Black Duck, page 16
Lyn and I and Terry made another attempt on 11 August. We tried coming from the east but it was too rough so we went back to the western side and climbed again. Terry and I got to the top but once again the spears were clashing. We were about to inspect the northeast side when a huge ink black cloud loomed in from the west and we scuttled back down the track, picking up Lyn as we went and just got back before the storm smashed onto the top of the car.
Next time Terry and I are going to camp at the base and climb in the still of the dawn. Once we have seen the story Uncle left for me in code there are several other mountains we have to climb, chapters of a bigger story.
Part of Uncle’s aim was to record how much of the coast can be seen from each peak. It was only a small element of the task but it was to be part of his plan to recreate the trail of smoke old Aboriginal people sent up as they communicated the progress of Captain Cook’s Endeavour sailing up the east coast in 1770.
We were well into that plan when the 2019 bushfires put a stop to it. We began again after the fires but then Uncle ‘left his suitcase behind’ and began a journey in the afterworld. Soon we will begin that project again so that Australia can experience the Invasion from our point of view, share the moment in history from both sides. Healing.
Yellow-faced Honeyeater
The Yellow-faced Honeyeater had been calling for a fortnight in the forest on the north boundary. It is a bold, insistent call and I always associate it with summer. Those months were not with us yet but one honeyeater was laying the platform for his summer lore.
The plovers and Mudlarks had also become very antsy; it was that time of year. The Wonga too was in full voice and that morning I saw two swallows mating after which the female gave a call. I pay a lot of attention to what Giyong Budjarn (Welcome Swallow) has to say, but I’d never heard this song before. It stayed with me all day.
Yellow-faced Honeyeater (Leonie Daws)
The Jacky Winter’s song changed from its winter call of peter, peter, peter to a more complex lyric. The whole district was preparing itself for the fecundity of spring.
I went for a long walk in freezing conditions to where I knew Mick was building a track for the son of News Corp’s New York director. After a decade of being hammered by that climate denying, Trump loving, black hating scandal rag they move in next door. What are the chances? I feel as if the river has been defiled. It is so wild and remote we thought we were free from the rich, but no, they have their tentacles everywhere; Jungaa (the octopus).
The cold gets into my bones more easily these days and I was morose as I trudged back through the sodden bush.
I got a call from Chris and Terry who were up at Narrabri, north-central New South Wales, showing the local mob how to use the harvester on their grain crops. We get on really well with Kerrie Saunders but there are some white academics working there who are scathing and insulting about Aboriginal knowledge and sovereignty.
Chris was upset by the insults but it happens to us all the time. Some white people get a sniff of Aboriginal culture and knowledge and overnight they become the experts, and not long after that, the owner. We have to guard against it all the time. But the personal attacks still sting.
I lightly roasted some Munyang for tea, so sweet and crunchy. The sugars caramelised on the outside of the tuber, candying their sweetness. It was such a mild and lovely evening and the Garramagang (magpies) and currawongs were noisy right through the night.
The next morning three galahs flew into the Lucerne tree and began cracking seeds. The seeds were still green and I wondered how they digest them. They didn’t feed long so perhaps they had to get some drier roughage to help their crop break the seeds down.
As I made an extra nesting box for the ducks, I could hear the Yellow-faced Honeyeater again and the very thought of warmer weather being beckoned cheered me up.
The ducks have a favourite nesting box and squabble over it so I tried to make something similar to ease community tensions.
Nathan saw two golden dingoes on the northern boundary. The kangaroos are nervous but I love the fact that these wild canines still exist here.
One curious duck
Nikeysha Lansborough came to work today to see how she liked it. She’s a good young kid but school doesn’t appeal to her so we hope she can settle into the farm work. Nikeysha’s family are the Mongtas with strong Ngarigo connections to coast and mountains.
Lyn and I travelled to Apollo Bay to see Jack, Shell and Lily. I played Ravel’s Boléro on the way and was, once again, entranced by its form. It takes over the soundtrack of my life and colours everything it touches, everything moves to the insistence of its rhythm. I have heard people say it is boring and repetitive but perhaps they haven’t been watching Country while they listened.
We loved seeing Jack and Shell and having Lily show us her ‘school’ and everything in her yard. Wangarabell and I reclined on a couch with Lily and read stories. Wangarabell hardly woke but she was good company.
Jack and I did a cultural burn on the block of land we have at Cape Otway. It is wild country but we were able to burn so safely that Lily would leave her game of buried treasure and walk up to us at the edge of the flames and report on her progress.
This is what our burns should be, calm, peaceful activities with the sounds of children’s voices and laughter and the amiable snuffling of dogs.
When the CFA fights we put on uniforms; it is as if we are going to war. The vehicles are set up with sirens and disaster survival protection. All of it necessary for the danger of modern fire, but the ancient fire is safe and comfortable and is complemented by children and dogs and chicken sandwiches.
Australia seems ready to embrace this style of care but it is expensive because it requires a series of cool fires in winter managed by squads of Blackfellas and their children. Can the exchequer get its head around the economy of safe fire? One of my neighbours has begun burning in this way too and it makes us all safer and the bush more like the old, open park-like Aboriginal forest.
