True Country Page 6

  The day of the dance arrived. So did the guests. Two educational advisors for the Aboriginal Development Commission sat in the plastic chairs put out for the occasion, nestling their expensive video cameras in their laps. Gerrard and Father Paul, vying as hosts, sat with them. We teachers busied ourselves organising the children, and attempting to organise the adults. Most of the mission staff were there, as was the storekeeper and a couple of pilots. Those of the local population not directly involved in the dance or the school, stayed away on the fringes, under the trees or leaning on the weary wire fence. To all the visitors, at least, they seemed but thin shadows.

  Only the males were to dance. I helped the boys into appropriate dress. Alex had found a heap of ‘lap-lap’ things in the storeroom, all a uniform colour, which we were using. I got all the young boys into line and led them over to where the adults were, behind another classroom from where they would commence.

  Today, unlike the earlier practice sessions, all the adult males had turned up. Alex was anxious. Samson, with his long hair and straggly white beard, seemed the leader. But there was one particularly old man among them. He sat on the ground amid the swirl of painted bodies, grinning and laughing, watching, sometimes scowling and shouting. It was Walanguh, Fatima’s husband. I thought his mind must be going, but there was no doubt he was taking a keen interest, and Samson regularly went to him.

  Alex shouted at the children, and laughed loudly with the men, slapping them on the back. As the dancing was about to begin he walked away, his clipboard again pounding his thigh, his face grim, and joined the others on the plastic chairs.

  I remained, trying to prevent the younger boys from running around too much. Then Samson took over. His yelled orders became more theatrical as he ushered the group from behind the building. Most of the young men were his sons or nephews. The high school boys, with the exception of Deslie, had declined to dance. The older women were singing, clapping their hands, and swaying their hips. Some of the schoolgirls joined in with reluctance and embarrassment, and some just buried their faces in their hands and giggled.

  At times Samson reminded me, incongruously, of a character from a music hall comedy as he shouted in a mixture of English and his own language at the others, and acted the part of an old woman, or, most melodramatically, that of a man full of spears. Samson was an entertainer, playing to his audience.

  The black and painted bodies ranged from those of five year olds to aged men. The very old men sat and sang, Walanguh at their centre. The women and girls also sang, rocking rhythmically.

  Our two visitors, overweight and soft in their cotton pastels, seemed impressed. They held their cameras erect, their jaws flaccid.

  ‘Who them buggers?’ one of the dancers asked as he rested behind the classroom.

  ‘How come gardiya don’t dance?’ asked Deslie.

  Laughing and teasing, the men easily persuaded me to join in the last of the dances. ‘All safe ones these, nothing,’ Samson told me. I took off my shoes and socks. I felt ridiculously free, pounding my feet among them, seeing, across the shoulders before me, the row of plastic chairs, and the pale furrowed brows sweating in the sun. The sound of the tapping sticks that Walanguh wielded seemed unnaturally loud. Fatima nodded at me.

  Samson sat on the step behind the classroom and swore. ‘I’m a dancer, man! An artist, you know. I need to be paid!’ His long grey hair swung as he shook his head in disgust. ‘Who them half-castes with cameras, eh? They show that film somewhere, good for them, eh? Maybe make some money, and laugh at us. We stupid blackfellas dance for them. That other principal, last year, he pay us. What’s wrong with this fella, eh?’

  I was embarrassed. I didn’t know. I said I didn’t know.

  ‘Well that went all right then.’ Alex was so relieved, and surprised, that he couldn’t quite make a decisive statement. He was shifting sprinklers around the grounds when I met him in the late afternoon. ‘Bit of trouble with that old bastard Samson though,’ he continued. ‘Thought he was going to have a go at me for a bit. They reckon they want to keep their culture going, and use school time and that, but then they want to get paid for it. Bloody hypocrites! We won’t pay ’em. They gotta play the game, do the right thing.’

  ‘Yeah. It’s complex, it’s a problem...’ I began.

