The Feast of the Bunya
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Reviews for The Feast of the Bunya
“I thought the writing and story very beautiful.”
Belinda Bolliger
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
“A charming, lyrical and magnificently researched evocation of clan life in Australia at the advent of European exploration ...beautifully crafted.”
Tom Flood
Miles Franklin Award Winner
“Captures a sense of Indigenous tribal life with impressive detail and care … a welcome addition to educational studies.”
Sue Murray
Producer, Ten Canoes
“While essentially an adventure romance with plenty of action and thrills to keep the pages whipping over, it is the depth of detail of camp life across the different river and mountain tribes that remains etched in the mind.”
Driftwood Review
“Blends easy humor with charged drama… The Feast of the Bunya will be appreciated by readers interested in pre-European Australian history...”
Kirsty Brooks
“A page-turner…”
Trevor Corliss
The Feast of the Bunya
Peter Denton
Published by Pembrooke Press at Smashwords
Copyright 2010 Peter Denton
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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The Feast of the Bunya
Denton, Peter
ISBN: 978-0-9586792-1-3
Subject: Aboriginal Studies, History, Fiction
Cover photograph: Roy Dunstan, Walkabout Magazine 1936
Pembrooke Press
1101 Pembrooke Road
Pembrooke NSW 2446
Australia
Phone: 61 2 6585 9255
Email: info at pembrookepress dot com dot au
The Main Characters
Arkana...An old warrior and headman of the Taipan clan of the Yagga Yagga tribe
Babaya...Ulloola’s half brother and close friend
Baringa...Daughter of Jabiru and Kalengila
Benyabba...Baringa’s younger brother and son of Jabiru and Kalengila
Bonawoppa...‘By and By’, an older uninitiated man
Buabora...‘Foul Smell’, an older uninitiated man
Darwal...A low ranking ‘manngur’ of the Eel clan
Gilwan...Baringa’s first love and Ulloola’s friend
Jabiru...Headman of the Uka clan and a senior lawman of the Yagga Yagga tribe
Janama...Ulloola’s mother, first wife of Murrambool
Kalengila...Jabiru’s first wife
Kokalalja...A senior ‘manngur’ of the Gungulu tribe
Koppio...Eel clansman who abducts Baringa
Mambu...Hunter of the Brush Turkey clan of the Yagga Yagga tribe
Mandilly...Baringa’s friend
Mandowa...Narit’s second wife
Meriam...Ulloola’s older brother by Janama
Mitika...Baringa’s friend and wife of an old Eel hunter
Mondtha...Murrambool’s fourth wife
Mullu...A young ‘manngur’ under Wunbula’s tutorship
Murrambool...Ulloola’s father, ‘the brown snake’, ‘kamaran’ or headman of the Sea Eagle clan and senior elder of the Jangara tribe
Mykul...Wunbula’s wife and senior Uka clan woman
Nakamurra...Koppio’s mother, Baringa’s mother-in-law
Narit...Brother of Jabiru
Rrapu...Baringa’s friend
Tarandiu...Manngur, or healer/priest, of the Sea Eagle Clan
Terampa...Leader of the Tarambol trading party
Ulloola Yaluma...Second son of Murrambool and Janama of the Sea Eagle clan of the Jangara tribe
Waung...Ulloola’s half sister
Worba...Kalengila’s brother and famous storyteller
Wunbula...A powerful ‘manngur’, husband of Mykul and Jabiru’s close friend
Yilai...‘Kamaran’ or headman of the Eel clan of the Gungulu tribe
billabong…lagoon in a river
bloodwood tree…a variety of eucalyptus tree with red sap
bora…ceremonial or meeting ground, sometimes sacred
boomerang…curved wooden throwing weapon
bunda…honorific for a senior man
churinga…sacred wooden object
coolamon…lightweight carved wooden dish
corroboree…social gathering for celebration or ceremony
dhan…young men
dhomka…tribal emissary
dingo…native Australian dog
dulin...pearl shell
gulligal...grass-seed used for making bread
gurrieundah...fourth degree men, usually with several wives
kamaran...clan leader/headman
kanang...little brother
kundir...sacred stone or crystal
kuruman...large kangaroo
manngur...cleverman’, healer/priest
marrawin...second degree men, usually unmarried
murang...tribal or clan totem
nangu...mashed bunya nut
ngondaiya...sea mullet
ngwlloongurra...third degree men, usually married
nguloongeer...senior tribal men of the fifth and highest degree
nonyan...mother or mother figure
nulla nulla...a club for hunting or fighting
nyuni...paternal granddaughter
pabun...mother’s brother (uncle)
pituri...widely traded mild narcotic
tinobah...bronze whaler shark
wabbilcun...scared voice of the spirit-roarer or churinga
waiyu...paternal grandmother
wolbai...baby
woomera...spear thrower
wondhamurrin...young unmarried men who have undergone their first initiation
wu’bi...spirits
yiran...a young woman
No lies are as potent as lies we tell about land and people.
Australia’s founding lie was as wide
and all-encompassing as the continent itself:
terra nullius, the myth of the empty land.
Tim Flannery
This country’s old. Old rock!
That’s the difference! Old, weary and wise.
Bruce Chatwin
The Songlines
This book is dedicated to the memory of
Frank Hugh Robinson
1970
THE BOY guides his wiry pony along the bank of an eroded creek in a large paddock near a dark mountain. Dusk is falling, and the boy and the land are at peace in the long shadows. He listens to the last calls of the kookaburras and warbling magpies and the occasional bellow of the red cattle moving through belly-high grass.
A dark object in a crevice on the opposite creek bank catches his eye. He slides from the saddle and down the broken clay to look more closely. A pair of slippers, woven from feathers and bark and glued with blood, sits neatly on the ledge.
A chill of fear envelopes the boy. He knows little of the deeper history of his country. But he vaguely recognizes the slippers of the Kadaitja, dark assassins who wear them to erase their footprints from the ground.
He scrambles back up the bank and canters back to the welcoming lights and vehicles of the homestead. He tells no one of his discovery. Generations of white sweat have created this prosperous farming country while broken fragments of humanity subsist down impassable dirt tracks or behind the garbage tips, hardly seen and rarely heard, a faint echo of a mysterious past.
