Poor Fellow My Country
Page 252
She was drowned in a howl of protest from the crossbreeds in the dusky crowd. But her voice came through again: ‘Like Jew who is not brought up to Judaism is not Jew, but what blackfellow call Bloody Nutching . . . blackfellow who has lost his Dreaming is Bloody Nutching . . .’
‘Bloody nutching yo’self!’
‘Shut up . . . bloody puggin white bastard!’
They were shoving towards her. Pat turned on them, brandishing his crutch, roaring, ‘Shut up yo’selves, you mongrel bastards, and give her a go!’
Again the voice of Rifkah, cracking now with the strain: ‘Not only have zese poor vuns here lost zere Dreaming, but zere dignity, too. People cannot truly live vizout dignity. Still ze people of ze North Coast have it. Leave zem alone, and zey vill make a nation. Zey vill become proud people . . . like ze Jews now zey have ze dignity of owning again zere ancient land of Israel. All Jews zroughout ze vorld share zat dignity . . . even if so many have lost zere Dreaming, too. So vill zese poor ozzer blackmen become proud again, knowing zat zere is a black Australian Nation . . . Murrinbidui . . .’
Someone yelled, ‘Land Rights!’
It was taken up: ‘Lan’ Right . . . Lan’ Right . . . Lan’ Right!’
Pat bellowed, ‘Shut up, you bloody munguses . . . and listen to sense for once!’
Rifkah got in a last hoarse word: ‘Land Rights vill only make ghettos amongst ze vites. Ze blackman living vit ze viteman moost alvays feel he is rubbitch . . .’
Up went another cry: ‘In’egration . . . In’egration . . . In’egration!’
And yet another: ‘Karlmarkus . . . Karlmarkus!’
The darkies were onto Pat — and he onto them with the crutch — Crack, crack, crack!
They snatched it from him, overwhelmed him, in a huddle that looked like a spider in the grip of a swarm of furious ants. No whites interfered, but rather drew back to avoid involvement. Rifkah started to his rescue. They were dragging him towards the river bank. She fought her way through the black and yellow press, positively seering a path with her she-hawk’s screaming and the blaze of her hair now divested of the hat. She almost got to him before they shoved him through the rails, reached the rails herself to see him go sliding down the curving concrete wall — Swish! — and he shot out into the milky stream — Splash!
He sank. He came up further out, thrashing with one arm. Hanging on the rail, great-eyed, she wailed, ‘He cannot svim!’
Again he sank, to come up now a distance down, caught by the current.
She screamed till her voice cracked. ‘Float, Pat, float . . . do not struggle!’
But Pat went down again.
She croaked, ‘Gevalt!’ She slipped through the rails, let go, went sliding down on her belly — Splash!
Her head came up like a bubble of dark blood above the milk. Pat was out in racing midstream now and well away. She struck out, was soon in the flood-race. Pat had vanished. But there ahead of her, retreating at the same swift rate as she advanced, was a strange sight — a quadrigeminal pattern of four bubbles. She stared, stopped swimming, swept on.
Were the great eyes behind the flared nostrils really intense grey, or only appeared to be so upon the racing white water? Her mouth opened wide, to give forth a cry that rang to the very tops of the few remaining river trees: ‘Prindy . . . Prindy . . . Ngoornberri . . . ngungah . . . ngungahhhhhh!’
Down went the pattern of bubbles. Down went the copper head that looked like a bubble of blood. Nothing else for the gaping world to see. Only the Moah of the river to be sensed, by those with senses not yet too blunted by the jack-hammer logic of the kuttabah as still to be aware of the all-pervading Mahraghi of this ancient land, Terra Australis del Espiritu Santo.
POOR FELLOW MY COUNTRY
Glossary of Aboriginal Terms
Bamgulut — bottle-tree
Baranga — brother
Barcoo — sick
Beinook — bustard
Beraga — ‘bring here’
Beral — Frog People (myth.)
Biaiuk — fairy wren
Bidu-bidu — bullroarer
Bijnitch — activity (general)
Bilbilgah — night-parrot
Binji — belly
Bogey — bathe
Booroolooloogun — nutmeg pigeon, also name of tribe
Bornji — tail of brush-tail wallaby
Bulkung — girdle of human hair
Burrulka — the sea
Burruwa — sister
Charada — love magic
Danook — ‘silence!’