Jack and Lily walking with fire
Does Australia want to pay fire soldiers with all their gadgetry or Blackfellas in summer shirts working in the bush every possible day? Let’s get the accountants on to it, because I bet our way is cheaper and you don’t have Ash Wednesdays and Black Saturdays. It will take decades of hard work but will create a safer and more productive Australia. The grass we make flour from grows in response to gentle fire. We will be able to eat our new safety.
The morning after I got back to Yumburra from Apollo Bay the air was a cacophony of Garramagang, currawongs, bowerbirds and Mudlarks. On the drive home I did three Zooms about language, food and the environment and this morning I did another two, but the reason for them is that so many Australians are on the brink of changing their mind about how to live on this continent. Black people must support them. White people must honour our trust.
One of my old school students is a plumber, Les Bruce. He came out all this way to fix a problem with the solar hot water service. I introduced him to the fellas who were processing seed in the old Cream Shed.
Les was impressed and I thought how important it is for Australians to learn about this way of caring for Country. Les is from one of Mallacoota’s old fishing families, many of whom have interesting relations, and I doubt that Les and I vote for the same people, but he is a generous soul and there is no reason for us not to agree on most things, like decency and hard work. I try to keep up my side of the hard work but sometimes I get weary and jaded.
The currawongs and bowerbirds were still feeding on the grass in their spatially separated matrix. I watched them closely to try and understand the scheme. The farm is often a lonely place so these creatures are my friends.
My sombre mood lends itself to the music of Satie and Brenda Gifford as I worked on the star book. The weather was still cool but the Lucerne tree was looking magnificent with a cloak of white flowers. As I went into Genoa to pick up my mail I saw a lovely golden dingo near the bridge in Maree’s paddock.
I flew to Byron Bay for the writers festival and got there late and sat in the tropical garden trying to understand how to order food by QR code. Whatever happened to English?
A young waiter must have looked at my clothes and boots and thought, yokel, and brought me a beer unbidden. It was the act of an angel. The only thing I could order at that hour was chicken wings but they were delicious.
The festival is a favourite of mine. I should be philosophically opposed to the hyper-hip Byron but it’s too beguiling. Blackfella writer mates are always there and we yarn and have a drink and a bit of food and just laugh, laugh, laugh. Such a relief.
Julie Clark arrived after getting back from visiting her daughter and grandson in Fiji. Julie is a very close friend and one of the minds I turn to when I need an intelligent answer. She came back to sort out the papers of her late husband, Richard Neville, but then went to a party in the hills full of very wealthy and famous people so that I could interview a man about a massacre of Aboriginal people on one of the beaches in North Queensland during World War II.
It is his mother’s story and I have been chasing it for a few years now but it is always just out of reach. The mother is ill or she’s about to record her memories or the son is too busy to dig out the pile of documents.
A massacre of Aboriginal people seems to be hovering on the edge of Australia’s consciousness while a family fiddles about in the attic. I find it so upsetting that such a significant event is being treated so casually.
Julie has such a great mind. Her company is so important to me. She has a wry intelligence, as sharp as the edge of a ground pipi shell, but it is interrupted by exquisite jokes. And she knows everyone. We had a drink in the bar and Bryan Brown said hullo, Rachel Ward yarned for hours, everyone who is anyone loves Julie. It is entrancing watching this incredibly modest woman negotiate the richest and most famous. And she knows books and writing so deeply. It was no accident that she was an editor in New York. This is such a foreign world to me but I am swept up by the talk and opinions.
Young Corey Tutt rocked up too. Corey wrote The First Scientists. He has a brilliant mind but talks at a million miles an hour. I love the fact that these young Blackfellas are appearing at literary festivals and providing Aboriginal knowledge for readers.
On the way home I had a really good yarn with Van Badham, another of Julie’s friends. She has made an incredibly brave stance on exposing the corruption of the internet. I understood what her position had cost her and was full of admiration.
Festivals are rich in conversation and I always love them but I caught the flu.
I tried to organise a tortuous travel schedule for the following week as well as write changes for my play, Cutter and Coota. The First Languages Australia board are also very busy with new staff appointments.
Gurandgi Dean Kelly’s father had died and we’re trying to support Cooma’s film Where the Water Starts as well as contribute to his land restoration work. Part of the responsibility of Gurandgi is to support the work of our brothers. It’s the lore.
I became very ill and had to take to my bed to read manuscripts sent by young black writers. Their work is such an inspiration but I’m struggling to concentrate.
Bunjil, the Wedge-tailed Eagle, was wheeling about and Galoo, the White-faced Herons, were cruising about in their languid flap and drift courting dance. Giyong Budjarn, the Welcome Swallow, was nesting and I saw one fly about with a white feather which it kept dropping and retrieving. If it’s a signal or advertisement it is very eye-catching.
I did a Covid test, negative, but had to sleep for a bit as I felt so doggy. Dale Winward’s school group came over from his farm to learn about Murnong and Munyang, so I had to get up. Fortunately, they were keen weeders and will be back the next day. Chris and Terry will cook them a loaf of bread made from our flour.
