he called out to Murrangurk, “I heard him, uncle, and my wangim broke his leg, ki! Warrowil speared him, hai! Light the fire!” His filmed eyes were shining stones.

  “A wordholder is coming. He has crossed the Barwin,” said Murrangurk.

  The women and children went to their shelters. The young men stood with their weapons. And the elders sat facing towards the river, and waited.

  The sun was going into its hole when a man appeared, walking. He carried a green branch of peace, one spear and a shield.

  At a distance from the warriors, he sat, and made himself a small fire. Koronn, Nullamboin’s wife, came from her shelter and laid branches on the elders’ fire, and went back to her place. No one spoke. Then, when the waters had risen between them all, the man got up and entered.

  The young men put down their weapons. The man who had come went with Nullamboin to the elders’ fire and talked quietly. The other elders sat apart.

  “He is Tirrawal, of the Kurung,” said Derrimut.

  “He is the Crow brother of the sister of the mother of Koronn,” said Murrangurk.

  When the men had talked at the fire, Nullamboin called the People to him, and they sat and listened.

  “In the Beginning,” said Nullamboin, “when the waters parted and the Ancestors Dreamed all that is, and woke the life that slept, the sky lay on the earth, and the sun could not move, until the Magpie lifted the sky with a stick.”

  “A stick!” said the listeners.

  “And when the Dreaming was done, and each Ancestor made of himself churinga, Mami-ngata had strong poles of bwal set around the sky; and he put the Old Man to look after them and keep them firm, so that the sky should not fall.”

  “Not fall!”

  “Then Mami-ngata trod upon the whirlwind and rode beyond the Bone of the Cloud, and he sits in Tharangalkbek to look upon the living and to guide the dead.”

  “The dead!”

  “Now Tirrawal, Crow brother of the sister of the mother of Koronn, brings dreams.”

  “Brings dreams!”

  “The mulla-mullung of the Mogullumbitch and of the Ballung-Karar say that the Old Man comes to them, and they dream that the poles of bwal beyond their country have rotted and must be made new.”

  “Made new!”

  “The Old Man says they must send wordholders through all the peoples of the world, even as far as the Kerinma and the Gournditch-Mara, to make axes, so that he may cut bwal and save the sky. If he does not have the axes, the sky will fall.”

  “Will fall!”

  The women began to wail and the men to shout.

  “We have no axes to give,” said Derrimut. “How shall we build our fires without wood?”

  “If the sky falls, there will be no fires,” said Nullamboin.

  “Without axes, how shall we carve the trees of the dead?” said Murrangurk. “How shall
they sing their Dreamings and make their spirit ways?”

  “If the sky falls, there will be none to die,” said Nullamboin.

  “Then where will be our Dreaming?” said Murrangurk.

  “There will be no Dreaming,” said Nullamboin.

  “The elders and mulla-mullung must talk of this,” said Murrangurk.

  The young men and the boys stripped the kowir of its feathers and skin, and Nullamboin cut pieces of flesh from the front of the legs and from the back of the thighs and wrapped them in leaves, so that the flesh could be not touched. Brairnumin took the leaves to Murrangurk.

  “Eat, uncle. Here is your kowir. It is time for the fire.”

  Murrangurk blackened his face and sides with charcoal before touching the raw meat that the blind young man put onto the ground, then the bird was taken out to the new fire, so that the women should not see, and the body cut open and parted with flint. Each time a bone was broken, the men gave a shout, and when the flesh and guts were hot, they were brought back. The best piece and the fat were given in honour to Tirrawal. The men rubbed charcoal into their faces and sides before eating the sacred bird, but few spoke, and after, there was no sound but the sob of women and the murmur of the men.

  The elders talked through the night of the dreams that Tirrawal had brought, until the sky awoke. The rug drums and the clapsticks were silent, and the People could not be lifted to song. Murrangurk alone, in the unburnt spirit of kowir, danced the Morning Star.

