Black Duck, page 8
Lyrebirds somehow managed to stay safe during the fire
While I was working to shift the boat there were hundreds of birds feeding noisily. One White-browed Treecreeper was frantically trying to prise a piece of bark off a Melaleuca. We all love a decent flood.
The rain was heavy overnight and I was working hard to save the road. I had to do a plants workshop with Twofold Aboriginal Corporation in preparation for the new camp park we are building at Jigamy. I got across the water cascading out of the Water Ribbon Dam but worried about getting back.
The water was up to the wheel hubs when I did get back which made me worried about getting off the property to go to Adelaide Writers’ Week.
I decided to open up the hill track the next morning so I could catch the plane. It was still raining and I feared for the road.
I love the Adelaide festival but on one panel I had a gent who was damning with faint praise. One right-wing commentator blew a riot whistle and people went to water as if the people who hate Aboriginal people actually know what they’re talking about. Screaming, shouting and outrage suffices in the place of information.
Fortunately, most people go back to the original reports I referred to in Dark Emu and Convincing Ground and can see how differently they speak about the country and what we were taught in school. But I find it very bruising and disappointing that some in academia are so reluctant to let go of the myth of a bloodless invasion.
Bunjil got back into the duck pen while I was away. And that was a very bloody invasion. Mick came up to the farm to check the road and found the eagle in the yard. He trapped the bird in his jacket and then took a video of himself unwrapping the indignant eagle and releasing it like a fairground magician.
Sir Francis Drake was badly injured so Lyn and our neighbour, Kate, moved all the ducks to her place and put Sir Francis in the apple orchard and gave him a good spray of antiseptic, but he was not looking good.
Meanwhile, I talked about native grains at a workshop and then flew from Adelaide to Canberra and met up with Lyn and we drove on toward Sydney for the second of Unc’s ceremonies.
As we drove toward Wollongong we had to dodge around closed roads and eventually got to the escarpment, awed by the giant cliff faces where brand new waterfalls were springing up everywhere. The rain continued to be heavy and persistent so I was feeling bleak about Sir Francis and the road.
On Saturday 12 March we attended Uncle Max’s service. I was surprised to find it was in Scott Morrison’s evangelical church, but the Gurandgi gathered outside in the gardens and reflected on the old man’s influence on us.
The memorial went for over seven hours and the tension between sections of family overflowed. It was very upsetting.
Gurandgi prepare fire outside the church
After the memorial I had to fly back to Adelaide for the rest of the festival. While I was away Sir Francis died leaving Lyn feeling wretched. I felt pretty wretched too but I had to do a Zoom to receive the Australian Humanist of the Year award, do some media interviews for WOMADelaide and, finally, a panel with Charlie Massy.
I met up with old friends Helen and David at the festival and was overwhelmed by the numbers of Blackfellas coming up to share stories. It lifted my spirits to see their hope and enthusiasm.
Eventually I was able to leave and fly to Canberra and drive home to the farm, grateful that I was able to dodge around all the closed roads.
It is encouraging to do the Zooms and panel shows for sustainable farming and Aboriginal inclusion. I did three today, including one on soil carbon. It is impossible to say no to such worthy causes. Then I had to drive to Melbourne for an event to support the book I wrote with Vicky Shukuroglou, Loving Country.
Democracy’s Slow Wheel
Lyn spent the next few days battling the bureaucracies to begin a mulching program around the perimeter of Mallacoota as a fire prevention measure. The politics is wilting but she has been trying to get this program established since before the big fires. Some blokes want to scorch and bulldoze all the bush and some can’t bear the thought of even the smallest flame, even though many of our orchids depend on fire.
Thelymitra: Sun Orchids were prolific after the fire
This is the information battle required for a nation to learn how to deal with the country they took by force but without respect for the knowledge accumulated over 100,000 years. When that conversation starts, so can the healing of Country and citizens.
