The dancers divided into two lines on either side of the shelter, stamping and chanting — Ma widji, widji ma . . . Koonapippi — and ululating; while the Pookarakka advanced on the wide-staring Yalunga, still with Bidu whirling, to a point where, with a deft movement brought it spiralling down, to catch it, and then reverently wrap the long flat carved elipse of polished ironwood in the hair-string. Thus with the sacred symbol lying on upturned hands, he advanced on the shelter, knelt before the boy, offered the thing. Obviously trembling, the boy took it on extended palms, while the Pookarakka said, ‘Barumba, birrini, wirrana.’
At that another shout arose, and the dancers ranged again in a half-circle, stamping, chanting: Djeninalua, djeninalua, Djeninalu-ah-ah-ah!
A moment. Then the Pookarakka reached and took the Bidu-bidu back. As he rose he touched the boy’s head with it. Thereupon the crowd shouted, and as the old man withdrew, came each to touch the head, while the grey eyes stared entranced. That was the end of proceedings for the time. The Pookarakka retired to the next bough shelter, while the others filed off, still shouting and yodling, to the camp.
The kites were to be seen spiralling down, knowing that cooking would be on again. The Sun was down behind the wall. A couple of men went over it with spears, were soon back with rock wallabies. The fire blazed in the sunset. The high laughter of blackmen rose. There was a howl of mirth as one fellow tripped and fell into the fire, saving himself from much injury through his incredible alacrity, himself laughing, indifferent to hurt. Igulgul came up on the feasting. The kites snatched and fled to roosts. Soon everybody was asleep.
Igulgul was halfway up the sky when they roused again. Now they washed off the paint of former proceedings, and assisting each other, assumed new decorations, of various designs. Thus did they occupy themselves till the Old One was directly overhead. Then, ready, they took from the caverns behind the dilly-bags and packages they had brought up from below, and with them trooped to the Ring. Here they stowed their things in the unoccupied shelter. Then some went to the wirrianwah hole and filled it in. All this done, those two men who had acted as handlers for the initiate, brought him from his shelter and placed him out in the open close to where the hole had been. Again he squatted, but with head erect.
Proceedings began with group dancing, to which Bobwirridirridi kept accompaniment with boomerangs, assisted by another with didjeridoo. The group danced itself to the sidelines, there to stamp and clap, while individuals, after having gone to a shelter to get his particular sacred artifact, came and danced before the boy. displaying what he had. The first man had a thin piece of wood carved like an elongated bird and decorated as he himself was. The next had a stone about as big as an emu’s egg held in a net bag. The boy’s eyes glittered in the moonlight as he viewed the things. So each danced and sang of his Dreaming and displayed the symbol of it, the import perhaps to convey to the initiate the responsibility of tribesmen to what was their own, as a lesson in the responsibilities he himself would be assuming.
It went on, repeated again and again — till Igulgul got sick of it, and ducked down behind the wall, leaving it to the Sun, always Right Side. But the magic vanished with the golden blaze. Halt was shouted. Prindy was placed back in his shelter. Bobwirridirridi went to his and had a swig of brandy and water. The others returned to the camp to cook and eat and sleep. The kites came down for their pickings.
Those kites, in wide wheeling, could be seen from Jeremy’s camp. Jeremy pointed them out to Rifkah, while they were down at the horse-yard taking a look at sick Betsy. The movement was no more than a flicker in the violet sky, of sunlight striking the sheen of dark wings. He said, ‘Lend me your young eyes. Are those kites . . . or am I developing cirrhosis through too much brandy?’
Rifkah shaded her eyes, after a while answered, ‘Kite all right.’
‘Hmm. Then that’s where the Ring Place will be. Kites always join in. They get the scraps for nix.’ Jeremy glanced towards the camp. No one was in sight. Turning back to Rifkah, he went on: ‘I saw them when we were down here yesterday afternoon, but didn’t say anything, for fear of starting her ladyship off.’ Giving his attention to the mare, who was lying groaning, he continued: ‘There’s what looks like an old Ring Place just about there . . . a rather marvellous place, with cave paintings, shut off by a circular wall of rock, so that you feel you’re in a dream world in the middle of it. Wish I could take you to see it sometime . . . only it wouldn’t be proper. Anyway, at least we know they’re handy. The old fellow should be along for his rations as soon as the show’s over. Then we can get her little ladyship going on the pretence that she’ll be able to join her boy over on the railway after his walkabout. We’ll have to stop this mad Charada singing of hers . . . or she’ll have a breakdown. It’s Full Moon tonight. She’ll probably be sitting up all night singing, the way she’s lying in this morning.’