  23

  TIRRAWAL WENT BACK to his country, and wordholders were sent to the Kaurn-kopan, to the Peek-wurong, the Mukjarawaint and to the Jupa Galk. The elders met, and they decided the talk of the night.

  “If the sky should fall now,” said Derrimut, “the waters would come to cover the land. We shall move to the highest of our ground, and our fires will burn on Morriock in two nights.”

  “We must send to the Kurnaje-berring to talk with Billi-billeri for the stone of Bomjinna,” said Murrangurk. “Who is to go?”

  “Gambeech and Warrowil are of the same skins by their mothers,” said Nullamboin.

  “Shall both go?”

  “Send Gambeech,” said Nullamboin. “He is the man who knows stone. And give him wolard and kowir bags made by Purranmurnin Tallarwurnin to show. Her thread is the strongest.”

  The People moved without noise. Now they were less troubled. To walk the land would give them life, and the land would be made again by their tread. It might hold the sky.

  Murrangurk pulled down the bark of their shelter. Purranmurnin Tallarwurnin had gathered her rugs and bowls and her digging stick and smoothed the fire.

  “We are to talk with Billi-billeri for the stone of Bomjinna,” said Murrangurk. “Give me a bag of wolard and a bag of kowir skin to send.”

  “I can’t find them all,” said Purranmurnin Tallarwurnin. “There has been a thief.”

  “Who of the Beingalite would steal?” said Murrangurk. “Are your eyes dim?”

  “Not my eyes that are dim,” said Purranmurnin Tallarwurnin.

  Murrangurk looked at her, and she was laughing.

  “Why would my nephew do that?” said Murrangurk. “I have taught him the stories of the Beginning, and the names of his flesh spirits and those of the People. I am leading him through the ways of his Dreaming, and I led him to be made a man and held him when he was Smoked. How have I done him wrong that he should steal?”

  Purranmurnin Tallarwurnin put her hand on his cheek. He was crying.

  “He is sad that he may not stand with the warriors.”

  “I may not fight. Yet I do not steal.”

  “Your Dreaming is greater. You must not die again into death. Brairnumin does not steal. He tries to show you that he is a warrior, though he stays with the women in battle.”

  Murrangurk walked outside, in a circle, looking at the ground.

  Hah.

  He raised his head, and sniffed. Then he followed the marks that he had seen. They were straight, and he knew them. He lifted his head again and judged their line by the sun.

  Fool.

  He ran back. The People were ready. Gambeech was with Nullamboin. Murrangurk went to them.

  “Where are the wolard and kowir bags, uncle?” said Gambeech.

  “Kah!”

  Murrangurk took the light shield that Gambeech carried, and the reed spear with the man’s belt and the woman’s apron hanging from it. He bound red cord about his arms below the shoulder, for strength, and put fresh red upon his headband.

  “What are you doing, nephew?” said Nullamboin. “Have you a ghost in you? Where are the bags?”

  “The ghost is not in me,” shouted Murrangurk. “It has the mind of Brairnumin; and he has taken two bags and a wolard skin. I have seen his feet! And if I can’t stop him, he is dead.”

  “What is he doing?”

  “He is walking towards the Wurunjerri-baluk, to be a wordholder to the Kurnaje-berring for Bomjinna stone, so that we may call him warrior! But he does not know the signs of the Wurunjerri-baluk! He thinks that he can be wordholder of peace without spear and belt and apron!”

  “You are not kindred,” said Nullamboin. “It was not for this that I danced and sang.”

  “I carry the signs that are true,” said Murrangurk. “No one can harm them.”

  “There is danger on such a journey from our country,” said Nullamboin. “I smell blood.”

  “When I see the feet of Brairnumin,” Murrangurk sang, “I smell blood. But it is the blood and fire and tearing of my dance, of my song, of my Dreaming, and I must go; or without earth is your dance, and silent your song, and empty your Dreaming.”

