by John Danalis
Dad always returned with treasures. Sometimes he’d bring back lumps of petrified wood – chunks of wood so old it had turned to stone. My brother and I would turn these million-year-old bits of tree over in our hands and marvel at the thought that a dinosaur might have rubbed its itchy behind against this very bit of tree trunk. Other times he’d delve into an old beer carton and produce Aboriginal implements like stone axe-heads, black and beautifully smooth. My brother and I would hold them, smell them. Cold and incredibly hard, they had a sense of the eternal about them. We instinctively knew where and how to hold these objects and it boggled our minds to think that we were the first people to touch them in a hundred, perhaps a thousand, years. Once Dad found a stone axe – its handle still attached – embedded into the trunk of a tree, as if its owner had just had enough, driven it into the wood and walked away. My father was as tough as nails, yet my brother and I were in awe of this man who seemed to us to be a cross between Indiana Jones and Dr Dolittle.
When I turned seven or eight it was announced that I was old enough to join my father on one of his shorter trips. I climbed aboard the tiny Beechcraft Baron. The pilot wore a starched white shirt with frayed epaulettes and a jaunty captain’s cap. We flew away from the green coast, across the Dividing Range and over the wide brown plains of western Queensland. From 5000 feet, the squiggly waterways and blotchy dots of vegetation looked like the Aboriginal paintings my grandmother had shown me in books. It still strikes me as incredible that these earthbound people could paint the landscape from the view of an eagle riding the highest thermals.
For three days I helped my father test cattle. Three or four hundred head were herded each day through the stockyards. As each beast lumbered down a narrow crush, a pair of iron gates swung down and clamped its neck, holding it securely. Dad would swiftly lift the tail of the animal, make a little nick with his scalpel and fill a small plastic sample bottle with blood. My job was to pass fresh bottles to Dad, screw the cap back on and record the animal’s number onto the lid. The days were hot and filled with the stench of splattering cow manure, but there were bonuses, like being allowed to use the electric cattle prod and bouncing around the property in the back of a ute as it made its way to and from the stockyards each day. But the best bonus of all was the farmer’s daughter’s bicycle. It was an old Speedwell clunker; a girl’s bike without a crossbar. I had eyed it off at the homestead as I kicked around the dusty yard while the adults enjoyed afternoon tea under the shade of a tree. The farmer had noticed me sizing up the bicycle and called out, ‘It’s a bit big, but go on, have a go.’
I was a demon on a trike, but I’d never ridden a two-wheeler and this was several sizes too large. I managed to get the old rattler moving by just riding up and down on the pedals in a standing position; the bike was so big that the nose of the saddle kept bumping into the small of my back. If it had been a boy’s bike with a crossbar (or nut-crusher as we used to call them) the bike would have stayed where it was. I wobbled around the house and past the adults.
‘Well, I’ll be buggered, the little fella’s riding it!’ came a voice from behind the steaming billy tea and pumpkin scones. My chest swelled with pride. Round and round I went, each time with greater confidence and speed. Soon I was riding the long 300-metre driveway up to the front gate and back. Up and back, up and back. I was in heaven and I was determined not to stop, not to get off, until I’d made a suitable impression on my father.
We never asked Dad for anything; the trick with him was to plant a seed, and once it sprouted, to let him think that it was all his idea. Up and down the driveway I went. After half an hour my hands were raw from the hard plastic grips, my back screamed, and my brand-new gym boots blistered my feet. I didn’t get off until the farmer had remarked to my father at least three times, ‘Crikey, look at the little fella go, could have ridden into town and back by now.’
Galahs wheeled in the big sky and a rusty windmill creaked in the slow-motion breeze as the tyres imprinted their wobbly story upon the earth. That night in bed, like a sailor back on land after a long voyage, I was still rolling, still rattling, still turning over those big cranks. I’ve been riding ever since.