But the boy has touched that past and sensed its power. He never forgets the slippers.
Part I.
THE JOURNEY
1
Circa 1770
WAUNG ARRIVES WITH NEWS OF THE BLOODWOOD TREE - THE MEN WAIT IN THEIR CANOES - ULLOOLA SPEARS A SHARK - A BIG FEAST AND DANCING - A SECRET LIAISON.
IT WAS the season of Mayaltha and the people of the Sea Eagle clan of the great Jangara tribe were glad the fierce heat and brutal summer storms had passed. Now the air was clear and cool, the morning sky bright over the blue-green sea that gently hissed onto the sand of their sheltered bay.
Behind the beach several Sea Eagle men sat near a smoldering fire under spreading fig and bangalow palms. They had been hunting since first light, and having returned to camp, spoke quietly as they mended spears and nets, or rolled thin twine on which to tie their bone hooks for the evening’s fishing. A bark canoe lay nearby waiting for repairs.
A sudden movement caught the eye of an older hunter. A girl, her long black limbs flying, raced up a sandy path from the fish traps in a sheltered corner of the bay. She stopped some way from the men, squatted down and signaled the hunter with a slight motion of her hand.
‘What is it child,’ he said.
‘The bloodwood tree has flowers, pabun.’
The other men looked up.
‘The bloodwood, eh’ said the hunter fondly, as much at the delight in the girl’s face as the good news she brought. ‘Then we must mend our canoes and dig the ground ovens. We will need to carry wood to the headland for the signal fires.’
He turned to a younger hunter near the fire, the girl’s half-brother, who was gently heating and molding resin around the bindings of his fishing spear. The young man worked with graceful movements, his dark eyes alert and slightly drawn at the outer, as though some ancient northern blood suffused his line. Like the others, he wore a thin leather thong around his waist; his dark hair held high on his head by a woven strap and tightly skewered top-knot. A broad mouth was visible through a young-man’s beard, and the simple raised markings of a marrawin, a second-degree man, were prominent on the deep black skin of his chest.
‘Go and tell your father the ngondaiya fish are coming, Ulloola Yaluma,’ said the older hunter. ‘He will need to prepare for the traders.’
Ulloola put his spear aside and rose from the fire. He was medium tall and strongly built, but his gait was sullen as he walked to the gunyas where his father, Murrambool, the brown snake, lived with his wives and younger children.
The girl, called Waung, felt a sadness rise in her chest. As a baby, Ulloola had laughed and tossed her in his arms. When she grew older, he was always the first to play and joke with her and the other children. Waung had loved the second son of Murrambool as her favourite half-brother. Now she rarely saw him smile. Ulloola seemed confused and often angry. Waung did not know why; the ways of her elders were still strange to her.
She made a small pattern in the sand with her fingers then glanced up at the older hunter. His face was inscrutable, but when he lifted his chin towards Waung’s mother, who sat nearby with other women gossiping at the grinding stones, she wondered if his thoughts were the same as hers.
She ran to tell her mother about the bloodwood flowers. The big nets of pandanus fiber would need repairing and new stones carried to the salt-washed walls of the fish-traps. The season of the ngondaiya had arrived, and the fish camp would soon be busy.
* * *
‘Nnnnnnnggggoooonnnnnnddddaaaaaiiiiiyyyyyaaaaa,nnnnnngggoooonnnnnnddddaaaaaiiiiiyyyyyaaaaa.’ The slow, rolling chant floated across the gently heaving sea. The fishermen, their supply of gossip and jokes exhausted after days of sitting in their canoes under the hot sun, were glad of the reprieve. Ulloola Yaluma drew a deep breath and joined the call for the fat sea-mullet to come with their salty roe.
Watching, watching, watching, the sun hurts our eyes, come ngondaiya, come and feed us, now that the first cold winds have driven you from the rivers …
‘Yaiiii!’ One of the fishermen shot his arm into the air. A neat pall of dark smoke drifted skyward from the headland. The men grew silent, reeling in their lines and swinging their canoes into position. They carefully judging their leeway from the reef that jutted from the sheltering headland.
Ulloola’s eyes also darted upward. A longer, vertical puff of smoke now followed the first. ‘Tinobah! Tinobah!’ he shouted.
The fishermen looked up with wide eyes. Their families on the beach waved frantically. A voice carried across the water from another canoe. ‘We must go back to the beach. We are wasting our time. The ngondaiya will come another day.’ It was Ulloola’s elder brother, Meriam, the first son of Murrambool. Meriam hated the sea.
Ulloola swallowed hard then shouted, ‘No! It is a good omen. Look!’ He pointed high above the signal smoke to a slowly spiraling sea eagle. The fishermen looked up and saw their murang watching them. Ulloola bent his paddle deep into the water. ‘We have waited days already and soon the traders will be here.’
There were calls of agreement. An abundance of fish in the traps would relieve the relentless need to hunt. They were also warriors of the sea, and the new signal from the headland offered a greater challenge. They forced their canoes into line again and watched the pearly surface of the water. Some touched the heavy harpoon spears at their sides, and whispered to their ancestors to watch over them. The waiting seemed interminable to Ulloola, yet he welcomed the new danger. On some days he thought death would be preferable to the burden he carried in his heart.
Then he heard shouting and saw a wild rippling in the surface of the sea. The men beat their paddles on the water, driving the sea-mullet towards the traps. Suddenly the large pointed head of Tinobah the shark surged from the water, a fat mullet impaled between her fantastically serrated teeth. She sank down, swished her great tail and scattered the ngondaiya fish in all directions.
The fishermen paddled frantically to re-gather the school. Ulloola’s canoe shot down a small wave and veered towards the fish, nearly tumbling him into the surf. Tinobah’s shimmering dark mass rushed towards him as he regained his balance. Ulloola grabbed blindly for his harpoon. Again the shark surged from the water, jaws agape, seeking more ngondaiya. Ulloola used all his strength to throw his harpoon. The sharp hardwood barbs stuck fast in Tinobah’s gullet, and for an instant Ulloola looked into one of her small eyes. A swirl of blood erupted in the water, the monster thrashed her great black body and dived for the safety of the deep.