While in Melbourne I did another Zoom and then events at the Blak & Bright First Nations Literary Festival at the State Library of Victoria, followed by AgriFutures, Indigenous Knowledge Institute, First Languages Australia and a session with Paul Gordon, an Aboriginal writer and cultural leader.
I really enjoyed talking with Paul, but I felt sorry for the young Koori organisers who do all the work and then have to sit through interminable meetings with their faculties. I miss out on most of that side of the work now and I’m not sorry.
Monarch Caterpillar
Lyn wrote that while fighting the good fight for sensible fire control the difficulty of the tightrope was daunting but she was uplifted when she saw ‘bushes covered in Monarch Caterpillars and their dainty little gold braceleted cocoons. A butterfly emerged, crumpled wings like folded velvet.’ It is those moments of joy and wonder that make tedious work bearable.
On Saturday 19 I spoke with Leah Hills about her RidgeWalk project, a collection of stories about the Yarra Valley. I began my story and enjoyed the total immersion in words although the foundation of the project makes me nervous; editorial by a committee of earnest people.
In the afternoon I went to the MCG and saw Richmond get beaten and then had to walk back to Carlton. It felt like a long way.
I went to Blak & Bright to support other writers including Aunty Barb Nicholson and Aunty Evie. These are old mates whose relentless pursuit of justice for Aboriginal people has inspired me for decades.
I finished the RidgeWalk story and then had a long Zoom with Gurandgi as we tried to tread lightly between the divisions in Uncle’s family.
The next day I met with Melbourne University staff in the Agriculture faculty and spoke with all the Koori students. We began building a strategy to publish Beth Gott’s unpublished papers and I enjoyed honouring the Aboriginal botany work of that old warrior. Beth’s work on Murnong was one of the foundations for Dark Emu.
I had to do a Zoom with the University of Massachusetts on decolonising museums but then had the pleasure of walking through Zena Cumpston’s Emu Sky exhibition, where I was moved to see Badger Bates’s digging sticks and Jonathan Jones’s wooden shovels. I think the shovels, which pre-date the invasion, should really alert Australia to our shared humanity. The human brain coming up with the same object to solve the same problem on different continents.
I’d like to see the shovels and the stone hoes used as a unifying lesson for all Australian students. Forget the huff and puff of those insistent on Western superiority and focus on the shared humanity.
The Wood Grub Philosophy
Above the entrance to the exhibition I was struck by a panel of Aunty Joy Wandin’s painting of Red Gum Grub tunnels beneath bark. I stopped abruptly because it was such a vivid reminder of something I tried to paint myself. I wanted to honour an insect etching on a log that caught my eye while doing a banal interview with someone sent out to do a magazine piece on the farm.
I was stupefied with boredom and turned to the forest as a way of surviving the hour when the pattern captured me. I have drawn, painted and dreamt that etching many times.
I had spoken to Uncle Max about my fascination with these grub etchings and he just smiled and drew one in the dust of the road where we were standing at the time discussing the river divisions at Nimmitabel. He tapped at his drawing until he saw the realisation dawn on me. Grubs drawing rivers on trees.
Aunty Joy’s image was accompanied by the information that Wurundjeri means the grub that etches the red gum. It encouraged me to think of the Yumburra scrawl and Uncle Max’s Nimmitabel drawing as symbols for the farm.
I am so warmed by the Old People’s philosophy. The Old People took as their supreme beings such humble creatures: Wurundjeri, the Wood Grubs; Ganai, Blue Wren; Yuin, Black Duck; Dharug, Murnong tuber. This identification with the small, the modest, holds such promise for a world which takes as its symbols the fierce and the deadly; tigers, snakes, lions, bombers, sharks. Looking close, looking small, reveals a very different way of approaching the world.
I had to do another couple of Zooms and then I finished the RidgeWalk essay and emailed it to Leah but the images of the runes created by blind insects twined and netted in my dreams.
I had breakfast the next day with Marcia Langton and Barry Judd from Melbourne University to talk about holding a seminar about preserving Aboriginal intellectual property in the agricultural sector. It numbs me to think of the difficulty of bringing this about.