{ 2 OCTOBER 2005 }
Thirty-three years later I was on the saddle of my latest bike; down in the cool gullies behind Mt Coot-tha. I was with friends; it was early – somewhere between 6 and 7 a.m. My legs have pedalled so many bikes. Shortly after we returned from that trip to the bush, my father brought me home my first bike – a speckly red Tom Wallace Special. Years later came the dragster, then the BMX bike. The first bike I paid for was a baby-poo-brown 12-speed racing bike. Then came the mountain bikes – six or seven of them bought, sold and traded in search of the perfect ride. Now here I was, a man of 39, flying like a ten-year-old down the well-packed ribbon of dirt that formed the trail. I usually ride last in a bunch; I am not the fastest and I tend to slow the more aggressive riders down. I like it at the back, where I don’t have to worry about the nipping tyres of others. But on this morning I was out in front with Matt and Steve following.
We dropped into a section of single track at 20-second intervals – like parachutists. The track followed a creek, alternating between coils of giddy hairpins and ha-ha-humps of rollercoaster joy. Suddenly the track disappeared as a huge black-and-red mass of feathers swooped down in front of me, almost clipping the top of my helmet. It squawked in an otherworldly ‘Kar-aak’, shocking me out of my waking slumber. The bird slipped down the track three or four bike lengths ahead of me at chest height. With the slightest wingtip correction this way and that it followed the track with slot-car precision. And the sound its wings made – they rippled the way taut flags ripple in a strong wind, only this sound was alive – fat! We flew together in unison; at times I might as well have been hang-gliding beneath him.
The track took a sharp dogleg and then zigzagged though a narrow stand of trees; it was tight, just wide enough for a crouching rider. The bird zipped though the gaps with cocky ease and then, clearing the thicket, floated up, up, up and with the last of his momentum touched down on the branch of a young gum tree. His perch lurched earthward under his great weight before rebounding, nearly sending him heavenward again.
‘Karak, karak!’ he called as his wobbly perch settled.
He watched me watching him, then groomed himself a little, his finger-like grey tongue gaggling in and out of a black beak that looked as powerful as a mud-crab’s claw. My two friends burst through the thicket and rolled to a stop. Their eyes followed mine. As if on cue, the black cockatoo stretched out his plumage, revealing his bright red markings.
‘Kar-aak,’ he screeched to his growing audience.
‘A Red-tailed Black Cockatoo!’ said Steve. ‘They’re everywhere up north, but this is the first I’ve seen in Brisbane.’
‘I’ve never seen one before, what a beauty,’ said Matt.
‘Me neither. He was flying down the track right in front of me, just like that.’ I mimicked the bird’s flight with splayed-out fingers.
We stood about, straddling our bikes, enjoying the coolness of the hollow and the company of our new friend. Eventually, Steve clipped back into his pedals and continued down the track. Matt followed a minute later, leaving me with the cockatoo. He groomed his glossy coat while I made silly clicking birdcall noises. We had shared a special moment, but in true human fashion, I wanted more. Instead of just allowing the moment to be, I had broken the spell. With a great flap he flew to the higher branch of an adjacent tree. The foliage wobbled and rustled under his weight. I clicked my tongue again and he was gone.
Later that day I was on my bike again. The Brisbane River rolled by like a long bolt of sequined fabric. On the opposite bank the central business district rose in concrete and glass self-importance, its pretensions made ludicrous by a happy sun. Everything felt clear and clean, the river ducted breezes inland from the bay, carrying the scent of whitecaps, crabpots and plywood pleasure craft. The organisers of the Brisbane
Writers Festival who had pitched marquees and café umbrellas on the riverbank outside the State Library had had their perfect-weather wishes granted. I chained my bike to a lamp-post and surveyed the festival program. One of the requirements for my Indigenous Writing unit was to go to a couple of sessions at the Writers Festival featuring Indigenous writers.
I made my way to a marquee where two Wik storytellers were scheduled to speak. Once inside I was surprised to see a large banner pronouncing that the session was sponsored by a mining company. The tent was three-quarters full and few of the faces were white. I’d heard the name Wik – like Mabo – numerous times in the media, I knew it had something to do with an important native title claim a few years ago and I remembered that the Wik people were from somewhere on Cape York Peninsula, but that’s all I knew. And then it dawned on me that until recently, Wik was one of the only tribal names I knew! I knew that Aborigines from Queensland broadly referred to themselves as Murries, and that in southern states they used the term Kooris, and sure, when I’d looked at the Aboriginal map some of the names rang a dim little bell in the back of my brain. But there I was, sitting near a bend in the Brisbane River that had been in continual use as a traditional meeting place for thousands of years, and I didn’t even know the name of the tribe whose cooking-fire smoke and laughter had once filled the space in which I now sat. Zulu, Bantu, Masai, Swahili, Hottentot, Apache, Cherokee, Pawnee, Arapahoe, Navaho – I knew the names of more African and American tribal nations than Australian!