Darra — penis
Delera — armlets
Dibble — evil spirit
Dirralk gurruk — ‘spit come out’ (it makes my mouth water)
Dookyangana — policeman
Gadecia — king prawn
Gogul — mopoke
Googoomara — giant cuckoo
Googoowinji — cormorant
Goolgoolgabin — see Jullingaal
Goona — dung
Goondalaag — wind spirits
Goorawundanji — salt-water crocodile
Gooruk bambulla? — ‘who is that person?’
Goydai! — ‘come!’
Gringelli — white morning glory (Convulvulus)
Gubindah — gecko lizard
Guliyurik — night heron
Gully-gully — crazy
Gungu (Ingornu) — fire-lighting equipment
Gurrawirrilyuma — pied butcher bird
Igaiyu — ‘my boy’
Igulgul — The Moon God
Ingornu — see Gungu
Iyuwuk — bandicoot
Jalyerri (Julama, Jumbajinna) — totemic skin name or sign
Jeripunga — symbol of totem
Jitty — silly
Joey — small boy
Julama — see Jalyerri
Jullingaal (Goolgoolgabin) — python
Jumbajinna — see Jalyerri
Jungara — taboo business
Kaiu kahlu — ‘no good like that’
Kala — all right
Karrarra — plover
Kirrikijirrit — Willy wagtail
Kokanjinni (Ngaggun) — ‘nephew’ (maternal uncle speaking)
Kokulal — secret ceremonial ground
Koodook — nightjar (departed spirit)
Koolah — angry
Koonapippi — Kurrawaddi, Ol’Goomun-Ol’Goomun) — The Earth Mother, The Sun Goddess
Koornung — witch-doctor
Kowee! — ‘come!’
Koyada kumeri — ‘don’t be frightened’
Koyada namyul Koynainjil — ban on speech (during period of initiation)
Koyu — ‘mother’ (son speaking)
Kudijingera — tribal elders
Kudjalinga — salt-water turtle
Kudijingah — songs of the Dream Time
Kulli-kulli! — ‘quick!’
Kallum kundirra — good hunter, strong man
Kumali — see Wahji
Kumara — Female genitals
Kumbitji — ironwood tree
Kumija — see Mora
Kumilungornu — female breast, mother
Kundirra — strong
Kunjan — see Woolahloo
Kurrawaddi — see Koonapippi
Kuttabah — whiteman
Kweeai — young girl
Kweeluk — curlew
Lamala (yalmaru) — spirit-double
Larrama — native kapok
Loonga — backside
Mahraghi — magic
Makoon — nephew
Mangan — native plum
Marana nunga (Mundinjana) — song man
Marmaroo — brush-tail wallaby
Mekullikulli — ‘my boy’
Minaji — the evening star
Minga-minga — music-sticks
Mininjorka — bandicoot
Min-minya — fly-catcher plant, devil spirit-woman
Miyakka — yam
Moah (Tulli-tulli) — b
ewitched
Moomboo — evil spirit
Mora (Kumija) — paternal grandfather or grandson
Moya — native apple
Muddrin bijnitch — murder
Mukkinboro — banyan tree
Mullaka — elder, boss
Mullikirri — ‘son’ (mother speaking)
Mumbarma — throwing stick
Mummuk — ‘goodbye’
Mundinjana — see Marana nunga
Mundowi — foot
Mungus — stupid person
Munjong — a new chum, novice
Murri — native term for full-blood Aborigine, also adj., cf. Murringlitch
Murrimo — possum
Murringlitch — Aboriginal dialect of English
Myall — wild
Naga — loin cloth
Nainjil — tongue
Ngaggun — see Kokanjinni
Ngangula — ‘we go’
Ningari — initiate
Numeriji — see Tchamala
Nunyardil — ‘who are you?’
Nuttagul — goose
Nyang — ‘The Fly’, the star Sirius
Ol’Goomun-Ol’Goomun — see Koonapippi
Pam — palm tree
Peindi — ground oven
Pijak — native bee
Pookarakka — wise man
Porrunna — ‘look-see’
Poot-poot — tick (insect)
Prindy — goanna
Puringa — cod fish
Sunday bijnitch — sacred ceremonial
Tchamala (Numeriji) — The Rainbow Snake (myth.)
