My Place

by Sally Morgan

  I wish I could give advice for the young blackfellas of today, but I can’t. Each man has to find his own way.

  You see, the trouble is that colonialism isn’t over yet. We still have a White Australia policy against the Aborigines. Aah, it’s always been the same. They say there’s been no difference between black and white, we all Australian, that’s a lie. I tell you, the black man has nothin’, the government’s been robbin’ him blind for years.

  There’s so much the whitefellas don’t understand. They want us to be assimilated into the white, but we don’t want to be. They complain about our land rights, but they don’t understand the way we want to live. They say we shouldn’t get the land, but the white man’s had land rights since this country was invaded, our land rights. Most of the land the Aborigine wants, no white man would touch. The government is like a big dog with a bone with no meat on it. They don’t want to live on that land themselves, but they don’t want the black man to get it either. Yet, you find somethin’ valuable on the land the Aborigine has got and whites are all there with their hands out.

  Those Aborigines in the desert, they don’t want to live like the white man, owin’ this and owin’ that. They just want to live their life free, they don’t need the white man’s law, they got their own. If they want water in the Gibson Desert, they do a rainsong and fill up the places they want. If it’s cold, they can bring the warm weather like the wind. They don’t need the white man to put them in gaol, they can do their own punishment. They don’t have to hunt too hard, the spirits can bring birds to them. Say they want a wild turkey, that turkey will come along, go past them and they can spear it. Kangaroo, too. They don’t kill unless they hungry, the white man’s the one who kills for sport. Aah, there’s so much they don’t understand.

  Now, if I had been born a white man, my life would have been different. I’d have had an education the proper way, without the whipping. As it is, I got to take my papers to someone who’s educated to get me through. Some things aren’t understandable to me. Now I got some of my grandchildren educated, they help me. If I’d have been a wealthy farmer, I’d have given all my kids a real good education.

  I’m a great-grandfather now and proud of it. Only thing is, Daisy beats me there, she’s got more great-grandchildren than me. I got to catch up with her. I’m proud of my kids, I’m proud of my whole family. Daisy’s family and my family, we special, I got healing powers, but Daisy’s got them stronger than me. You see, it runs in our family. The spirit is strong in our family. When I die, someone will get my powers. I don’t know who. They have to have a good heart, and live a simple life. Otherwise you’re a motor without petrol. Your power comes from above.

  You can’t cure yourself. You got to use that power to help others.

  I’m at the end of my story now. To live to ninety, that’s an achievement. I haven’t really felt the effect of old age, though, of course, the visibility’s gone away a bit, but me mind is not so bad. I’ve had everything a man could want, really. A little bit of sport and a little bit of music. I’m an entertainer. You take me anywhere and I’ll join in, could be playing the mouth organ or anything. I’ll give it a go. Everybody liked me, that’s what beat me, even some of the men I worked for.

  Now my life is nearly over, I’m lookin’ forward to heaven. I’ll have a better time up there. I’ll be a little angel, flyin’ around, lookin’ after stars and planets, doin’ the spring cleaning. God is the only friend we got. God the father, God the son and God the Holy Spirit. You stick to Him, He’s the only one. Don’t listen to what others tell you about God. He’s the best mate a man could have. You don’t have Him, you don’t have no friend at all. You look away from God, you go to ruin.

  Take the white people in Australia, they brought the religion here with them and the Commandment, Thou Shalt Not Steal, and yet they stole this country. They took it from the innocent. You see, they twisted the religion. That’s not the way it’s supposed to be.

  I look back on my life and think how lucky I am. I’m an old fella now and I got one of my grand daughters lookin’ after me. That’s something, these days. And I got Daisy’s grand daughter writin’ my story. I been tryin’ to get someone to write it for years, now I’m glad I didn’t. It should be someone in the family, like. It’s fittin’.

  I got no desires for myself any more. I want to get my land fixed up so my children can get it and I want my story finished. I want everyone to read it. Arthur Corunna’s story! I might be famous. You see, it’s important, because then maybe they’ll understand how hard it’s been for the blackfella to live the way he wants. I’m part of history, that’s how I look on it. Some people read history, don’t they?