  Alex drew himself up to his full height and pulled his head back on his shoulders in that strange way he had, of moving like a stringed puppet. He was shirtless in the late afternoon heat. He pulled in his stomach, tilted his head to one side, and pointed a finger at me. ‘Well don’t you worry about that. It’s my problem. You just get that class of yours busy, and learning. Working hard, you know, go go go!’ He mimed a student apparently copying notes from the board. ‘I’ll deal with the community, and these shifty bastards like Samson.’

  We may Fly and Sing

  Sebastian and Fatima came to the school late one afternoon. The room which Liz and I were in at the time overlooked an expanse of the schoolyard over which they would have walked, but neither of us noticed them until we heard a cough and looked to see them standing in the doorway.

  A third person stood between the two of them. A young woman. Her make-up was obvious, both because it was unusual to see it used in this community, and because it was so generously applied. Her clothing was evidently new, and clung to her thin body. She stood facing slightly away, only turning to squarely face us as her name was spoken. She trailed one hand on the doorframe as she entered the room. She was silent for most of the conversation, and, as Liz said afterwards, it was hard to determine whether this was because of her diffidence, or her disinterest.

  As soon as we were introduced I recognised the name. Gabriella. Fatima and some of the students had spoken of her. As far as I could work out she had been raised by the Sisters at the mission after her mother was killed. She’d attended a primary school in Perth, but had suddenly, in her adolescence, started getting into trouble and had been shifted from school to school until she had come back to live with Fatima. The Sisters had wanted her to be a nun, and still spoke of their disappointment in her. She had helped in the school here for a few years, and Father Paul had arranged for her to go to university in Melbourne. He knew people there she could board with, and there were special bridging courses available. Gabriella had, apparently, wanted to become an accountant, or a teacher, and to come back to Karnama and live in a house like those the teachers had.

  Sebastian said he wanted a woodworking plane. He was making a didgeridoo. We went over to the school workshop to get one, leaving Liz in that classroom full of books.

  Gabriella asked me about the tapings I was doing with Fatima. I said that I intended transcribing them for the students to read, when I could find time. And that I simply enjoyed listening, and the idea of writing them up attracted me.

  Fatima brought out the small tape recorder I’d lent her, saying that she usually kept it with her. The batteries were flat. We put new batteries in it and I inserted a fresh cassette. Sebastian said, ‘So, just turn ’im on and speak?’ And he did. Well, the two of them did. And occasionally I, and less often Gabriella, prompted them.

  But, later, when I read some of this aloud to the students, trying on the voices, they listened closely and were attentive to the text. They grinned at one another. Sometimes they recognised the original speaker. ‘He sounds like...’

  All these stories I tell you happened in true life. Old people used to have black magic. They used to kill or destroy anybody. Or they used to find out what animal killed that bloke and then go after it and kill it, you know. They dream it. They go and they sleep and they dream it and they go kill that thing, crocodile or shark or whatever.

  Like Walanguh, maybe. His daddy had the power, that’s for sure. When I was a boy I saw that for myself. One bloke, in Pako, he was proper bitten by shark, and you could see the bone in his legs. He pass away, after a time he pass away.

  And that old man, the one who is father for Walanguh, he dream he catch that sh
ark. That same shark that bite the man. In his dream he been catch that shark with a big fishing line, and he pull him in all the way, all the way up the beach. High and dry. It was a big one, very long and heavy.

  He told the people after, in the morning, ‘You go to that beach by barge landing and you see the big shark there.’ And all the people, all of them, missionaries with them too, all the people went there. They went to the beach and they saw that big shark laying on the beach. Dead.

  Old people, they had that power.

  And he die too, that man. Long time, he die. Father of Walanguh. He was a flying fox up Dresfield way. He make himself a flying fox and he there, hanging in that tree next to the river. But maybe he stay like that too long, or stop thinking proper. And a crocodile get him. A big crocodile swim across and wait for him to fall, get him, eat him up.