‘Tinobah! Tinobah!’ yelled Ulloola. ‘I have the shark.’ Ragged cheers sounded as he twisted the harpoon rope around his ankle then swung his canoe towards the sea.
Two fishermen paddled towards him whooping their high-pitched hunting calls. As they neared the rope went rigid around Ulloola’s foot and the canoe lurched through a small swell. The closest fisherman threw his harpoon across Ulloola’s bow, which he quickly fastened to his own rope. The other followed, and now the shark was dragging the weight of three canoes, slowly drowning as she forced her way out to sea.
But Tinobah was large and strong, and the land quickly receded behind them. The swells grew broader as they surged away from the headland into the deep blue water. Ulloola fleetingly recalled stories of fishermen dragged out to sea, never to return. Then he saw skeins of blood wisping up through the water and the rope went slack. Slowly they dragged Tinobah to the surface until she lay belly-up beside their canoes. Ulloola warily watched her pale yellow underside as he looped a cord around her tail.
The two fishermen, Ulloola’s older married relatives, looked at him and chuckled. They rarely saw such brave hunting. Ulloola gave a drawn smile, then slumped forward and splashed his face and body with cool seawater. The fury he had vented on the shark had been a release; the large swells shrinking his existence to insignificance. He wearily took up his paddle and began the long journey back to the shore.
* * *
On the ancient boulders of the fish trap, carefully repaired after every storm, the women, children, and older Sea Eagle folk squatted with their strong nets. They had watched every move of the fishermen, and when the ngondaiya had been finally driven into the large outer trap, they splashed through the water and tied the fine mesh across the entrance. Then they lined up shoulder-to-shoulder in the water and drove the mullet into the smaller inner traps. Boys jumped along the walls trying to spear the ngondaiya with their short harpoons, but Waung and her friends shoved them aside and went among the teeming mullet with their large tow-row baskets.
The fishermen came ashore tired but elated, and now some of them waited on the beach as the shark-hunters dragged Tinobah through the small surf. Ulloola's two dogs, lean camp dingoes Wetya and Tuku, pranced on the sand as he pulled his canoe up next to the long line of other craft. As Ulloola stood and rubbed the soreness from his shoulders he saw that the shark looked smaller out of the water. But the elders would be pleased. Tinobah’s sweet white flesh was far more highly prized than the oily ngondaiya.
The fishermen walked along the beach to the traps, noisily reliving the morning’s excitement. ‘You are lucky Ulloola,’ said one of the older men after they squatted on the stones and watched the ngondaiya in the water. ‘Remember the old man of the Sand Lizard clan? A shark bit off half his leg and he has walked with a crutch ever since. It was the best ngondaiya season we ever had.’
‘Why waste time with sharks,’ growled older brother Meriam. ‘They always scatter the fish. It is ngondaiya we need to feed the traders.’ The others ignored him and told stories of other sharks they had caught. An old man, who had been silently watching the ngondaiya, pointed to several of the largest.
‘Do not catch them,’ he said to the children ‘We will release them when the moon is higher. They will lead more ngondaiya back to us next season.”
The clan watched as the youngsters gathered enough fish for the evenings feasting. Everyone was joyful at the size of the catch. Tinobah the shark had been a good omen.
* * *
Ulloola and the other men dug long shallow ground-ovens in the sandy soil, while the women, under the direction of Ulloola's mother, Janama, collected she-oak and long strips of paperbark from the swamp forest near the camp. They lit fires in the trenches and prepared the fish while waiting for the oven stones to heat. The clan sang and joked as they worked; piling the cleaned ngondaiya, the dissected shark and freshly dug yams and vegetables onto steaming beds of lemon tea-tree and other herbs. The ovens were sealed with more wet leaves and a thick lining of paperbark. Janama watched carefully for escaping steam, and occasionally lifted a flap of bark to pour in more water.
Later in the afternoon, as the smell of steamed fish wafted through the smoky camp, Ulloola lay in the shade of the long thatched shelter of the single men’s camp. His younger half-brother and best friend, Babaya, knelt next to him, drawing blood from a small cut on Ulloola's forearm. Already they had smeared their bodies with a grey paste of charcoal and fat, and now Babaya used the blood to paint fish scale designs on Ulloola's body. As he finished he leant close and whispered.
‘Do you meet with Mondtha tonight?’
Ulloola’s body stiffened. The frantic activities of the day had pushed away his woes. Now they erupted again: the hot, unruly passion he suffered for Mondtha, his first lover - and his father’s fourth wife - was the cause of his condition. Now he tried to feign indifference.
‘Your spear is too strong, Ulloola,’ chuckled Babaya. ‘If you are not careful a real spear will bury itself in your back.’ He suddenly pressed hard into Ulloola’s skin with his brush, and the usual lightness was gone from his voice. ‘The old men will kill you if they find out.’
Ulloola ignored him. Instead, he turned his head and yelled harshly at a group of young men practicing a song. ‘Hey, you dhan! It's 'when we watch for the ngondaiya fish,' not 'we wait for the ngondaiya fish.’’ They tried again. How many times had they heard the old songmen say: 'These words are sacred and must not be changed.' Ulloola knew all the words, and when the young men sang again it sounded as it should.
Babaya finished his decorating with smear of yellow ochre across Ulloola's forehead then pressed him again firmly on the shoulder. ‘Listen brother. You know how jealously the old men guard their women, especially our father. Finish this thing or it will lead to misery for the whole clan.’
Ulloola was silent. He needed to dance and sing, and anxiety now propelled him to his feet. The others also rose, for when Ulloola danced the air was filled with a kind of magic. They practiced until dusk, despite the constant and noisy intrusion of new arrivals coming through the men's camp which guarded the main path into the fish camp.
Soon steaming baked fish and vegetables arrived on great platters of bangalow palm sheaves. The dancers ate ravenously. Even Ulloola’s appetite revived, and he scoffed down the greasy pink flesh of the ngondaiya and a tiny portion of the sweet white shark-meat that his mother had sent. After devouring every scrap they rubbed their lean bellies and wished for more. But it was taboo for young men to help themselves from the ovens; the elders knew their potential for gluttony. The shark meat had gone to the old people, as was their right.
