Poor Fellow My Country

by Xavier Herbert

  Bishoff chuckled. Jeremy continued: ‘But that’s only part of the creation of Terra Australis . . . as the bliss of Eden was of the world. There was Tchamala, the Serpent, who sneaked into the paradise Koonapippi had created, much as Satan sneaked into the Garden. That’s if Satan did sneak in. He might have been there all the while, created by the Creator to balance things. Perhaps you need evil to give value to good, a sort of negative to positive to give potential, as in electrodynamics . . . otherwise you have inertia. Anyway, Tchamala was soon messing things up. He is the Lord of Storms. Koonapippi made the gentle breezes and the soft showers, to make living sweet for her children . . . only to have Tchamala turn them into hurricanes and deluges. She made the billabongs and streams for her water creatures to live in placidly. The old boy turned them into raging seas and torrents, flooded the sweet green land, and afterwards got underneath and drew the water off to leave arid plains and even deserts. He made the rivers in his rages. They are his tracks, tearing the gentle landscape apart. He made the ranges similarly. He still makes visitations, of course, has underground passages, into which he pops when he comes down from on-top, to pop out as the rainbow and rear over the land, threatening it, or to flatten and burn it with thunderstorms. More than interfering with Koonapippi’s terrestial paradise, he fouled up the good she taught her people. For instance, he induced the Frog People to go Wahii in their selection of husbands and wives, with the result that they had a terrible fight and exterminated themselves as they were in the beginning, to become the silly little creatures they now are, able only to mate in storms and not male with female . . . males have to go make love to the female’s eggs. Everything that was bad and wrong and uncomfortable and dangerous was due to Tchamala, the tchineke-tchineke, meaning big-big-snake. Tchineke is blackfellow English, believe it or not, the word snake being synonymous. To go tchinekin means to act with the subtlety of a snake. Anyway, that’s a sort of outline to this Rainbow Serpent business. But don’t take it as simple as I’ve made it sound. Our own forefathers’ ideas about the evil one are by no means simple. He was called Satan, Lucifer, Mephistopheles, Beelzebub, Old Scratch, with a different conception attached to each name. The blackfellow’s conception is similarly diverse and vague. The Cult of Koonapippi constitutes the Credo. All social behaviour is based on it. All males are initiated into it, and females, although rigidly denied communion, bound to observe its injunctions. The cult of Tchamala is something quite different. It mightn’t even be a cult in the proper sense of the term, which I take to mean a sort of congregation . . . and so the Anthropologists and police might be to a large degree right in saying it’s only a sort of lurk worked by heads, as smart ones are called. That’s why I want to find out more about it from the old man. How one becomes a snake man I’ve no idea. There’s always one about somewhere. You don’t have to be a koornung to be one. In fact Bobwirridirridi’s the first I’ve known who was. A Snake Man, although leading an ordinary tribal life, more or less, is supposed to be in league with spirits that do Tchamala’s bidding. In being so he can be dangerous. He can arrange for one’s being bitten by a poisonous snake, taken by a crocodile, drowned in a flood, struck by lightning, or merely inconvenienced by being harassed by mosquitoes, sandflies, marsh flies, leeches, ticks, all creatures of Tchamala’s . . . or washed out of his humpy in the middle of a black night and have his fire put out and nothing to start another with. In a society where it is implicit that everything is controlled by magic, it’s handy to have it known that you are in league with occult powers. At the same time, there is the disadvantage of being too greatly feared to lead a normal tribal life . . .’

  Jeremy broke off as a large bird broke from the timber, and taking a half-turn over them, croaking harshly, flapped away towards the ghostly white and jet hummock that was the homestead.

  ‘What was that?’ asked Bishoff.

  ‘A night heron. Also supposed to be in league with Snake Men, I think. Might’ve been old Bob cutting across ahead of us.’

  ‘Eh?’ The young man was staring again.