  _____________

  * Boolyah man — person who has attained a high degree of knowledge and who has special perceptive and combative skills. Also more commonly known as a Maban.

  *pink-eye — term used by Aboriginal people of north-west Australia, similar to the more widely known term walkabout. A period of wandering as a nomad, often as undertaken by Aborigines who feel the need to leave the place where they are in contact with white society, and return for spiritual replenishment to their traditional way of life. Can also simply mean a holiday, usually without leave.

  **feather foot (Ginnawandas) — similar to the Boolyah or Maban. Person with special (magic) powers, often used for purposes of retribution. Similar also to kadaicha man.

  *sing — to sing an incantation which is believed to have the power to kill the person against whom it is directed.

  *mallee — various Australian species of Eucalyptus, having a number of almost unbranched stems arising from a large underground root stock. Found mainly in semi-arid regions. Also, an area of scrub land where the predominant species of plant is mallee.

  **header — reaping machine which cuts off and gathers only the head of a grain crop.

  *Neville — Mr A O Neville, Chief Protector of Natives, Western Australia, 1915–1940. Widely credited as a principal advocate and force behind an active policy of miscegenation in Western Australia through the 1930s. The legal removal of ‘half-caste’ Aboriginal children from their mothers was part of this policy.

  Where to next?

  ‘It’s a wonderful story.’ Mum had tears in her eyes when she finished reading Arthur’s story.

  Like me, Mum now felt that at last we had something from the past to hang on to. And, for Mum in particular, there was something to be proud of.

  However, in an odd way, we also experienced a sense of loss. We were suddenly much more aware of how little we knew about Nan and about the history and experience of our own family. We were now desperate to learn more, but there appeared to be few obvious leads left.

  After much thought, I decided that our best course was to return to Nan and Arthur’s birthplace, Corunna Downs.

  Paul thought this was a wonderful idea, he loved the North and he also could see no other way forward for us. He hoped we could persuade Nan to go with us.

  When I told Mum about the idea, she wasn’t very positive.

  ‘You can’t go up there. It’s a silly idea, you don’t know anyone. Nan won’t want you to go.’

  ‘Nan doesn’t want me to do anything! All my leads have dried up, Mum, that’s all there is left now.’

  When I approached Nan about the idea of going up North, she was disgusted.

  ‘You’re like your mother, you like to throw money away. All you’ll be lookin’ at is dirt. Dirt and scrub.’

  I ignored her and said, ‘Why don’t you come with me? You might meet some of your old mates up there.’

  ‘Haa!’ she laughed and shook her head in disbelief, ‘I’m too old. Too old to go bush now. You think I got young legs? Look at them!’

  ‘They look all right to me, Nan. They’ve been holding you up for over seventy years, no reason to think they’ll give out on you now. Besides, you’ll be in the car most of the time.’

  ‘I don’t like cars and I’m too old to go bush.
It’s a waste of money, you’re chasin’ the wind. You go up there and the cyclone’ll get you.’

  Just then, Mum entered the fray. All this time, she’d been quietly observing Nan’s reaction.

  ‘Nan’s right, Sally,’ she said, much to Nan’s surprise. ‘You shouldn’t spend that money just to look at dirt. What will it achieve? There’s no one up there we know. What are you going to do, anyway, walk up to strangers in the street and ask them if they knew Daisy or Arthur Corunna?’

  ‘Yep,’ I replied. ‘I’ll take my tape-recorder, who knows what we will find out.’ Mum’s face changed from disbelief to laughter in a matter of seconds.

  ‘You’re really determined to do this, aren’t you?’ she said in a rather hoarse voice.

  ‘You know me, Mum.’

  ‘You know,’ Mum said wistfully, ‘I’ve always had a hankering to go North.’

  ‘Who said anything about taking you? I mean, all you’d be doing is looking at dirt. You don’t want to go two thousand kilometres for that.’