Soon an old songman arrived. He had been telling stories and warming up the crowd on the bora, a large sheltered arena where the clan held its celebrations.
‘I hope you are ready’ he said as he closely checked their body decorations in the fading light. ‘The Sand Lizard clan have arrived.’
‘They can always smell our cooking,’ joked one of the dancers.
The songman gave his final instructions before disappearing back to the bora. The young men made adjustments to their decorations, stamped the ground nervously, and softly practiced the more complex sections of their songs. When all was ready Ulloola led them to a screen of fresh cut wattle branches near the bora then turned and hissed for quiet.
The songman sat between two fires with a small chorus of singers tapping ringing kylie sticks and drummers with hides stretched across their knees. They were performing a popular song about the traders who came every ngondaiya season, bringing goods the clan needed. The high pitch of the chants descended slowly, to be revived again and again until it finished abruptly in a clatter of sound.
Ulloola peered through the screen. From the glow of several small fires he could see the senior men of the clan, his uncles and cousins, sitting cross-legged on their woven mats, along with several senior Sand Lizard elders. At their centre sat his father, Murrambool the brown snake, proud clan patriarch and headman of the great ngondaiya trade cycle. Near him was Meriam who, despite his fear of sharks, always basked in his father’s affections (or so it seemed to Ulloola). Behind Murrambool sat the clan wives and children. Ulloola could not see Mondtha and his heart sank.
The songman’s assistant suddenly threw fish oil onto the fires and sheets of flame roared into the air. Ulloola and the dancers burst from their hiding place and quickly formed into line. They bought their knees up high and then thumped their legs into the sand in quivering unison. The dance of the ngondaiya had begun.
At first it was lyrical and gentle. The dancers cannily imitated the lazy movements of the ngondaiya as they fattened in the peaceful lakes and rivers during the hot wet time. Then the drummers began pounding the rhythms of the open sea and the fish grew restless. They formed into a tight school and followed their leaders through the rips and thunder of the surf to begin their annual migration along the coast. They hugged the shoreline and released their spawn, which were washed back into the rivers and estuaries along the way.
Ulloola was sweating and knew the crowd was happy. A group of boys at one side, imitating the actors, suddenly doubled up laughing at their own silly antics. In the shadows young girls danced in a tight huddle. The night was becoming cool and the mothers folded their restless children into their soft pandanus shawls. The dancers began miming the day’s hunting on the water. Just as Ulloola was pushed forward to re-enact his battle with Tinobah the shark, he saw Mondtha had joined Murrambool’s other wives. He faltered briefly as she gazed at him with wide eyes. His emotions surged until he glanced at the unsmiling face of his father. He felt a cold shiver and could not meet Murrambool’s eyes. It took an act of will for Ulloola to steady himself and seek the heady oblivion of the dance.
* * *
Mondtha silently left her gunya in the early hours of the morning when only a few young men were still singing in the men’s camp. With the moonlight shining on the small surf, she walked in the wet sand above the incoming tide, and then waded up a shallow creek that spilled across the beach. Confident she had left no tracks, she sat on a grassy bank near a lagoon and pulled her soft possum skin cloak tight. She was a full-bodied young woman, long ready for children, and now she waited for her lover.
She started when Ulloola appeared in the darkness above her, his grey streaked body luminescent in the silvery light. He jumped down onto the sand and she opened her cloak to him, giggling at the feel of the rough clay on his skin. Then she felt him hard against her belly, his hands and mouth urgent. Her own hunger surged, and she grasped him around the neck as he came into her, a passionate and forbidden union that soon left them spent on Mondtha's cloak.
In a little while she gently pushed Ulloola aside and sat up. The eerie mating howl of a dingo echoed across the lagoon and a great sadness engulfed her.
‘We must leave. I cannot live like this.’
‘Where would we go?’ Ulloola turned on his side and leaned close. He was relaxed and charming now, and from a pouch on the leather thong around his waist, he drew a small parcel of soft paperbark. Slowly Mondtha opened it and held it up towards the moon. She smiled when she saw the bright yellow ochre, a rare treasure for decoration and make-up.
She looked down and stroked the face of her handsome man-boy whom she had taught the ways of love. Mondtha had known Ulloola all her life. Born of the nearby Sand Lizard clan, she now had no real existence within the tribal realm. Murrambool rarely called her to his gunya, and a baby spirit had not yet come. Only this high-pitched liaison with Ulloola gave meaning to her life. If Murrambool found out he could break her legs to stop her wandering.
She put the ochre into a secret pocket in her cloak and murmured a small endearment to her lover. But Ulloola had already fallen asleep.
2
CAMP LIFE DURING THE NGONDAIYA SEASON – TALK OF WAR – A MESSENGER ARRIVES – ULLOOLA TRAVELS TO THE DINGO MOUNTAIN.
THE SEAGULLS and pelicans arrived when the clan cast the first fish gut onto the sheltered beach. The birds were noisy and squabbling, wary only of the camp dingoes that lay drowsily in the filigree shade of the she-oaks on the low sandhills. One of the dogs loped lazily down to the seagulls, scattering them into the air and nosing though the detritus. The stout pelicans, with their long pouched beaks, edgily stood their ground. They would fatten during the season, but the people did not favour their oily meat.
In the large inner enclosures of the fish trap, the ngondaiya were fretful at first, deprived of their instinct to swim north. But the tides washed over and through the stone walls, bringing fresh seawater and just enough sustenance to keep them alive. They became aware of a new hazard, darting about in panic when Waung and her friends regularly splashed into the traps and scooped their large tow-row net-baskets through the water. Then one evening, when the moonlight was bright on the surface, the old fisherman, chanting softly, had taken their leaders and released them into the waves. On another day, bright and sunny, there was a great commotion when the net rose and a new school of fish rushed into the trap.