  Jeremy chuckled: ‘Well, I don’t see how otherwise he’s going to get across there without admitting to us that he’s merely mortal.’

  ‘But . . . but . . .’

  ‘I’m not trying to do anything but impress you with the idea that it’s as silly to measure these people by our own standards as to think we can convert this continent into another Europe. Leave it. Let’s cut across now. Take it easy, so you don’t miss any movement. Also I’m a long way off finishing the story.’

  They had come back somewhat more than half the direct distance southward. The homestead lay across the strip of silver paddock, something like a third of a mile away. As they headed for the dark mass of the garden, Jeremy resumed his tale: ‘As I’ve said, what happened to old Bob that I’ve told you of was while I was overseas. Well, as far as I know, during the next ten years, he might well have been on-top with Tchamala for all that was heard of him. Probably he was with the wild bush blacks of the nor’west. Anyway, civilisation didn’t hear of him again till the Beatrice River Riots in 1928 . . .’

  Bishoff exclaimed, ‘Beatrice River Riots?’

  ‘Sounds incredible, I know . . . a town consisting of one pub, one store, a Chinese saddler, a Hindu hawker. But there were plenty of men there during the extension of the railway to Charlotte Springs. It was a transcontinental track they were supposed to be building, you know, the North-South Railway advocated at the beginning of the century to meet the Yellow Peril, but vetoed by Kitchener in favour of the East-West line, so’s to get silly Aussies quicker to the war he was spoiling for with Von Hindenberg. What started the building of the North-South was not the Yellow Peril, but that bloody depression we got our share of through getting mixed up in that stinking war.’ The vibrance of tone again caused Bishoff to glance at the rugged face. Jeremy grimaced: ‘My hobby-horse . . . the selling of our birthright, if you can call inherited stolen property that, to go strutting about the world in silly cocked hats, to go whoring as heroes in the same brothels that have served the soldiery of every warmonger since Alexander the Great to the Cockney-Welsh con-man into whose hands the destiny of the burgeoning Australian nation was so incredibly trusted. I suppose you know that building the East-West Railway was considered a great achievement in community endeavour, the sort of thing possible only in Soviet Russia . . . and that was before the Russian Revolution, of course. The sort of thing on which the dream of Australia Felix was based . . . the dream of the True Commonwealth. Before it was completed, we had sold our birthright . . . or rather swapped it . . . because we never got anything back but astronomical war-debts, Rolls of Honour, Anzac Day . . . and, God save us! . . . the RSL.’ Jeremy himself laughed this time. He went on: ‘This North-South Railway, although national property, was financed by international financiers, with the idea of giving work to men otherwise likely to become dangerous in idleness. But there couldn’t have been enough profit in it, because they only got a hundred miles of the proposed thousand built, when along came a special representative of international finance, declared it too costly, and called it off.’

  ‘You mean Sir Otto Niemeyer?’

  ‘Yes . . . the British banker with the so un-British name.’

  ‘A bloody Jew!’

  ‘You’re wrong there, man. I was reading about him only the other day. He’s completely English, of Dutch origin.’

  ‘Still could be a Jew. Jews control the finances of the world. They were bleeding Germany white till Hitler took over.’

  ‘According to what I’ve read, Hitler says it’s the Treaty of Versailles that’s bled Germany.’

  ‘With the Jews operating it.’ Now Bishoff’s voice was vibrant.

  Jeremy glanced at him: ‘I wouldn’t know that. I got to know a few Jews in the Army, who seemed to be ordinary men, doctors and lawyers and such, who didn’t seem inordinately interested in money. Our own GOC, Monash, is a Jew . . . and renowned as an engineer. I saw a lot of Jews while s
erving in Palestine and other parts of Asia Minor, who weren’t at all in powerful positions, although they struck me as the most intelligent, trustworthy, and generous people I had dealings with . . . in fact the only properly civilised people I did have dealings with, including many of my own comrades. Then there are the great Jews of science and philosophy . . . the Einsteins, Freuds, Spinozas . . .’