  Murrangurk left his kal and followed the tracks out of the camp. Brairnumin had fallen twice and had grazed his leg on a tree, but he was travelling well, keeping his way by the feel of the sun. Murrangurk trotted quietly. Brairnumin would not be far ahead, and he did not want to frighten the young man so that he hurt himself.

  He had stood, and, though the sand had dried, the smell was still strong. Murrangurk walked, making no sound. He came upon a water scrape that was damp, and he had to scoop only once to be able to drink for himself. Now he listened. He could not see any distance, because of the scrub and hummocks of rough ground.

  He listened. Ahead of him he heard what he knew he would find: the steady click click of wangim being knocked together. He moved gently. Around the next dune he saw Brairnumin, two bags on his shoulders, one filled with a rug; his head turned, smelling, and hearing, guided by the sand and the changing echoes of the tapping wood.

  Nephew.

  Brairnumin stopped.

  Uncle.

  Where are you going?

  To Bomjinna, to ask the great man Billi-billeri to let us take stone for axes to stop the sky from falling. I have wolard and kowir skins to show him what we can bring.

  And do you speak Wurunjerri-baluk?

  I am a wordholder in peace, and wordholders are sacred.

  How will you find Bomjinna?

  My brother of my Smoking, the Crow, will tell me.

  Why did you not ask the elders before you left?

  You would not have let me go. You think that I cannot see. But it is only my eyes that are blind.

  Will you let me come? said Murrangurk. Two wordholders and warriors together?

  It would please me, said Brairnumin.

  And I, too, should be pleased, said Murrangurk.

  He put the young man’s hand on his shield to guide him, and they walked for Bomjinna.

  After two days, they came in the evening towards a river, not as big as others they had crossed.

  I see some water, said Brairnumin.

  We shall stay on this side, said Murrangurk. On the other is Wurunjerri-baluk land. It will be a cold night. We must not light a fire.

  I am not cold, said Brairnumin.

  They slept, and, with the Morning Star, Murrangurk searched up the river bank until he found a hollow dead tree. It had three big branches, wi
th holes in them. He took mud from the river and stopped up the holes of one of the branches. Then he took dry and damp grass and made a fire inside the tree, so that the smoke came out of the other two branches.

  What are you doing, uncle? said Brairnumin. Why is there fire in a tree? Are we to catch wolard?

  I am speaking to the Wurunjerri-baluk, said Murrangurk.

  Murrangurk sat on the river bank and watched the trees along the tops of the hills. He put more damp grass on the fire.

  Shall we cross now? said Brairnumin. I feel the warm sun.

  No, said Murrangurk, and watched.

  Now we cross, said Murrangurk.

  Two columns of smoke were rising from a tree on the skyline.

  Murrangurk and Brairnumin swam the river, and walked all day up into the hills. The ground became more broken and wooded, until they were in forest.

  As the light died, Murrangurk said, We must find their shelters. Tell me when you see fire.

  It is the length of sunset over there, said Brairnumin, and they will eat a male koim tonight.

  Soon even Murrangurk could smell the burning wood, and when he saw light through the trees he stopped and put his hand on Brairnumin’s lips. He lifted the shield and tapped it four times with the butt of the spear, paused, and tapped again twice. He waited, listening. There was silence. Then came answering taps: four, and two.

  Murrangurk and Brairnumin went forwards, careful not to be silent. The light fell upon them, and they sat. When the waters had risen, they entered, Murrangurk holding the decorated spear high before him.

  A voice spoke from the fire.

  “Murrangurk, it is a long time since the wind blew the mark of your steps away.”

  24

  FROM THE FIRES the track led them upwards, always upwards, into forest where the trees grew taller, and the light was fainter, and cloud drifted everywhere. They shivered with the dank. And then the cloud was small rain, and wind blew gently and cold and quiet.

  Murrangurk raised the spear of the wordholder upright, so that it was the first thing for anyone to see, and they trod on sticks that snapped.

  There are men, said Brairnumin with his body.

  Do not be afraid, said Murrangurk.

  They climbed all day, and the ground became stony, with black rocks lying among the leaves.