In the camp the smell of fish and smoke pervaded the air. The old men and women sat in the sun and threaded ngondaiya fillets onto braided chord, then hung them, row upon row, over low smoky fires until the oily flesh was desiccated and tough and ready to wrap in paperbark for storage and trade. They sang softly as they worked and talked to the small children they were minding. When the wind was still and no ngondaiya came, the women and older children went to the swamps to dig yams from deep soil banks, or gather mangrove roots and the corms of the water rush. The men hunted swamp wallaby and goannas over the sandy coastal heath. Often they all ventured into to the rainforest to gather baskets full of black apples or bush limes to flavour the baked ngondaiya. Sand Lizard people often came with them, for now there was plenty of food. During the last hungry time, when the cold winds blew, the Sand Lizard elders had sent messengers telling of a beached whale and the feasting to be had.
Now, in the still afternoons when the shadows were long, the old folk heard the calls of the hunters as they returned to camp. After their meal when their bellies were full, they sat around low fires gossiping about the day. Life was good, and soon, as had happened since ancient times, the traders from over the mountains would arrive, the cycle unbroken and unending.
* * *
Dark thunderheads built up over the sea and the last of the warm rains lashed the camp. Lines of drying fish were quickly bundled onto storage platforms and covered with sheets of paperbark. The women wove string nets around tree trunks, directing the water down into their wooden coolamons and saving themselves a long walk to the fresh-water wells. They sat in their dry gunyas with their families, telling stories and eating fish. In the single men’s camp, the hunters also told stories as they rubbed skin and fat from Ulloola’s shark onto their weapons to make them strong like Tinobah.
‘A messenger came this morning,’ said one of the hunters. ‘Murrambool and some others have left for the Dingo Mountain.’
‘There has been trouble in the south,’ said another. ‘Willenja wants war with some of the clans of the Turubul tribe.’
‘Willenja always wants war,’ grumbled one of the older unmarried men. ‘Even as a boy he was always stirring up trouble.’
The men spoke of fighting while the young ones listened eagerly. Ulloola’s father and grandfathers had made the Sea Eagle clan powerful by guarding the trading routes to the inland and forming strong ties with other trading tribes. Murrambool had never shied from fighting, but unlike the war-like clans on the Jangara tribe’s frontiers, he preferred peace to war. It was better for trade.
The next morning the sky was again soft and blue, with a gentle southerly breeze. Ulloola and the other men took their canoes down to the warm sea. Ulloola was up to his knees in the water when he heard his name called from the beach. A boy he did not recognise ran down the sand and bent over with his hands on knees catching his breath. Sweat streaked his lean dark body. Ulloola waited impatiently, one hand on the canoe.
‘Ulloola Yaluma?’ asked the boy when he regained his breath. Yaluma was the name many called the Sea Eagle clan. ‘I have a message from the Jangara elders.’ He waded into the water and handed Ulloola a small polished stick attached to a feathered string of hair, proof that the boy was on important business. Ulloola glanced at the markings on the wood and recognized several of the signs. He handed it back.
‘They want you to come to the men’s place on the Dingo Mountain,’ said the boy. He kept his eyes downcast but his voice firm. ‘They say we are to be there by dusk.’
Ulloola first impulse was irritation at the boy's impudence. He was only a wondhamurrin, an initiated boy of the first degree, perhaps half Ulloola's age. Then he checked himself. The boy was doing the elder's bidding; their authority was absolute. He looked towards the sun, and realized they would have to leave now.
‘Why do they ask for me?’
The boy shrugged. Ulloola growled, but inwardly his stomach turned as he hauled his canoe back up the sand. They quickly returned to the camp and Ulloola sent the boy to his mother for food and water. He packed a small dillybag and gathered his waterskin, spears and shield, then walked into the main camp. Janama was sitting in the sun braiding ngondaiya with several other older women.
She looked up and saw that he was about to travel. She nodded, grateful that her son had come.
‘Where are you going, Ulloola?’
‘I’ve been called to Dingo Mountain.’
She nodded and returned to her work, softly crooning a song that asked the spirits to watch over him.
Ulloola whistled his dogs, Wetya and Tuku, who tumbled in excitement as they hastened south along a well-trodden sandy path behind the sand dunes. Again Ulloola tried to question the boy, but he only said that many men had gathered on the mountain. A broad gap in his white teeth marked his recent initiation. The elders did not give important information to wondhamurrin.
Ulloola mulled over the possibilities as they loped along, half walking, half running at a pace they could maintain all day. It was unlikely to concern Mondtha. That was clan business. Retribution, when it came, would be swift and probably fatal. Yet, thought Ulloola, his father, the brown snake, was often a man of opposites. Even if he did know about the affair, he might ignore it. Murrambool had tried to lend Mondtha to important friends visiting the Sea Eagle camp, that being the occasional fate of junior wives. But Mondtha had made such a fuss that he no longer bothered. The irony of Murrambool's power was that his wives occasionally humbled him at his own hearth. Sometimes he delivered beatings in retribution, but more often he escaped on trade or ceremonial business.
A small thought, a memory, kept drifting into Ulloola’s mind; a recollection of a long journey made many seasons ago with his father, a journey when the gap in his own teeth was still wide and he was proud of his new status as a wondhamurrin. It had been a journey when a baby had been born. With growing unease Ulloola sensed a connection, but could reason no answer.
The sun was high by the time they came to a wide river. They soon found Jorum the boatman who lived near a crossing place. He dozed in the shade, his back against the foreshore rocks and a slack line in the water.
‘Ah, Jorum,’ called Ulloola. ‘I see you are busy with the fish.’
Jorum cocked his eye, then went back to contemplating his line. Ulloola took a string of dried and smoked ngondaiya fillets from his dillybag and held them up. Jorum’s eyes widened, then he turned away.
‘Haven't seen you here for a while, Ulloola Yaluma,’ he said. ‘I hear you've had a good start to the ngondiaya season. Your father told me the other day.’ Ulloola pulled out another string of fish.
‘One of the biggest first catches anyone remembers,’ said Jorum. ‘Murrambool gave me five strings from the baskets the men were carrying.’ ‘There are easy ways and hard ways to catch a fish, Jorum,’ said Ulloola, laughing. ‘My father was with five other men.’ He turned to the boy. ‘All these boatmen are the same. Come on, we will cross at another place.’
