Two Sisters

by Ngarta Jinny Brent

  When Pijaji had left, his second father’s old dog had followed him. It was a big but skinny mongrel named Pirli. There was a story about Pirli. After Pijaji’s second father had died, Ngarta and her mother and her sister Jukuna had found the dog eating the old man’s remains.

  ‘He was a man-eater, that one. He ate someone: one old man, Kurrapa’s stepfather. He ate him after he died. Yes, I saw him, when we came back to Kunajarti. Kurrapa was going to Timber Creek, the station. And Kurrapa’s mother, me and Jukuna gave him a start and came back from halfway. And Pali, Kurrapakuta’s sister. Walking, walking, walking to Jarirri. You’ve seen Jarirri? Well, this side, you know? That sandhill? Well that’s where he died, that old man, the right place, Kurrapa’s stepfather. That was before Kurrapa went to the station.

  ‘The dog was looking at me. I told Jukuna, “Sister, see how that dog’s looking at us. What’s he holding? Is it meat?” We went close up, looking at him. No, my mother went quite close. “No, that’s the old man he’s holding.” He was just looking at me, like that. As if he was ready to bite us.

  ‘He was eating that old man who used to look after him. Eating him! My mother had come back to bury him, you know, that old man. Then she saw that the dog had eaten him, the whole lot. She could only see his head. Later on, Kurrapa came back to the same place, Jarirri. He was carrying flour, blankets. That dog was holding the old man’s head. All the time he guarded it, and was eating it at the same time. Kurrapa found him. He hit himself, and he cried for his stepfather, then he walked away. That dog was sleeping there.’

  Despite its grisly feed, Pijaji refused to destroy his stepfather’s dog, and when he went back to the station for the second time, Pirli went with him.

  One day, when Ngarta was out hunting with Pijaji’s sister, Nyangarni, the two girls saw the tracks of a dog, which they recognised immediately. ‘That’s Pijaji’s dog, Pirli!’ they said. ‘Pijaji must have come back! We’ll have to go and see.’

  In great excitement the two girls retraced the dog’s tracks, expecting them to lead back to Pijaji and whoever else might have come back with him. They followed the tracks north over many sandhills, but they found no tracks of human beings. Later on, the dog found the girls and just stood looking up at them. ‘It had big eyes, that dog,’ Ngarta recalls. The girls realised then that Pirli had come back to his country alone.

  The dog attached himself to the two girls and followed the family when they all moved camp. The people looked after Pirli and shared their game with him. After a time the dog became weak and his front legs gave way. He fell down in the spinifex. People thought he was going to die and left him behind. But some time later, after they had stopped at their next camp, Pirli turned up. This happened a number of times. The dog collapsed and they left him for dead, but he seemed to have an uncanny ability to heal himself. Each time he recovered and rejoined them.

  ‘Maybe he was clever,’* says Ngarta. ‘He was crippled and fell down, then he got up and walked away, like that, every time. Might be he sang himself, sang his two legs, and got up again. He made himself better. Well, we walked a long way, from Tapu to Walypa; crippled, still he followed us and found us.’

  The whole family, with the dog coming along behind them, reached Walypa, Ngarta’s birthplace, and stayed there for some time. But after a while Pirli moved on. Ngarta and Nyangarni followed his tracks for a long way south. He seemed to be heading for Japingka. ‘Might be he was going back to his country. He didn’t fall down halfway, he didn’t die; he kept going. “All right, let him go,” we said. I told Kurrapa’s sister, “Leave him, he might bite us.” We went back. Funny dog we had, that one.’

  The two girls turned back to camp. They didn’t see Pirli again.

  The little group got over their disappointment that Pijaji’s dog had not been accompanied by any of their relatives, and life went on much as before. They travelled around the familiar waterholes, hunting game and gathering food as they had always done. They must have started to believe that their relatives had forgotten all about them.

  Then one day, everything changed.

  They were camping at Jirrartu. Ngarta was standing on top of the rocky hill behind the waterhole, looking down, when she saw a man approaching. She thought it was her mother’s second husband.