A young guy from my class entered hesitantly, awkwardly – as I did. He looked relieved to see my familiar face and plonked beside me. Moments later three girls from the class breezed in. We all clumped together. The girls chirped enthusiastically about other sessions they had been to. A festival volunteer flitted about, checking that the PA was working and that everything was just so before ushering in the two speakers. Before the session began, the two storytellers, Fiona Doyle and her kin sister Alyson set out on the table before them an array of Wik tools and handicrafts. The centrepiece was an extraordinary headdress, an explosion of black and orange feathers.
‘Wow!’ I whispered to my neighbour. ‘That headdress is just astonishing.’
I was mesmerised by the feathers, spellbound. Were they from the same species of bird I’d seen that morning, the black cockatoo? Fanned out in majestic order, they seemed to possess an otherworldly energy. I shivered in my hard plastic seat.
Fiona spoke about her childhood in Wik country and then introduced Auntie Alyson. The woman might have been 50 or 80, it was impossible to tell. Her hair was a pure grey Afro that seemed to vibrate as if it had an electric current running through it. She took her time speaking, taking long breaks between sentences; she slowed down our big-city heart-rates and pulled us into her story. I’m not sure I really heard anything properly; rather, it was a feeling that she imparted, a sense of place. Her words were measured, like footsteps that took us on a long walk, and when she laughed at her own jokes it was like little lightning cracks flashing on the horizon. Piece by piece she held up and explained her collection; the dillybags, baskets and bowls, and the headdress. She brought each of them to life; these were not dusty museum relics but pieces of living culture, works of art and tools of survival all rolled into one. They were contemporary pieces that Wik men, women and children had made and used, just as their ancestors used to do – not the product of some far-off factory. I looked out through the tent flaps and watched people of my white world wandering by, and wondered how many of us could, with our own hands, craft the tools that would enable us to live off the land. I looked at these durable implements that came quietly from Nature and would return quietly to Nature. Then I thought of our modern tools for living, so complex yet often so lacking craftsmanship; and so disposable, sometimes consigned to festering landfill after a single season, sometimes after a single use.
One other thing about Auntie Alyson’s talk that stuck in my mind, probably because it surprised me so, was that she kept singing the praises of the big mining company that operated in Wik country. She spoke of the training programs that gave the young men hope and got them out of the dependency cycle. She spoke of the money invested in cultural programs. She thanked the company for flying her down from Wik country to speak to us. I’d always thought that in terms of respecting the land and the traditional owners, big mining companies were the bad guys. In this case at least, I was very ill-informed. Another preconception popped.
After the talk, I made my way up to the front of the marquee to have a closer look at the feather headdress; could these feathers be from the same kind of bird I’d flown with that morning – the black cockatoo? The orange splotches on the jet-black plumage weren’t nearly as red as those I’d seen on Mount Coot-tha. Perhaps they’d faded? Aunty Alyson and Fiona were off to one side, talking to a gaggle of enthusiastic women who’d hurried up at the end of the session. I edged closer, keen to talk, eager to ask questions about the headdress. I began to overhear the discussion taking place; knowledgeable questions were being asked by people who seemed to know infinitely more than I. The way the conversation flowed only magnified my unease. As laughter radiated from the group I was again pulled down by the weight of my own baggage. I reached out, gently touched the headdress, and left.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
I spent a lot of time in the bush when I was growing up – hunting, fishing, visiting properties and camping – but never once did I see any Aborigines. Sometimes I imagined that they were there, in the bush, watching us, only to slip back behind the grasstrees as I turned to look. I know I felt a presence, as if they had sensed our arrival and moved on only moments before. Sometimes I would see their spirit faces in the gnarled bunions that grew on the sides of trees, or on rocky escarpments that in a certain slant of light looked like the frozen faces of Dreamtime heroes. The Aborigines of my childhood existed only in an imagination drawing on books, films and kitsch. The real ones had been corralled onto the missions and communities of Cherbourg, Woorabinda and Palm Island, or lived in the poorer suburbs that fringed the cities and towns.