  ‘And the Rothschilds and money!’

  ‘I never met them. But coming nearer home, while we’re on the subject, seeing it’s a touchy one with Hitler’s now hounding the Jews out of Germany . . . what about Isaac Isaacs, the first man with the strength of character in our long history of colonial crawling, to save us the indignity of being ruled in the name of the King of England by some Pommy lordling . . .’

  ‘Aw . . . he was pushed into the Governor-Generalship only as a political stooge for the Labor government!’

  ‘Well that lets him off a charge of involvement in finance. Besides, he was Chief Justice of Australia, well known as a fair-minded and clever jurist. By the way, I had him as a guest when he was visiting these parts. He didn’t strike me as anyone’s stooge. Certainly he wasn’t taken in by Lord Alfred Vaisey.’

  They were entering the garden, and silent as they went up through the fruit trees. Then Jeremy whispered, ‘Look on the tank-stand.’

  His companion already had glimpsed the shadowy figure up amongst the top leaves of the bananas, and was gaping. It was gone again. Bishoff seemed to be about to go round the stand to take a closer look. Again Jeremy checked him, saying loudly as he guided him straight on, ‘Old flying fox up there eating bananas, eh?’

  The Ah Loy household was now dark and silent. They went on through the garden, were coming to the gate, when again Jeremy halted Bishoff, whispering, ‘Someone there.’ A figure could be seen to flit from the shadow of the mangan to the shed. Jeremy breathed, ‘Bit of wrong side business, may be. Let’s not disturb ’em. Come this way.’ He drew the young man back a short distance, then turned him eastward along another path. They left the garden through the wires. Slowly they headed for the Big House, still lighted below. Jeremy resumed his story: ‘I spoke of Wirridirridi’s return to civilised ken as contemporary with those unemployed riots at Beatrice. That’s not quite correct . . . although the riots had a bearing on his fortunes. It’s also not right to blame the riots on Sir Otto Niemeyer. That other old Tchamala, Alf Vaisey, was primarily responsible. You see, as soon as the great military demand for bully-beef ceased, His Lordship closed down his Port Palmeston meatworks . . . although industrial trouble was supposed to be the cause. Just as the Devil can quote scripture to his own ends, so I guess can the boss organise a strike, to save a sacking. Anyway, that’s how the labour experts saw it. Remember that the social structure of this formerly purely rural community was greatly changed by the establishment of the meatworks. Suddenly there was a large industrial population in Palmeston. Just as suddenly that population was unemployed. Vaisey removed a large part of it in his own ships, though at government expense. The men were actually deported . . . from a part of their own country. The alternative to leaving was jail. How it would stand tested in law I don’t know. Anyway, there was no law but that of the policeman’s baton. Those who objected were branded Bolsheviks. All went. However, it would be a lot of these men who came back to work on the railway construction some eight years later. The big joke was that, having had the joy of black velvet . . . Aboriginal women, you know . . . they had to come back.

  ‘There was also an excuse for stopping the railway work without sacking. Early rain washed out some of the track, weakened a bridge that collapsed with a train-load of men. Unnecessary holdup of the work angered the men. Another strike. Another calling in of police . . . and deportation. That’s how things were when Bobwirridirridi reappeared. But I must now take you back to what he was doing earlier. It seems that he first showed himself to his kind, the more civilised of it, at any rate, on Princess Alice Station, where he took part in an initiation ceremony, and also got together a small band to whom to teach the gospel of the Rainbow Snake . . . with the idea of getting rid of all whitemen, the way he had that party in the same locality. This was the Wet Season before. No work was being done on the property. The manager and other whites were away. The place was left in charge of a reliable halfcaste stockman, with the curious name of Blackman. His wife was the cook. She was only one quarter white, but possessed of all the potential volcanic violence that seethes in most crossbreeds with white blood . . . and more. She’s still about . . . quite a figure in Palmeston now. You might have heard of her, Peg-leg Nelly, or Queen Nelly, or Queeny . . . Queen of the Compound, and boss of every black racket in Town . . . booze, opium, prostitution. You see her on Saturday nights outside the picture show, collecting from her black whores their earnings, and doling out to them what they need for entrance fee, ice-cream, et cetera. The rest goes towards credit for things bought at the store she runs at the compound with a character known as King George. I’m diverting again . . . but to give you the picture complete.’