Rifkah commented with a sigh: ‘Poor dear!’
Jeremy talked of the mare, saying he had a suspicion that her condition was not uterine but intestinal, the cause fermented hay: ‘In spite of our care in drying it, a bit of damp could have got in. The by-products of hay ferments can be quite toxic to animals. Must have a look at that hay.’
Had he gone to take a look right then, he would have found more than ferment in the hay. Had he even looked up at the loft instead of towards the camp, he would have seen a dark face looking down at him. It was a pleasant place to ‘lay off’ in, out of the blustering wind, without being back amongst what to one in her state must have been the constriction of the rocks and wall. She must have heard what Jeremy said, because she withdrew at once and slipped across to the other side, to stare at the sky southwestward. Then, avoiding the ladder, she climbed through the fork of the tree on that side, slid down the smooth trunk. For a moment she hid behind the trunk, peeping at those in the yard, then backed away to the cover of other trees. Hidden, she looked at the sky again. Here it was too close in to see. She went on up to the kitchen shelter, took a drink from the water-bag, then flung herself into a chair, facing southeastward, staring up into the violet sky cut by the top of the escarpment. Soon she began to sing softly to herself, tapping fingers like minga-minga sticks:
Kowe breiju, I sing you now
Kowe breiju, you my sweetheart
Kowe breiju, must you come
To my Charada, Charada, Charada . . .
Over and over, as if entranced herself by the spell-binding. Yet, hearing the others coming while still a long way off, she fell silent, and in a moment was up and off, to take refuge in the rocks beyond. While Jeremy and Rifkah set about preparing smoke-o, she went to the sleeping-cave, flung herself down on her bed. When later Rifkah came to ask her to join them, she appeared to be asleep.
That Savitra was far from sleeping was shown by the alacrity with which she rose as Rifkah disappeared. She slipped out of the cave, made her way westward through the rocks, soon to reach the track by which assent to the top of the escarpment usually was made. She stopped often, out of breath from her haste, but always where she could not be seen from below. She stared at the Flag of Lost Hope. She watched Jeremy and Rifkah drenching Betsy. She didn’t look upward much, probably because, by the way she blinked, it made her dizzy. But on and up she went, and at last with a sigh cast herself down on top, back from the edge, in the shade of a wind-bent larrama.
Now her eyes were fixed on the sky eastward, where the kites could be seen as black dots above the horizon. She began to sing:
Kowe breiju, Must you come
I sing you Charada . . .
At length she rose, drew a deep breath, started eastward, with the wind pressing her floral cotton dress tight on those most vital parts of her, her growing breasts and belly. Gorged breasts and pregnant bellies of rock all round her, like symbols of the Earth Mother’s fertility. Round and through and over she went, panting, sweating, sometimes cursing, often singing her Charada, which the wind snatched from her lips as improperly directed and flung it the o
ther way. She scratched herself on rock, got torn by spiny bush, shouted, ‘Bloody bastard!’ She nursed bruised feet, whimpering, ‘Wha’s matter he no-more come, all-time I sing him? Blackfeller magic can’t beat Charada. Nutching beat Charada . . . Kowe breiju, must you come . . .’
On and on, while the Sun climbed high, watching, watching — the Ol’Goomun-Ol’Goomun, who throughout the ages had seen so many women recklessly trying to win back the magic she had given them but they had let men steal behind her back. The kites rose with the Sun. They spotted the intruder, swung westward to take a better look. She hid when they came too near. Not that she seemed worried by their attention. She sang back at them from hiding:
Kowe breiju, must you come
I sing you Charada.