  Walanguh went up there. He was a young man—this is long time you know—he was a young man, strong and laughing all the time. But he stop in the middle of his laughing one day, and he went away upriver and he saw the tracks of his father. He found the tracks of his father, and then, no tracks. He saw flying fox there, biggest mob. He say, ‘Oh, my father been here.’

  And he look, and he see the spirit of his father sitting on top of that crocodile. Sitting on that crocodile back just like sitting on a log in the water. That dead man show himself like that. So Walanguh say, ‘Ah, that’s the one.’

  He went back here, he tell all the people, ‘Crocodile eat my father.’

  All right. Night-time come. He been sleeping. And he dream. He dream he grab that crocodile with a big fishing line, and he walk that crocodile, he been pull him all the way to the marsh and leave him there in the sun, upside down.

  Walanguh, he wake up and say, ‘Crawl through those little trees at that marsh and see. Maybe crocodile in there.’

  Well, they have a look. They see crocodile lying there with swollen guts. And they been find bones, everything in that crocodile guts.

  Old days people could make magic. That’s true. That’s no story, it’s true story.

  The old people they had a lot of magic in them.

  They even fly in the air. Sometimes like a balloon, a bird, like a snake, even just like themselves. And sometimes they have a real snake crawling on the ground and magic one flying above it. And you be watching that snake flying overhead and you wouldn’t know a real one is on the ground following it. On the ground just having to come across and bite you.

  And when they fly you usually feel the wind blowing, you know. A nice cold wind. Then you know that someone is flying to kill somebody. They usually do that flying in the night, to kill someone, because they can’t look down at own shadow. Not even allow to fly when it’s moonlight. They fly when it’s big dark, no moon around. Special times, or a powerful one, like one who can make himself invisible, maybe he fly just ’bout anytime.

  Or they sing a song, you know, a magic song. Then a bloke has an accident in a car, or somebody just has to get silly and hit ’im on the head with a rock and kill ’im. All this they still use today, people like old Walanguh maybe. So there’s still a lot around, mainly when everybody get drunk and fight with somebody and hit the wrong fella and then a bloke find out one of his family is dead or the whole family find him dead. So all these stories are true. They still do it today and they try keep getting their culture growing more strong. When they do all this Law stuff, initiation stuff, they get stronger from that too.

  Now, maybe initiate bit different. Them young boys, Deslie and them, we send them to hospital to get cut, you know. And ones like Gabriella—girls can make our future too, you know—they wanted her be a Sister for the mission. But she getting educated her own way now. So, maybe the way’s bit different to the way we accepted. It’s hard to say. We believe there’s two, three steps that you gotta go.

  But there’s not so much around now. It’s harder now. Now some people still have their magic, but they don’t see anybody looking for trouble with them. They don’t see anybody killing one of their family, or breaking big laws. It’s not just simple now. There be all kinds of little things. Maybe someone did a bit wrong this way, but he did it because of this other thing, or another way he did good. Or he be just young, or silly. And some of the young people start not believing. Then they do anything, have nothing.

  Not just young ones doing anykind. Old ones too. Francis, Franny, you know him have Moses for father? Well, Moses not really his father, he just act like he is. And he love him like a father. That boy not right, you know. Understand? Well his father, real father, he no longer with us here. So ... that’s why Franny be like that, like he is. Little boy with a big body, not right and bit silly. Can’t see too good and little bit deaf too.

  That happens when people got no respect and don’t listen to what they’re told to, understand?

  I looked at Gabriella; her jaw clenched, her stare not here.

  But Who’s Tellin’ this Story?

  That short teacher bloke, he bit like us, but—he Nyungar or what? Look at him, he could be. Why’s he wanna know things?

  He get to school proper early anyway, sun-up even. Sebastian, he say he see him then at the school. Sebastian just sitting making fire, you know, making tea. He see him.

  He get one of the kids with him, go out and get the lazy kids that still sleeping. Lazy those kids. Their mums, dads, still sleeping. That teacher, what’s him name? Billy? He goes and he gets ’em, the big ones mostly, them boys over in Moses’ house.