  ‘Look, my father’s coming!’ she told her mother. Her mother came to see. ‘That’s not your father,’ she said.

  The man came closer. He was carrying spears. The two women waited, saying nothing. As the stranger drew near, he hauled off with his spear and, before Ngarta’s mother had a chance to understand what was happening, he had hurled it at her. The spear pierced her through the side and sent her staggering, blood pouring from the wound.

  Ngarta and her mother turned and ran. When they looked back they saw the man heading off the way he had come. Ngarta helped her mother back to the camp and told the other people what had happened. Fortunately, the spear had gone through the soft part of her mother’s flesh without damaging bone or injuring any vital organ. Ngarta’s grandmother put medicine on the injury and then chanted healing songs over her daughter. After a time the wound healed.

  All this happened in the cold weather. The stranger didn’t come back, and the women hoped he had gone far away. They realised he must be one of the two murderers they had been warned about, so they headed off in the opposite direction. They travelled to Ngijilngijil and Kupantartu — two jila not far from Kunajarti. When no one seemed to be following them, they went on as before. After the wet they walked back over the same country and stopped at a jumu near Jirrartu, called Marralkujarra. There was no sign of the stranger — no new tracks had appeared anywhere nearby — and they began to feel safe again. What they did not know was that the brothers were on their trail.

  After a while, Pijaji’s mother and her two daughters decided to walk to Ngijilngijil again, hunting on the way. Ngarta stayed on at Marralkujarra with her mother and grandmother. By now, her grandmother was quite elderly. Because of her bad back, she walked slowly, with the help of a stick.

  One day, one of their dogs went hunting in the direction of Jirrartu. When the dog came back later in the day, someone was following her tracks.

  As before, the strangers arrived without warning and, before anyone could speak, one of them hurled a spear. This time, the victim was Ngarta’s much-loved grandmother.

  ‘The two men came up, and straight away they speared my grandmother. They killed her, no reason. I was crying for her.’

  The spear pierced the old woman’s ribs, and she fell to the ground, bleeding, and died where she lay. Ngarta cried bitterly for the old woman, who had meant more to her than anyone else in her world. The man who had thrown the spear, Ngarta later learned, was Yawa.

  The two men were accompanied by a group of women and children. Amongst them Ngarta noticed a girl of about her own age, with light-coloured hair.

  The men talked fast in a language Ngarta didn’t know. ‘I couldn’t understand what they were saying. They were talking Manyjilyjarra, and I don’t know that language. They were asking for water. My mother knew that language and she told me to give them some water. I was frightened, I didn’t give them. My mother gave them water.’

  The men moved in and took over Ngarta’s family. They followed the women who had gone to Ngijilngijil, and caught up with them at a place called Wurnpu. Then they all moved on to Kupantartu. From that time on, everyone travelled together as one group.

  Ngarta learned that the light-haired girl was the daughter of the two men. Her actual father was an older brother of theirs, who had been killed some time before. The girl’s name was Jurnpija. She had a sister and two brothers, and her mother was expecting another child.

  Ngarta’s brother was the only boy in her group before the two men joined them. By this time he was approaching puberty. One day at Kupantartu the men sent Ngarta with her mother to fetch water. When the woman and girl came back they found their relatives sitting in heavy silence, their heads bowed. T
he boy was missing. At once Ngarta and her mother realised what had happened. ‘The two men killed my brother. He was a big boy, like my son now. They sent me with my mother to get water. They speared my brother while we were gone, and killed him. We came back and people were sitting head down. We knew then: they killed my brother. My mother couldn’t cry for her son. They told us: “If you cry, we’ll kill you too.” They wouldn’t let her cry for her son.’

  The band moved on: to Jirrartu again, then to Jarrpara. From there they went to another jumu nearby.