Tchillip — sleep
Tchineke — snake
Tchinekin — acting with subterfuge
Tilbyuk — duck
Tjaina — non-sacred dancing ground
Tjala — catfish
Tjangaluma — sacred call
Tjooloo — spirit of an unborn infant
Tjungara — taboo, forbidden
Tjuril — fresh-water turtle
Tulli-tulli — see Moah
Wagga — urine
Wahji (Kumali) — taboo
Waianga — The Cloud Spirits (myth.)
Wallan — emu
Wallandak — pelican
Wallingerra — nephew (sister’s son)
Warriji jeega — dead
Watagarra — wedge-tail eagle
Winyan — waterhole
Wirrianwah — shelter for an initiate
Woolahloo (Kunjan) — ring place (secret ceremonial ground)
Wurrak — bad
Yakkarai! — ‘hooray!’
Yalmaru (Lamala) — spirit-double
Yalunga — initiate
Yang — skink lizard
Yawarra — ‘until I return’
Yerrilgeenah — galah
Yinganga — fresh-water crocodile
Yu, Yu-ai — ‘yes’
About the Author
XAVIER HERBERT was born in Port Hedland, Western Australia, in 1901. He was educated there and in Fremantle, qualifying as a pharmacist. After World War I he travelled around Australia, reaching Darwin in 1927. There he worked as a railway fettler and visited the South Pacific, experiences that went towards his first novel, Capricornia. He continued to travel, both overseas and within Australia, until, in 1946, he settled near Cairns with his wife, Sadie Norden. He combined writing with a variety of casual occupations.
Capricornia was first published in 1938 and won the Sesquicentenary Committee’s literary competition in the same year. Xavier Herbert won the Miles Franklin Award for Poor Fellow My Country, which was published in 1975. He died in 1984.
Also by Xavier Herbert
Capricornia 1938
Seven Emus 1959
Soldiers’ Women 1961
Larger Than Life 1963
Dream Road 1977
Copyright
A&R Classics
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, Australia
First published in 1975 by William Collins Publishers
This edition published in 2014
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POOR FELLOW MY COUNTRY. Copyright © Xavier Herbert 1975. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Introduction copyright © Russell McDougall 2014.
The right of Xavier Herbert to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Herbert, Xavier, 1901–1984, author.
Poor fellow my country / Xavier Herbert.
978 0 7322 9946 0 (hardback)
978 1 4607 0324 3 (ebook)
EPub Edition August 2014 ISBN 9781460703243
A823.2
Cover design by Hazel Lam, HarperCollins Design Studio
Cover image: Miwulungini (Lotus Pods) by Gracie Kumbi © Merrepen Arts 2011
1 Shawn Hughes, ‘An Editor’s Preface’, Modern Fiction Studies, 1981, vol. 27 p. 5.
2 Xavier Herbert, Letter to ‘Dearest Man’ [Arthur Dibley], ‘Sunday’, mid 1936, Papers of Xavier Herbert, National Library of Australia, NLA MS 758.
3 This is a term of denunciation Herbert used often. At one stage, after the dismissal, he wrote to Gough Whitlam with the idea of writing a book called ‘The Lousy Aussie’. He received no reply. (Letter to Whitlam, 29 January 1976, Sadie and Xavier Herbert Collection, Fryer Library, University of Queensland, UQFL 83, Box 33.)
4 Xavier Herbert, Letter to Sadie, 5 September 1968, Sadie and Xavier Herbert Collection, Fryer Library, University of Queensland, UQFL 83, Box 47.
5 PR Stephensen, ‘Spirit of the Land: the Basis of Australian Resurgence’, The Publicist, 1 July 1938, p. 8.
6 Xavier Herbert, Letter to Beatrice Davis, 16 July 1970, Correspondence of Beatrice Davis 1956–1988, National Library of Australia, MS 3956.
7 Xavier Herbert, ‘Australia has the Black Pox’, April, 1978, in Xavier Herbert: Episodes from Capricornia, Poor Fellow My Country and other fiction, non-fiction and letters, Frances de Groen and Peter Pierce (eds.), University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1992. (In this press statement, released on Aurukun and Mornington Island, Herbert paraphrases the words of Rifkah Rosen in Poor Fellow My Country.)
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