Jorum was instantly on his feet. ‘I am not a greedy man, Ulloola Yaluma, but I have many children to feed. One more string and I will take you across. It is a long way.’
Ulloola kept walking, remembering the time as a child when Jorum had relieved his mother of a bundle of possum skin furs she had gathered for a woman healer. Heavy with child, Janama needed herbs to help with her birth. Ulloola had never forgotten her tears of frustration.
Jorum cried out. ‘Two pieces Ulloola, just two more pieces from one string, and I'll take you to the other side.’ Ulloola stopped, knowing they would have to walk a long way to find another canoe. They turned back, but Jorum could not help himself. ‘Who cares if my children starve? We are a poor family, not like you Yaluma people. Here, come and get in my boat.’
Jorum continued his griping as he paddled his big canoe. Ulloola shut his ears; he had heard it many times before. Across the water the Dingo Mountain loomed high above the forest, its crouching body, head and erect ear distinct against the sky. It was a place of power - the Jangara tribe believed that in the Dreaming man and dingo had been one. ‘They are what we would be if we were not what we are,’ said old Tarandiu, a cleverman, a healer-priest, a manngur who lived near the Sea-Eagle clan. Ulloola could remember Tarandiu nodding at a camp dingo laying on its back, and pointing out how it's arms, legs and genitals were similar to his own.
Ulloola had crossed the river many times but he had only been to the top of the Dingo Mountain twice – the first time during his first initiation, when he had become a wondhamurrin, and later, when he had achieved his second degree of manhood as a marrawin. So deeply etched in his memory were his visits that the mountain exuded a mystical aura of higher purpose. It was also where the headman of all the Jangara clans met for their most important ceremonies and business.
A chill breeze blew across the wide river. Ulloola, his dogs and the boy sat forward of Jorum, who paddled steadily despite his torrent of words. He was complaining about having to wait for another passenger when the canoe scraped the sand on the southern shore. Ulloola and the boy stepped ashore and scrambled up the bank.
They walked fast through a dense forest of towering eucalypts with the scent of rich earth-litter beneath their feet. The boy, silent and deferential, showed no sign of tiring despite their pace. The path steepened and Ulloola knew they were on the side of the mountain. Soon, high above, they heard the voices of the spirit guardians echoing around the great stone clefts, the eerie droning that so frightened the women and children. Even Ulloola, who like his father was not strongly pious, found it unnerving. The unearthly powers of the glassy-eyed acolytes of the clevermen, who whirled sacred churingas around their heads to bring forth the spirit voices, were a mystery to him.
In the dusk they walked under sheer-sided grey cliffs where the roots of towering gums had forced their way through the soft fissured rock, then up a steep gully to level ground. Here the vast orange sun shone through the massive tree trunks as it slowly sank below the mountain. They were on the long ridge at the top of the mountain, the dingo’s back.
They came to a place where several paths converged from different sides of the mountain. Rows of spears, boomerangs and knives were neatly laid out on the ground. Ulloola laid his weapons down next to those of his father and uncles. From the size of the arsenal and the scuffed earth on the paths it was clear many men had arrived.
They heard the lookouts before they saw them, young warriors perched high in the trees around the mountaintop calling warnings of newcomers. The boy called back in reply and the guards recognised Ulloola, son of Murrambool. ‘Here comes the shark killer!’ shouted one, and the others cheered before falling silent again. The welcome warmed Ulloola. He could smell smoke and his dogs growled low in their throats. They went up another short steep rise onto the dingo’s head. Below them, from a deep sheltered hollow, rose the glow of warming fires and other men.
Ulloola stopped, lifted his waterskin and took a long draught. He offered it to the boy, who accepted but drank little. Ulloola felt a sudden affection for his guide, who had resolutely stayed with him for every step of the journey, only speaking when spoken to and behaving with a dignity beyond his years. Ulloola was tense, the boy his only immediate human contact, and he slapped him on the shoulder.
‘Come,’ he said with more confidence than he felt. ‘Let's go down and see what these old men want.’
3
DANCE OF THE BUTTERFLIES - A LESSON FROM OLD MYKUL - STALKED BY A STRANGER - OLD MAN KANGAROO DANCE - THE GIRLS CALL THE YOUNG MEN.
FAR ACROSS the mountains to the west, in a camp called Gurunda that nestled by a great inland river, a young girl slowly stood up, stretched out her arms and danced. Masses of live butterflies, fastened to her hair, quivered in a vibrant swirl of color. She felt she was inside a misty waterfall suffused with sunlight, as light as a bird feather, as if she could drift into the air and float around with the all the other flying things. She thought she would like to float down next to her father, who would look up at her and smile. Then she would float off again, up through the trees.
Her name was Baringa, and her friends, Mandilly and Rrapu, laughed and clapped as she glided around the women’s camp, a secluded place where they came for their bleeding and special ceremonies.
‘You look like a beautiful rainbow,’ giggled Mandilly. ‘One day a handsome hunter will be lucky to have you as a wife.’
‘Poor Gilwan will be so jealous,’ cried Rrapu. ‘Maybe I will take him as my sweetheart when you are married, just to make him feel better.’
Mandilly pushed her friend with her arm. ‘You are terrible Rrapu. All you think of is boys. Anyway, Gilwan is the same skin as Baringa. They could never marry.’
Biltyin, a hunchbacked girl sitting nearby, gave a sudden warning call.
‘Quick,’ said Mandilly. ‘Old Mykul is coming. She will be angry if she sees bul’lumbir in your hair.’
A big old woman, walking with her digging stick, soon appeared on the path from the main camp. The girls sat quietly on the reed mats as she looked down at them.
‘You girls have been up to something,’ she said, lowering herself down. ‘You’re much too quiet.’ But there was merriment in her eyes and the girls relaxed. They loved the old woman who had nurtured them since childhood.
‘Baringa was dancing for us, nonyan,’ said Mandilly, carefully honoring her as a mother, although Mykul had never born children of her own.
‘Ah, how are you going to gain knowledge when all you think about is singing and dancing and those crazy boys,’ she chortled. ‘And Mandilly, you sit properly now you are coming to womanhood, not like a man who shows off his dhun to the whole world.’ The girls giggled and tried to sit modestly as Mykul clapped her hands and drew in the other girls from the gunyas.