  They were coming up to the front of the house. Voices could be heard within. Jeremy asked, ‘Well, have you had enough?’

  ‘Lord, no . . . I’d like to hear it all. You’re just coming to something, aren’t you, I mean a specially interesting point?’

  ‘Yes . . . but I’m afraid I can’t talk freely before my sons. Could you do with some more walking?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Well, let’s go in and have a drink first. I’m dry from talking.’

  They found the brothers pretending to read, Martin, Man, Clancy, a catalogue, looking hangdog, even while they received the others eagerly enough and drank with them. The talk was only of the night, the weather, and again of stock. After Jeremy had drunk two brandies and Bishoff a bottle of beer, these two went out again, Jeremy saying, ‘I’m telling him a few old yarns.’ The Delacys seemed even glad to be rid of them, their jaws squaring belligerently for another private scrap. Outside the gate they had just entered, Jeremy sighed, ‘I often think that what keeps those fellows for ever bickering is my neglect of them as a father . . . and wonder what would happen if I bumped their heads together now.’

  This time they headed out onto the eastern plain, following a track well beaten by motor vehicles. Jeremy went on with his tale: ‘Remember that we were at Princess Alice homestead, with an initiation in progress. The temporary manager, the halfcaste blackman, was involved in this. As a good Kurrawaddi, man, he could not help but indulge the Pookarakka in the matter of special rations — that is bread and milk and soup. However, his wife, the cook, later called Peg-leg Nelly, was soon at loggerheads with the old boy, resenting his cult-boss’s arrogance and he her cheek. Anyway, she hunted him with the rifle. From the evidence later produced in court it isn’t clear whether he got his revenge by somehow luring her to the sacred initiation ground, the Ring Place, or she in her wilfulness deliberately intruded on it. I suppose you know that these places, equivalent to the old Bora grounds of the southern tribes, are forbidden women and children on pain of death? I must digress again to explain an oddity about this Kurrawaddi or Koonapippi business. Although it’s a cult of masculinity to the very limit, legend shows plainly that it wasn’t always so. This is as it should be, when the deity was female. The odd thing is despite this powerful advance towards a patriarchate, which seems to have been a normal process in the evolution of primitive societies, the matrilineal system of social control remains . . . although vested in mother’s brothers. Legend has it that Ol’Goomun-Ol’Goomun entrusted the ritual necessary for maintaining the order of things to the women she created, but that the men, becoming jealous of their power, stole their magic paraphernalia, and so took command, to the utter exclusion of women . . . except, and here is another oddity, in the case of some very old woman who occasionally is taken into the cult to represent the Ol’Goomun in the flesh. The diabolical cruelty that goes with the execution of such women as intrude on the cult, suggests
to me that the rebellion of the men was concerned with the diabolism of the Snake. I have no proof of this. The blacks are very close-mouthed about these things. I base my supposition on the fact that the ancient paintings, to be found in Snake Caves, often depict what might reasonably be taken to represent the traditional ceremonial rape that’s part of the terrible business, and my hunch that some degree of diabolism is essential in human behaviour. I sometimes wonder if our propensity to murder, with which I include war, isn’t due to this. We are the only mammalian species who do kill our kind deliberately . . . or rather, with respect to our brethren, the apes, I should say the only genus. I hope these philosophical digressions don’t spoil my story.’