{ 3 OCTOBER 2005 }
I spied Big Rob at the uni refectory. He saw me and waved me over. Rob was having lunch with a young Aboriginal girl who took one look at me and quickly excused herself – in fact she almost ran off. Most likely she was an upset student having a meltdown. But my overactive imagination told me that she’d heard about ‘the ghoul with the skull’ and suddenly there I was in the flesh, swooping in. Whatever the reason for her hasty departure, I’d begun to realise that Aboriginal people feel death very differently to white folk. It’s as though death is almost a living thing; a very real ongoing energy.
Rob listened intently as I filled him in on all the latest developments; his big frame visibly shivered a number of times. And then he did the weirdest thing. He asked me to say my surname slowly, and then he repeated it a number of times: Dan-al-is, Dan-al-is. He explained that he was committing my name to memory. ‘Big things are going to come from this business. I think maybe you’ll write a book about all this.’
Rob had no idea that I’d written a couple of children’s picture books. I’d long entertained the idea of writing something more grown-up, but the idea of writing about Mary seemed almost perverse.
‘Your life is going to change after all this is over, and your family’s too, you just wait and see.’
I felt a wave of embarrassment rise up my chest and I explained that I was blessed already, life was good. ‘Anyway, it’s all about Mary, not me.’
Rob waved my protests away and fixed me with eyes as clear as rockpools. ‘Just you wait, good things are going to come.’
I’ve never been good with praise, so I changed the subject and launched into my family’s geographic history. I explained that my family all came from Texas, a little border town four hours drive south-west of Brisbane. ‘We’ve been in the city a long time now, though. Before that we came from all over: Greece, Germany,
Scotland.’
I was trying to be polite, that is, in Aboriginal terms. I had read somewhere that when Aboriginal strangers meet they tell each other which country they belong to and then spend a lot of time figuring out who their common acquaintances are. This process of establishing where you are from and who your people are is terribly important and a nice way of getting comfortable with a person; it certainly seems a lot more civilised than that annoying question we in the white world ask: ‘So, what do you do?’ Why do we place so much importance on what we do rather than who we are?
‘So, Rob,’ I asked, gaining confidence in my first steps in Aboriginal etiquette, ‘what’s your country?’
Rob broke eye contact and looked away.
I sat frozen as Rob’s story wrapped itself around me like a dark vine. This time I couldn’t turn the page or switch the channel.
‘I was taken from my mother when I was a baby. I’ve been piecing together my past for a long time now. But on the mission where my clan was sent to, not many records were kept, maybe they didn’t want us to remember. I’ve found most of my relatives now, even in unmarked graves. I also found my mother in 1994; her name is Alma Toomath. We are from Bibbulman country near the sea. Rob’s my adopted name, my birth name is Jo Cuttabut. Right now I’m in the process of changing it back to the name my mother gave me.’
Everyone in Australia knows at least a little about the Stolen Generation, about the Aboriginal babies and children who were removed from their mothers, family and culture and placed in government and church-run institutions or with white families. We’ll never know the exact numbers of the children whose lives were affected by the removals, which started as far back as 1814 but reached levels of ruthless efficiency from the 1920s until the 1960s. It is estimated that between 10 and 30 per cent of the entire population of Indigenous children were affected by the removal policies. In New South Wales the figure is believed to be up to 10 000 children. In Western Australia, where Rob was born, the figure was even higher. But we’ll never know for sure, as records were poor and often destroyed. Comparisons with Nazi Germany are always fraught with danger, but it’s worth pointing out that the Nazis kept records in far greater detail of the millions they ‘processed’ though their death camps during World War II. In fact, a relative or descendant of one of the four million Jews or political prisoners that Hitler exterminated in his death camps stands a better chance of learning the fate of his relatives than an Aboriginal person trying to piece together his or her family history. There is no doubt that some of the motives for the forced removal of children were honourable, but when you read the many stories of the way culture and language were crushed in the institutions, hostels and missions, it is not hard to conclude that the policy was first and foremost an orchestrated program of cultural and spiritual genocide.