‘In the Dreamtime we didn't need those men anyway,’ she said majestically. ‘The women had all the law and travelled across the land carrying their firesticks and digging sticks, calling out the names of all the places we know today. At some places they stopped and left baby spirits, who waited until they could enter a woman and be born.’
Rrapu braided a feather into Baringa’s hair while Mandilly sprawled out on the mat.
‘Where are these baby places, nonyan’ asked Baringa quietly.
Mykul waved her arm. ‘You will know when you are ready. Your mother and father saw a baby spirit in the water at a crossing place downriver. That’s why you are called ‘Baringa, the river crossing.’’
‘Why has Biltyin never had children?’ asked Mandilly.
A shadow of sadness crossed Mykul’s face. Since Biltyin’s birth when her mother had died in Mykul’s arms, it had been obvious that she was deficient. Yet Mykul had loved her as her own, and Biltyin had prospered in the safety of the women’s camp away from those who would have killed her. Her strange gurgling laughter, her devotion to the children and her uncanny understanding of insects and small animals had won her a much-loved place among the women. It was always Biltyin, flinging herself to the ground, who first saw the tiny ants bringing news of the coming monsoon, or the first small bee seeking the nectar of the flowering gums; the wasps, grasshoppers or spiders who told of the arrival of new food.
Mykul was momentarily lost for an answer. ‘It was not meant to be. Besides, Biltyin is too busy warning you girls that big old Mykul is coming.’
The girls tittered until Mandilly said quickly, ‘Baringa will be looking for baby spirits when she marries.’
‘Now listen-up child,’ said Mykul firmly. ‘You still wear your possum tail apron that marks you as child. There is much more for you to learn before the women-making ceremonies are over.’ The old woman coughed and cleared her throat before continuing her story.
‘One day these dreamtime women found a nice shady place to rest and two dingoes came up and watched them. The women started dancing, and when they looked again, the dingoes had turned into young men.
‘‘Go away,’ said the women. ‘We’re doing our secret business here.’ But the men kept following, cutting themselves all over with sharp stones in their frustration.
‘The women got really sick of this and turned themselves into possums, then back into women again, but still the men followed.’
Baringa looked up sharply. Similar things had happened to her. As a child she had run free with the other girls and boys. But recently several older boys had been rough with her and wanted to touch her body. She was acutely aware of the taboos that prevented her from talking or even looking at some of the men in her clan. These complications made the women's camp a haven. No man would come here; to see or touch a woman's blood might cause sickness, even death.
‘So what did these women do?’ asked Rrapu.
‘They disappeared down a deep rockhole,’ said Mykul, ‘and refused to come out until they made some agreements with the men.’
‘What were the agreements, nonyan?’ asked Rrapu. From the gleam in the girl’s eye, Mykul sensed she knew the answer. She was a cheeky one, Rrapu.
‘Well, the women in the rockhole learnt about sex from the men, and they became proper women. And they allowed the men to sing their songs and take their law so that they could become proper men, proper husbands - your ancestral husbands.’
Mykul looked around at the girls with a glare of triumph. ‘But the men always remember where the law comes from, just as they know where life itself comes from. It comes from us women.’
There was silence for a while, and Mykul could see that the girls were thinking about her words. Then came many questions and they sat talking for a long time. Finally, when Mykul saw Baringa open her dillybag to look at her butterflies again, she knew they had had enough.
‘Come on,’ she sighed, getting to her feet. ‘It’s getting late. We must have our dinner before the sun goes down.’
* * *
Mykul’s snoring woke Baringa early the next morning. She lay for a moment in the half-dark looking up at the bark roof of the large women’s gunya, then carefully drew back the possum skin rug so she would not wake Mandilly and Rrapu. She sat up and reached for her dillybag. Most of the butterflies lay half-dead or squashed in the bottom. Baringa unwrapped a tiny piece of honeycomb, placed it inside, and watched the lethargic insects struggle towards it. Then she firmly tied a string around the top and crawled outside.
The air was fresh after the stuffiness of the gunya, and heavy morning dew covered the grass. Baringa yawned and stretched, then skipped down the narrow path to the river. She ambled upstream along the wide sandy riverbed, feeling the first warm rays of sun on her body and whistling back to the birds in the trees. She was happy to be on the verge of womanhood; since her first blood she had learnt so much from Mykul, and although Baringa felt nervous about the ceremonies, she trusted the old woman to lead her safely through.
It was the prospect of marrying a stranger that bothered her. She knew nothing of the man who would one day come and perform brideservice for her parents before taking her as a wife. Nor could she imagine feeling about him as she felt for kind, gentle Gilwan. Not long ago, when they had been alone by the river, they had drawn close and lightly touched each other’s bodies, and Baringa had felt her heart thumping and a strong urge to lie with him. But the taboo had been stronger than her desire, and they had parted hot and unsatisfied. Baringa had avoided him ever since.
A small creek trickled into the river, and Baringa ducked through some thick tea-tree brush and followed the watercourse to a small swampy billabong. Here, at a dense clump of bright yellow golden penda flowers, hovered a myriad of butterflies. This time, to avoid squashing their colorful wings, she broke off a green branch and poked it inside the dillybag to keep the sides apart. Then she stood very still until they settled on her shoulders and hair and were easy to catch.
She soon had enough, and squatted on a rock in the morning sun peering at her reflection in the water. Pulling back her hair, she wondered what her future husband would think of her. Was she really as pretty as the other girls said? Her skin was still soft and dark and gleamed in the light when she rubbed on scented oil. Her hair was dark and curly, even glossy when she washed it in the river with frothing soap leaves. Baringa smiled at her reflection and saw her teeth were straight, white and strong. She was a little concerned about her nose; it seemed slightly askew, although no-one else ever seemed to notice. She twisted her head in a vain attempt to see it side on.
Suddenly her senses were on edge. She stood up but saw nothing unusual. She grabbed her dillybag and quickly made her way back down the creek. As she ducked through the brush and onto the wide sandy riverbed she heard movement behind her. She whirled around and saw a well-built young hunter standing in the bush. She did not recognize him. He carried a short killing spear and shield. Mud and dust covered his body, as though he had been travelling for many days. His face seemed flat and hard.