  ‘You’re not leaving me here?’

  ‘I don’t want to be dragging a reluctant mother around,’ I said. ‘No, it wouldn’t work. You stay here with Nan. I’ll go with Paul and the kids.’

  ‘I’m coming and that’s that!’ she said.

  Nan suddenly interrupted. ‘You two, you’re both nuts! You, Glad, you’re like the wind, you blow here and you blow there. You got no mind of your own!’

  ‘Well, Nan, maybe Mum’ll chase the cyclones away!’

  Over the following few weeks, I made arrangements for our trip. We decided to go in the May school holidays, that way the children could come and Paul, who was a teacher, could do most of the driving. As the weeks passed, Mum became more and more excited.

  ‘Maybe we will learn something,’ she said one afternoon as we pored over a map of Western Australia.

  ‘Of course we will, and even if we don’t, it’s a good holiday.’

  ‘What are you hoping to find at Corunna?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ I felt awkward talking about why I wanted to see Corunna, even with Mum. ‘I guess I want to see if there are any of the old buildings left. Buildings that might have been there in Nan’s day. And I want to look at the land. I want to walk on it. I know that sounds silly, but I want to be there, and imagine what it was like for the people then.’

  Mum nodded, there were tears in her eyes. I tended to cover up my feelings with a rather brusque manner, Mum used humour to hide hers. We’d both been very emotional lately.

  After a few minutes, Mum said, ‘What if they won’t let us on the station? We don’t know who owns it now, they mightn’t like strangers going out there.’

  ‘Well, I’ll ring and arrange it before we leave Perth.’

  ‘You mean you’ll ring the people on Corunna?’ Mum said in surprise. ‘You can’t ring up someone you don’t know!’

  ‘Can you think of something better? I’ll just introduce myself and explain why we’d like to come out.’

  ‘Ooh, I couldn’t do that. I don’t think you should either, maybe we should forget it.’

  ‘No way, I’m not asking you to do it, I’ll do it. It’s important to you to see the old place, isn’t it, Mum?’

  ‘Yes, very important.’

  ‘Then we’ll do it.’

  As the time for us to leave drew near, Nan became more and more outspoken in her opposition. Apart from threatening us with cyclones, flooded rivers and crocodiles, she tried to convince us that, while we were away, something terrible would happen to her.

  ‘There’ll be no one to look after me. It’s no use saying the others will check on me, because they won’t. Anything could happen to me, I could pass out in the toilet and no one would know.’

  ‘Now, Nan, don’t be silly,’ Mum coaxed. ‘You’ll have Beryl here.’ Beryl was a friend of Mum’s and had looked after Nan before. ‘And Jill and Bill will both be calling in several times during the week. And David and Helen will be able to see you on the weekends. I’m leaving you plenty of money, if you need anything, Beryl will get it up at the shop.’

  ‘You know my heart’s not too good, Gladdie, you’ll be sorry if you go away and I die.’

  ‘You’ve been dying ever since I’ve known you,’ Mum said firmly. Nan, sensing that, for once, Mum was not going to be moved, shuffled off with her hand over her supposedly weak heart.

  True to form, Nan began developing aches and pains the following week, along with other vague symptoms. One morning, she stayed in bed.

  ‘I think this is the beginning of something serious,’ she muttered when Mum took her in her breakfast. Poor Mum couldn’t help feeling sympathetic, Nan looked so old and, in Mum’s mind, really sick.

  ‘I think it’s genuine, this time,’ she told me despairingly the following evening. ‘I think she really has got something wrong with her.’

  ‘Have you called the doctor?’

  ‘Of course I haven’t!’

  ‘You can’t make a proper diagnosis without calling the doctor. If she’s faking, she’ll recover quick smart, and if she’s really sick, she should have a doctor look at her.’

  ‘But she always gets so upset when I talk about getting the doctor in.’