She projected her sharpish Indian nose into the wind, sniffing. Smell of smoke if not sign of it. Then there was the darkish wall of the arena rising. In the wilderness it had the look of some sort of habitation, at least to one whose eyes would long to see such things. Her step became brisker. She was in more open country, with the rock masses smaller, the trees bigger and more plentiful. There were huge red anthills amongst the trees. Suddenly she stopped, staring at the ground. A blackfellow’s footprints. She looked about with black eyes wide with alarm. The tracks crossed her path. She peered carefully in each direction. No sign of life except those wheeling birds, now above the mass behind which could be a station stockyard. After a moment she moved on, reached the wall.
It was easy enough to climb. In no time she was at the top, but to be startled by the unexpected sight of the amphitheatre. On the instant she dropped into hiding amongst grass and scrub. She sniffed. Here the smell of smoke was strong. She peeped. Nothing living to be seen. But, yes — the small birds were back at the water. Staring at the pandanus palms, she licked dry lips and swallowed. She wriggled into a better positition for viewing. That it was a camp of some sort and occupied, if at the moment deserted, was obvious. She would have little if any idea of its significance. Even the women and children of the wilds knew nothing of Ring Places, nothing more than that certain places were wahji, whether because used by devils or men, and to be avoided as one loved life.
But was the place utterly deserted? Her sharp eyes spotted the white figure squatting in the shelter almost directly facing her. She stared and stared. Her lips moved. The song came under her breath:
Kowe breiju, I sing you now
Kowe breiju, you my sweetheart
Kowe breiju, must you come
To my Charada, Charada, Charada . . .
Again, and again, and louder. She rose to knees singing. She leapt to her feet. The whiteness stirred. She screeched, ‘Prindy!’
No movement.
She stood a moment, then in a different tone, shriller, a little girl’s voice, at once expressing fear and anger, she screeched, ‘I know dat you. You come here. You come here now.’ When there was still no movement, the screech became higher, more ragged: ‘You got ’o come, you bastard. I been sing you Charada!’
Movement now, if ever so slight.
Another moment. Then the voice became a woman’s, a black gin’s, the scream of defiance of denial of a woman’s right: ‘All right . . . I don’ care ’bout blackfeller bijnitch . . . I come gitchim you!’ As she came leaping down from projection to projection, her voice rose again, screaming now that song she could sing so sweetly:
Okale pusili paya
Dodi dudhoch khatock ho
Feed you my milk, my kuni
My Pigeon, I never let you go!
On reaching the bottom she halted, wary again, looked about, breathing hard. Not that she could see even the Ring Place now through the intervening scrub. Then she started off towards it, at a run, crashing through the growth, came out on the sacred circle, but with eyes for nothing save the squatting pipe-clayed figure. She leapt to it, flinging herself on knees before it, grabbed at its feathered arms, babbling, ‘Prindy, Prindy, Prindy!’
The grey eyes were so wide with horror that she was silenced momentarily. Panting likewise, he tried to shake her off, and when she only clung the fiercer, heaved up to knees, croaking the first words he would have uttered for days, ‘Go ’way!’
She found her voice, screeched, dragging at him, ‘You got ’o come wid me . . . Mullaka say!’
‘Go ’way!’
It seemed like the sudden obliteration of the Sun by a storm-cloud in a high wind, so swiftly did the great shadow fall upon them. An instant under the menace. Then black hands appeared, snatched at the slender chocolate arms. Savitra shrieked as she was yanked away, heels dragging in the sand. One moment of goggling of black eyes into grey. Then both looked up. Again the hooded mantis figures, although this time not with switches. She tried to fight against restraint. The blade of a black hand struck her neck. As she fell limp, the handling of her was left to a pair of the stick figures, who hauled her by the wrists across to where the human altar of initiation had been formed, there dropped her unceremoniously.
The group strolled over and formed a circle. No one carried any sort of weapon, except one tall fellow who had a heavy nulla-nulla stick, which, upon reaching the prostrate form, he set up in the ground by the sharper end. Then this same man bent and took the floral dress by the neck and jerked as if to rip it away, only to drag the girl with it. Another man put a foot on an outstretched arm. The dress was ripped off, showing the plump little chocolate body wearing only a pair of cotton drawers. The man had these off in a swift movement. The clothes were tossed away.