‘Baringa!’ He spat out her name, but before the sound had died away, she turned and fled, racing down the sand clutching her bag. Soon she was gasping for breath, but she did not slow down or look back. She bounded over rocks and old logs in the riverbed, and soon she could see the curve in the river around which lay the main camp. Her feet thudded in the sand, and she splashed across shallows until she careened around the bend. Old Bala, waist deep in the water as he checked his fish traps, looked up sharply. Baringa's cousin, a new baby in her arms and a coolamon of water on her head, called out her name.
She slowed a little then, but kept running past the main camp until she came to the path leading to the women's place. Halfway up the steep bank she slowed to a walk. It was not until she could see the other girls through the trees, sitting around a fire with Mykul, that she let her precious dillybag drop to the ground. She bent forward with her hands on her knees, and tried to get her breath back.
Later that morning she tried to tell her friends what had happened. But the first woman-making ceremonies were in the evening, and everyone was busy. Mandilly was in demand for her body painting skills, shrewdly bargaining honeycomb and pretty shells for her handiwork. Rrapu thought only of making herself beautiful. Baringa soon entered the spirit of the camp, and nearly forgot about the stranger in the creek.
* * *
As the last rays of the sun leached across the sky, five men leapt onto a bora above the river. The hard packed ceremonial ground had been swept clean of every leaf and stick. The men, their mature middle-aged bodies painted with a thick grey mix of kaolin and charcoal, bowed forward, one arm bent close like the paw of a kangaroo, their fingers curved as claws. The other arm swung behind like a long tail. They performed an elaborate Old Man Kangaroos Looking for Young Does dance as Baringa and the other girls sat in the long grass beside the bora, yelping and cheering.
Slowly the old kangaroos loped around the bora. They paused to nibble at the grass, then quickly raised their heads to look out for rival young bucks. Closer and closer they came to the women. Suddenly, at a sign from Mykul, Baringa and the girls pounded the hides stretched across their knees and chanted an ancient song. The old kangaroos looked up, pretended to be startled, and retired to the rear of the bora.
It was deep twilight and young boys threw logs on the fires. From the darkness a squad of fierce young hunters bounded into the circle. Tall headdresses of vivid feathers exaggerated their size and fierceness and the firelight danced on their gleaming limbs. White clay smeared around their eyes gave them an intense, other-worldly stare.
The young men wheeled around the bora, clenching their fists and thrusting their spears into the air. The women's drumming grew harder and faster as the Young Warriors Looking for a Wife dance reached a crescendo. Baringa felt the hot eyes of Gilwan on her, and as the heat in her own body grew, she beat her drum even harder.
Suddenly, Mykul and the older women began jeering at the youths.
‘Look at Mungi with his big spear,’ screeched Mykul as she pounded away. ‘He thinks he can point it anywhere, but he doesn't know what to do with it.’
‘What about Burrawamba?’ cried another. ‘He's so good looking, but so bad tempered. Does he only know how to hunt wallabies and kangaroos?’
The youths, oblivious to the women’s taunts, wheeled around the bora again. Then, with a mighty upthrust of their weapons and a piercing yell, they stamped to a sudden halt at the instant the women stopped their drumming. The youths stood deathly still, facing Mykul and her charges. In the silence, the old man kangaroos bounded slowly around the warriors, did a few hops in front of the women, and then unhurriedly made their way off the bora and into the night.
The women, following Mykul, rose as one. Without a glance at the motionless dancers, they followed the old kangaroos back towards the camp. It took Baringa all her willpower not to turn and look at the young men with their weapons stretched towards the night sky. She heard a loud collective moan, and imagined the hard young warrior bodies growing limp as they slouched back to the single men’s camp.
Baringa stayed in the women's camp again that night with the other young women who had come to Gurunda for the ceremonies. They had a joyous and noisy evening whirling firesticks and playing games in the dark. Later, at the urging of the older women, they again taunted the young men. They yelled to each other from fire to fire, knowing the youths in the distant men’s camp could perhaps hear their insults. They shouted about the greed of this one, the stinginess of another, of how one hunter would always be in debt because he never returned gifts or favours.
But it was not all harsh name-calling, and Baringa blushed when she heard Mandilly loudly describing young Gilwan.
‘How fierce and warlike he is,’ she cried. ‘He has the eyes of an eagle, and his chest is so broad and strong.’ Then she collapsed into a fit of giggling as the other girls cried out for more. She took a deep breath and held up her arms. ‘And have you seen......’ But she was laughing so much she could not continue. The other girls whooped and yelled, and Baringa thought it was one of the funniest things she had ever heard.
Soon they began to yawn, and it was not long before they crawled onto the soft mats and fur rugs in the gunyas and drifted off to sleep, their arms stretched across each other for comfort and warmth.
4
AN IMPORTANT MENS MEETING - WILLENGA CALLS FOR WAR - ULLOOLA RECIEVES SURPRIZING NEWS - PREPARATION FOR A TASK - THE STORY OF UNFAITHFUL LOVERS.
ULLOOLA led the boy and his dogs down the steep path into the sheltered hollow at the top of the Dingo Mountain. Small fires among the large assembly of men cast a flickering luminescence on the slab-sided rocks and twisted saplings. The boy went and squatted with the other young wondhamurrin.
No one noticed Ulloola’s arrival. They were listening to a tall wiry southerner who stood with one arm grasping the other behind his back. Ulloola listened to the man’s gruesome tale as he made his way to where the other young second-degree men like himself, the marrawin, sat cross-legged on the fringes of the assembly. He sat down, nodding at several he knew, the sons of other clan leaders. Ahead of them sat the married ngwlloongurra, and then further forward the wise gurrieundah. In the centre, close to a larger fire, were the men of the highest degree, the nguloongeer – older men with the greatest knowledge and power. To one side sat the manngurs; several gaudily adorned with bone necklaces, amulets and potion bags, others with no adornments at all. These clevermen, holders of the most esoteric knowledge, had a strong influence on council decisions. Ulloola was pleased to see Tarandiu among them.