  Dry season: early morning cool, and I left the first footprints in the dew on the lawn. More and more appeared, those footprints increased until there were tracks everywhere, crisscrossing dark green on the silver sheen of the dew.

  Deslie was usually the first of the high school kids to arrive. Our prints intersected at the door of the classroom.

  A siren sounded each morning, just before seven, to signal that it was almost time to start work. School started at seven. Kids would arrive dream mumbling, stiff legged and stumbling, knuckling their puffy eyes.

  Many of the young people wore bracelets made from the rubber sealing rings of opened fuel drums. Pieces of coloured cloth would be knotted around thighs, wrists, or worn as headbands. Fashions changed as far as they could according to what was worn on the videos and what was available in such a small community. Everyone liked to wear bits of army uniform they got from brothers or cousins—it was only ever males—who’d been away with Norforce, the Army Reserve.

  We often went to wake the students to get them to school. The school staff discussed whether to begin school at a later time, especially in the dry season when the mornings were cool. It was not like the past when the mission generator supplied electricity and Brother Tom would turn off the generator soon after dark. Now many of the students sat up late watching videos. Some of the newer houses were even air-conditioned. We decided not to change the school hours. Alex pointed out the need to learn to work to the clock. And there were advantages to having long afternoons, especially once we got television reception, courtesy of a satellite dish donated to us because of our status as the most isolated school in Australia. The teachers’ houses were incorporated into the school connection.

  One particular morning I sat at my desk in the classroom and watched Deslie push open the gate which led to the high school area. It leaned on its hinges and had strands of barbed wire on its upper section. It was difficult to open. Deslie struggled only a little, evidence of years of practice.

  He got to the classroom door and stopped. Slowly the door opened and his head appeared around its edge at about waist height. He grinned from his crouched position as he saw me looking at him. He put on his school T-shirt.

  ‘Use the computer sir?’ The students took to the computers enthusiastically, especially before school when we let them play games.

  A few more students arrived. They read comics, played guitar or Scrabble, or took a basketball outside. Just before seven a.m. I said, ‘Let’s go, Deslie.’ It
had become a routine with us.

  ‘Get the other kids, Sir? Sleepy ones?’

  ‘Yep. Children hunting.’

  ‘Sylvester and that mob playin’ basketball late last night, Sir. I came home sleepy and they still there. And when it was cold last night, you know, Sir, cold, I found myself a good spot. Good warm spot. I went into the cupboard, you know the one Sir? Big one, and pulled all the clothes over me and shut the door. Nice and warm and quiet.’

  Suddenly he said, ‘Sir, know what? Yesterday I was walking along, just walking walking. I was thinking of a snake, and I looked and there was a snake. There! Right in front of me. True!’

  He commented on who lived where as we passed different huts and houses and if any of the kids were sleeping in a different place from a few days ago. Occasionally he’d shout at a snarling dog and it would slink away, looking back at us. Most of the dogs were silent and merely watched us pass. Some tails wagged.

  The housing consisted mostly of corrugated iron huts built decades ago. Each hut sat on a concrete pad and had a smaller building out the back, usually with a piece of hessian or a blanket thrown across its doorway. This was the toilet, and sometimes there was a shower there also. At a couple of separate locations, one by the river and one by the creek, there was a group of tiny huts, each barely large enough to shelter a single body, which were used, at an even earlier date, as accommodation. They were only ever actually slept in when it rained heavily. Some of the very oldest people used them still. Apparently there was also a deserted site across the river. Fatima told me she used to stay over there when she was younger, until the mission successfully discouraged it. Walanguh, her husband, still liked to go over there whenever he was well enough.

  Most of the huts had the ashes of a fire, some rubbish, a few blankets, and perhaps an old mattress, or an old wire bed that doubled as seating, spread before them. Sometimes there would be a family group sitting around a fire drinking tea from small food cans. We’d say good morning, speak for a little while, and agree that the kids would be at school soon.