  ‘And she knows you won’t call her bluff. Look Mum, how many years has Nan been having these convenient illnesses? Every time you want to go away, she gets sick. Now listen, if she’s really sick this time, then, of course, you can’t leave her. But do you want to miss out on going North just because of a fake illness?’

  ‘Of course I don’t. You’re right, I’ve never been firm with her.’

  When Mum returned home that night, she told Nan that, if she wasn’t better in the morning, she was going to call the doctor. Nan was silent.

  ‘You can’t go on like this, dear,’ Mum said. ‘I’m very worried about you, you’re the only mother I’ve got and I’ve got to take good care of you. It’s no use me going with Sally when you’re sick. I’d never forgive myself if something happened to you. If the doctor says it’s serious, then I’ll stay here and look after you. I just hope they won’t put you in hospital, that’s all.’

  ‘Are you really going to call the doctor, Glad?’ Nan croaked shakily. ‘I’m sure I only need rest.’

  ‘You might need medicine, antibiotics or something like that. It’s the only way. Now, you snuggle down and I’ll bring you in a cup of tea.’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ Nan pouted. ‘I’ve already had one. I’d be lyin’ here thirsty all night if it was up to you.’

  ‘I was only away half an hour and, besides, you said you were too weak to get out of bed.’

  ‘I am weak. I had to force myself. Oh, go away and leave me alone, I need my sleep. You always come and bother me when I’m tryin’ to sleep.’

  Nan’s recovery had begun.

  Over the next week, we organised the last details of our trip. We obtained a video camera to film the trip so that we could show Nan and my brothers and sisters when we returned.

  Amber and Blaze were terribly excited. Zeke was only six weeks old, the only thing that excited him was milk. The children were convinced that going North was as adventurous as exploring deepest, darkest Africa. Nan had convinced them that they’d encounter giant snakes and huge crocodiles every step of the way. Blaze had a bit of rope packed in his bag, he wanted to catch a pet.

  For a long time now, I’d been continually reminding Mum that she could take a minimum of luggage. We were driving up in a small self-contained campervan and we needed every inch of space.

  But the night before we were due to leave, Mum arrived with a station wagon full of gear. Amber and Blaze laughed and laughed when they saw her drive in. Paul failed to see the funny side. He just put his head in his hands, muttered, ‘I can’t believe it,’ and assigned me the task of sorting through it all.

  Despite strenuous objections, as we hauled everything from the back of her car, I began to make two piles, one for necessities, the other for lux
uries. I tossed the pick, shovel and bucket on the unwanted pile. I was sure Mum would have no luck hunting for gold with that lot. Also on this pile went the shotgun that didn’t shoot, two eiderdowns, a sack of potatoes and two suitcases of clothes. Mum had bought an outfit for every occasion imaginable. We realised then that her definition of roughing it was very different to ours. We decided to take the case of apples and the cartons of Deb Instant Mashed Potato, as well as the boxes of dehydrated peas and corn. It seemed a waste not to use them, though we did wonder how on earth we could eat our way through so much.

  By late that evening, we’d finished packing. Mum decided to sleep in the van, just in case anyone pinched it. Paul grinned hopefully when she mentioned this possibility.

  Five o’clock the following morning, we were on our way.

  Return to Corunna

  By the time we arrived in Port Hedland, we were eager to begin our investigations. We’d been told to look up an older gentleman by the name of Jack, as he knew a lot of people in the area and might be able to help us.

  As soon as we saw Jack, we liked him. He was very friendly. I explained who we were, why we’d come to see him and asked if he could tell us anything about the Brockman or Corunna families. We were amazed when he told us that Albert Brockman had been his good friend and that they’d worked together for many years.

  ‘Jiggawarra, that’s his Aboriginal name, that’s what we all call him up here. Now, he had a brother and a sister that were taken away. They never came back, I think the brother was called Arthur.’

  ‘That’s right!’ I added excitedly, ‘and the sister was called Daisy, that’s my grandmother.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be,’ he said, with tears in his eyes. ‘So you’ve come back! There’s not many come back. I don’t think some of them are interested. Fancy, you comin’ back after all these years.’