The crowd stood silent, till the tall man put hand to mouth and gave voice to the Tjangaluma. As all took it up, he stopped, reached for the nulla-nulla, took a grip on the light end with both hands, swung high, brought it down with full force on the girl’s right knee cap. Savitra woke with a gasp, goggling. Up went the stick again, to come down on the left knee. She sat up with a shriek. Two other men leapt from the circle to seize her upflung arms. With a dexterous backward movement, the bone-breaker swung his stick to catch the right arm at the elbow, and as it was dropped shattered, swung to do likewise with the left. Screaming at the top of her lungs, heaving, trying to rise, the victim got into a sitting posture. A black hand shot out and silenced her with another swipe on the side of the neck.
Still yodelling, the group danced into a squad as it had done to receive the other initiate, in a trice formed the human altar. The senseless sacrifice was raised and dumped onto it. The man with the nulla-nulla had used it to dismantle a shelter, the boughs of which he brought to cover the naked chocolate body. Whatever tradition demanded in one circumstance, it could not be violated in another. She might be Wrong Side to someone. So long as they could not see her.
Again the bone-breaker stood his stick in the ground, to go take up a position a few paces from the spread chocolate thighs. Then, leaping into a dance in which he jerked erotically, he drew his black darra from the apron of his belt and masturbated to the rhythm and the ululating of his fellows till he had erection, when suddenly he rushed the victim, penetrated her, jerked to orgasm, after which he wheeled away, now with hand raised to join the Tjangaluma, while another man who had been dancing as he, replaced him. The victim roused, howled into the din — Ooooooooooooo! The men of the altar had her fast. Soon it was their turn. The only one not in it, watching with great grey eyes, could not have seen much with all the crowding, not until it was over, and as the altar collapsed the man with the nulla-nulla grabbed the black hair of the falling howling victim, and with another deft stroke caught her in the back of the neck. She fell quivering. The group ceasing yodelling, to drop to haunches.
The man with the nulla-nulla still stood. Again he dug his stick in the sand, and this time went off towards the camp, alone. The others sat in silence staring at the now still victim, what could be seen of her beneath the boughs. The kites were wheeling low, as if they’d done a job and expected a reward.
Soon the executioner was back, with a fresh bit of bough and one of the clasp knive
s donated by Jeremy. He gave the leaves to another man, who quickly formed them into a sort of dish. He stooped over the victim, bared the right breast, seized it in his left hand, while with his right he sliced round and removed it to the depth of the white rib bone. As the man with the dish held it towards him, he cut the slightly quivering flesh into some half-dozen lumps, letting them fall. He stepped over to the left breast, did the same. The flies swooped into the oozing holes. He stepped to the crutch, took a grip of the tuft of pubic hair, sliced from back of the mons right round the vulva, removed the whole, again cut it into pieces into the fly-filled bowl. Finished, he raised his bloodied hand to give the Tjangaluma again. The others leapt up to join in. He took the leafy platter of sacrificial pieces from his mate, turned and headed towards the camp, with the rest following in line still keeping up their din.
At the fire the executioner set down his platter, took off his hood to disclose himself as one of those men at the waterhole that day. He flung it into the smouldering fire. The others did likewise. The fire was stirred up, to blaze, to fall to coals. The kites whistled at the rising of the savour of cooking human flesh.
Prindy sat staring at what could be seen beneath the boughs and the busy busy flies. The mother Sun stared down. How often since the Dream Time had she witnessed the like?
Soon five men appeared from the direction of the camp. The leader was the executioner, now carrying spears and womera, but not bent on more execution, evidently because he only took up his nulla-nulla and headed for that gap in the western wall. The others, apparently not Wrong Side, kicked the boughs from the corpse, and taking it up by wrists and ankles from which it dangled in a strangely flaccid way, set out to follow. It would be the burial party, the nulla-nulla for gouging a hole in an anthill, the customary place for burial of such as whose remains held no sanctity.
The grey eyes under the shelter stared trance-like — suddenly to become alert at movement to the right of the shelter. There was the Pookarakka. The red coals met the grey eyes in a long stare. The old man was fully accoutred and freshly decorated with the motif of The Snake. Jerking his lips in direction opposite to that of the camp he said in his cackling voice, ‘Ngangula.’ The boy rose at once.
Poor Fellow My Country Page 247