I learnt that some Aboriginal people are closing down any discussion of the Wurdi Youang site near the You Yangs. I know that community have to keep some elements of their culture to themselves but this site is of world importance as it shows an ancient relationship with celestial knowledge. I had always hoped it would help Australians better understand the culture they had dispossessed. There is so much to do, so many sensitivities to negotiate.
Lyn’s painting of the Moon Rise
The moon rose in the west and in the morning, 1 September, I heard the first Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike of the season. The wing shuffler is a favourite bird of mine and it made me realise that this book should be the story of birds, fish and animals. While Dale’s Steiner school kids were around, I saw the Nankeen Kestrel land in the big dead tree in front of the house. As Uncle always reminded us, nothing is ever really dead and this old, leafless tree is a focus of so much life.
I gave each of the kids one of my adolescent novels and the school-teacher with them told me that my collection of stories, Salt, was the last book her father had read before he died.
I thought of that man’s bedside book as I counted thirty kangaroos grazing on the flat near the Cumbungi Dam. The Koon ar rook (Wood Ducks) were pairing off and feeding together. The male walked behind her and didn’t eat much himself but looked about, forever vigilant, while she plumped up.
The trip to Sydney was plagued by travel chaos but I finally got to speak to the university students who had been studying the Cutter and Coota play. After that session I tried to fly back home but the flight was cancelled and I had to haul my bags down to the good old Mantra Hotel feeling pretty crook.
When I got back home, completely wrecked, I did a Covid test: positive. I rang Lyn and she brought over some soup but I was too sick to eat any.
In the last few months several neighbours had died and I missed them. You can see the way my thoughts were drifting. Maree Brackley down at the bridge. Barbara Triggs out at Dead Finish and Dawn Joiner at Redbanks. With so much of the past disappearing I felt lonely and maudlin.
I stayed in bed all the next day and kept hearing tap tap tap at the window. I thought it was the Mudlarks clipping spiders off the glass but they were in fact looking in the mirror of the verandah glass and fighting off the very handsome male on the other side.
I forced myself to go for a walk and found a host of Nodding Greenhoods up near Bun Bun Gungwan. As I was walking back home I thought I saw Paul Davis’s boat going upstream, a distinctive blue plastic vessel. Paul passed away suddenly a couple of months ago, so to see his boat triggered my memories of such a young father dying. I taught with his mum decades ago at Mallacoota. It is hard not to be affected by local deaths.
Lyn tested positive too and took to her bed. The online nurses were fantastic. People whinge about public health but I think the state looks after us very well and that is why I have always loved paying tax. I don’t understand why people resent paying for their mother’s hospitalisation and their children’s schooling.
I went by boat to Lyn’s to help her with dinner but she was much better than me, having caught her infection early and therefore able to receive the benefit of the anti-virals.
I was working on language Zooms at the farm over a couple of days but after the last one finished I went straight to bed, not being able to look at food or even a beer. And, as my family know, that is a sign I am close to death!
Good old Mick was back to grading the track. I could hear his machines grinding away down near the Water Ribbon dam and every now and then I checked his progress from my bed. Geez, I was crook.
The Queen died last night. Bloody hell, everyone is falling off the perch.
I drove up to the Snowy Mountains because Cooma was taking us on a cultural tour of sites we have to see so that he can give us part of their story.
Lyn was battling the Emergency Services Victoria bureaucrats to sway them to the view of burning more regularly and with less intensity. They all nod their heads pleasantly, but do nothing.
Lightning and Thunder
From Cooma, the Gurandgi drove west to view the valley systems from a lookout on a bluff. The Snowy River starts near the Pinch and we followed it downstream to a point where we could cross it in a raft. We were there to investigate the Emu, Lyrebird and Eagle story.
As soon as we set foot on the other side, three Gungwan (emus) came down to inspect us. They stayed with us for some time before moving on and we took this as a welcome and followed a series of scar and modified trees through the site. This Country was badly burnt during the fires and some significant trees have been lost but it remains really powerful Country, marked by the spiritual intensity of the people.
Cooma took us back across the river and we climbed out of the valley to a site between the Bobundara River and Dalgety where two conflicting brothers were punished for their selfish and needless fighting.
Mirribi was turned into a hill comprising red ochre and Malaba into a white hill as Dharama, the great creator, became frustrated by the brother’s continuous and wasteful bickering. He urged them not to waste their energies but rather contribute that energy to the community, but like many men they persisted in their useless enmity.
The fighting resulted in Malaba losing a leg and the recovery from his injury marks the landscape. Mirribi was still jealous of his more athletic brother, who despite his injury could still dance. This infuriated Mirribi and he tried to go one better in the disability stakes but didn’t have the fortitude. Dharama was thoroughly tired of their selfishness and stepped in to turn them into rather nondescript hills.
You can see that I have had to prune the detail for cultural reasons but for Gurandgi standing on that freezing windswept plain it was a lesson that had relevance and impact. Male ego. It has to be restrained, it has to be creative, it has to be directed to the good of community.