I flew to Sydney to receive the Australian Society of Author’s Medal for services to literature. I had a long yarn with Donna Ingram, who did the Welcome to Country, and it calmed me. We then listened to Nyadol Nyuon, the sister of Richmond footballer Bigoa Nyuon, speak about her family’s struggle. I’m not trying to be gratuitous by including Bigoa in a comment about his sister, the lawyer and human rights activist, it is to emphasise what Australia has gained by providing havens for refugees.
Nyadol is a champion, a victor over incredible hardship. Donna and I glanced at each other ruefully. Not because we were cynical, far from it, we were moved by the speech, but Australians often opine about the failure of Aboriginal people to do the same and then look at us sternly. The magnitude of the injury acquired when losing the entire continent and then having your history denied has to be better understood. How could a human brain and heart cope with such total loss? Not just life and limb, but to lose the land your people had ordered you to look after as if it were your mother. And on your watch it was lost! The trauma still reverberates, but we Aboriginal people must resist the place of shame the colony has designated for us. Know your history, practice the culture, resist, live!
And to mark that clarion call I heard that brother Gurandgi Shuluman had just been given a baby girl and that five other Gurandgi are expecting children.
On the Thursday I flew from Sydney to Melbourne and picked up my car. I can’t remember how I had organised for it to be there but it marks the craziness of this schedule.
I drove on to Orbost and did some more filming for ABC’s Movin’ to the Country with Gabby and Chris from Sailors Grave Brewing. As I have explained, they make the beer, Dark Emu, for which we supply the grain. We get a little percentage from the proceeds and it all goes to Aboriginal students who need a little help. Part of the money goes to the GO Foundation created by Adam Goodes and Michael O’Loughlin, both heroes of mine. I took delight in showing my kids that I had Adam’s number in my contacts list.
Adam Goodes was pilloried by football crowds for daring to assert his pride in being Aboriginal. Some critics tried to say that the booing was not because of his skin but because of how he played the game. Had they forgotten he won a grand final for the Sydney Swans while playing on a broken leg? Come on Australia, no more excuses.
One of the students we support has just joined the Swans Academy. We are so proud of her. She’s also a great artist and writer and has won gold medals for rowing. And she dances her traditional dances. Look out!
I finished the filming and drove the extra couple of hours to the farm. There I was greeted by six new ducklings, like Shuluman’s daughter, life insists on living.
Friday 25 I did some more filming for Movin’ to the Country and then did another couple of Zooms on sustainability and Aboriginal employment. Afterwards I took the boat down to Gipsy Point to have a Friday night drink with the town. It was relaxing but I bailed out early to get some sleep.
New life
I named the most colourful duckling Darken after the dog Lyn’s Uncle Bob used to have, another lesser marked duckling has become Dusk and the other, uniform yellow ducklings will have to wait for names until the grandkids are consulted.
I wasn’t picked in Mallacoota’s grand final cricket side! What, Presto, you can’t find a place for a seventy-four-year-old of limited agility whose bowling arm no longer rotates and hasn’t been able to hit the ball off the square for twenty years? It turned out to be a great game anyway. Mallacoota occasionally join forces with Eden to create one team for B grade and this was the case for 2022. It was an incredible celebration as all three Eden grades won their respective grand finals. How many clubs have been able to say that?
I was happy, of course, but it’s not the same if you don’t play and no one can tell you it is. I had my car so I went home early, leaving mayhem behind me. None of those cricketers are likely to see such a result again. It is so hard to do but if anyone is going to do it it is Eden with help from Mallacoota. Both clubs are well run and I have enjoyed two decades of playing in their company. But I’m sad that I’m no longer able to do it. It was a long quiet drive home.
The next day Lyn and I did the Glossy Black-Cockatoo ID count. We didn’t find any birds but did see a lot of trees where they had been feeding. Signs of hope. And, in the spirit of hope, I reinforced the duck house roof with stronger wire mesh. Hope for the ducklings.
I worked on Aboriginal food videos for school kids while Chris and Mook worked on adjusting the threshing machine for our smaller grains. Lyn spent the day doing administration for Black Duck. It absorbs a lot of our time but has to be done until we can find someone else to do it.
The preparation for the arrival of the Murrumbidgee Landcare mob is an example of that work. We need to spread the word but we put in a lot of effort for not much return. We have to charge for these services because, while we’re doing these educational and research programs, we’re not actually doing the regular farm work.
There’s no doubt that it produces rewards for us but they are not monetary. We met the participants at our gate on 31 March and performed a smoking ceremony despite drizzling rain.
We learnt a lot about the catering side of things and thanks to Noel and Trish, did it ourselves, making bread from our grains and cooking our tubers. Everyone was really impressed by the flavours and we were relieved to see how enthusiastically our food was relished.
On April Fool’s Day we took the guests on a forest walk and gardens tour. Chris and Nathan were superb in how they explained the story of the farm and our plans for empowering local community.
Bread cooked in the fire pit for our guests
The morning tea featured our Kangaroo Grass flour Johnny Cakes and they were swooped on by the guests who couldn’t stop talking about them for the rest of the day.
I stayed at Lyn’s house with Noel and Trish and we had breakfast in town at Amy’s cafe. She’s a joy that kid. I’ll never forget how she taught me what shots are one long cricket afternoon at our end of season trip. I was complaining to her that, when washing up, there were small glasses inside bigger glasses. She explained the theory of spirit shots. I was astounded. I’ve never been interested in spirits so I really couldn’t see the point. But her father is a fan, a big fan.
The rain got really heavy so I had to race back to the farm and check that the road culverts were running properly. While I was there I continued the work of cladding a new, more weatherproof, duck house. The girls were nervously fascinated by my interference in their abode.
Rain and Pigeons
April 3 and still raining. My confidence in the roads holding up was fading. Nadgee was still coping but the ground was saturated and you could see runnels of water everywhere. It continued to rain up at Bombala so the rivers would begin to rise and slow the water coming off the land, backing it up into the swamps and dams.
Visitors came to the farm and I found myself having to defend the Wave Hill Walk-off as a rebellion against slavery not an attack on the fabled Australian grazing industry, Sid Kidman and R.M. Williams, the Akubra and the Driza-Bone, the uniform of the iconic Australian cattleman.
Kidman is lauded for drought proofing his herds by taking up more and more land so he could move cattle around the country to wherever there was grass.
But on whose land and at what expense were those cattle moving across the landscape? It was a dismal argument and I made little progress against Australia’s assumption of its glory and mastery of a savage land. My argument is that if those leases couldn’t survive without slave labour, the lease should have been revoked.
Afterwards, I sat on the deck watching the rain and feeling the difficulty of having a reasoned argument in this country. It’s about identity but Australia often shuts off an investigation of fact by an adherence to myth.
Why do some Australians feel so affronted by pale-skinned Aboriginal people? We are their children, our mothers gave birth to their heritage. There is an intelligent discussion to be had here but the press often seems to prefer the heat of conflict, rather than the cool of reason.
While mired in this bleak prospect a White-headed Pigeon landed very clumsily on the verandah rail. They are so beautiful but would never get a job with the Bolshoi Ballet. These birds used to be an exceptionally rare visitor but, as a result of global warming and the different vegetation profiles that are establishing, birds like Crimson Honeyeaters, Channel-billed Cuckoos and others are now common visitors and some may be residents.
We are still struggling with the loss of Uncle Max and the competing personalities and claims are wearing everyone down. It’s a sad fact of death that the living have so much trouble accepting it.
The Mallacoota fire show series People’s Republic of Mallacoota is beginning on ABC TV and it makes for uncomfortable viewing but at least I got to see our lovely dogs, even if Bulla is no longer with us. I miss his blockheaded foolishness and constant positivity. He always thought joy was just a walk around the farm away and he would insist that you joined him in his excitement. Miss you, old mate. You could always make me laugh.