  Ngarta lived in terror of the two men. She had seen them spear her mother and kill her grandmother and then her brother for no reason at all. She kept wondering who would be next. When she had the chance, she took her mother to one side. ‘I said to my mother: “You and me’ll have to go, run away in the night. They might kill us.” But my mother wouldn’t listen.’ Perhaps Ngarta’s mother was too frightened to run away, in case the men followed them. She must have wondered where else she and her daughter could go, when their only remaining relatives were here in this last little band. Ngarta made up her mind to go on her own.

  The next afternoon, when the two brothers were out of sight, Ngarta ran away.

  ‘So I went away on my own, in the afternoon. I went west. I took only a kana for hunting and a firestick. I walked on the grass all the way, till I got to Jarirri.’ Instead of walking on the sand, Ngarta stepped from one tuft of spinifex to another in order to leave no footprints.

  Jarirri, a big claypan, was dry, and that night she camped on a sandhill. She made a fire but saw rain approaching, so she covered the fire with grass and sand to keep it from going out. Enough rain fell in the claypan for her to get a drink.

  The following morning Ngarta travelled to Tapu, where she knew there would always be water, and nearby she dug up some jurnta to eat. From Tapu she went to look at a neighbouring jumu, but it was dry. She had to camp all night without water, and travelled back to Tapu the next day.

  Ngarta visited other waterholes she knew, spending time at each one, living by hunting and collecting fruits from the trees and plants and seeds from the grasses. All the time she was heading in a northerly direction. In due course she made her way to the big jumu, Kajamuka.

  Ngarta had never left her desert country, but she thought she knew how to get to Christmas Creek Station. Her various relatives who had travelled back and forth between the desert and the station had described the journey to her. She had heard people talking about the direction of the waterholes they stopped at on the way, and she had a good idea of how to find them. Besides that, it was wet weather time again, and there should be enough rain falling to keep her out of trouble should she miss one of them. She made up her mind to follow her relatives and head for Christmas Creek.

  There was one occasion on this journey when Ngarta failed to find water. She spent one night without drinking, but kept moving the next day. Still not finding anywhere to drink, she had to go back to the waterhole she had left. This meant spending a second night without water on the return journey.

  She had almost reached her goal. She came as far as cattle station country, and within sight of the Cherrabun hills. There was nothing now to prevent her from pressing on to the station itself. But as Ngarta travelled further north, her resolve failed. For reasons she is no longer sure about, she gave up the idea of pushing on to Christmas Creek.

  ‘I don’t know why I went back,’ Ngarta said many times. ‘Maybe I was thinking about my country. Maybe I was frightened for kartiya.’ Whatever the reason, she went back into the desert. ‘I turned back to Kajamuka. It was rainy time now.’

  In familiar territory again, Ngarta went on with her solitary existence. She made her way to Jirrartu.

  Near Jirrartu, Ngarta came upon a single set of human footprints. She recognised them as belonging to Pijaji’s second mother, whom she called aunty. The footprints were heading north. Ngarta followed them. The tracks went from Jirrartu to Kajamuka, then from Kajamuka to Parkanyungu, a waterhole at the side of a sandhill. Ngarta didn’t drink there, because she knew that the water at Parkanyungu is a long way down, and requires a lot of digging. From Parkanyungu Ngarta followed the footprints further north again, to a waterhole she hadn’t visited before, called Yartitirr. Pijaji’s mother had dug for water at Yartitirr, and Ngarta drank there.

  ‘That aunty kept going, north, Tangku side, nearly found that waterhole. No water. Old woman went back to Yartitirr. I met her there, wounded one.’ As soon as she saw the older woman Ngarta understood why she had come away on her own. ‘The two men had speared her right through. She had the marks on her body, two sides.’ Her aunt brought more bad news for Ngarta. ‘They’d killed my mother. I knew they would do that.’

  Ngarta and her aunt started travelling together towards Christmas Creek. They had to go slowly because of the older woman’s injuries. ‘She was all right in the morning, talking to me, but later on, in the middle of the afternoon, she was getting sick. She got a big lump in her belly, hard. I sat down all day with her. I took her to a good camp on a jilji.’ Ngarta left her companion resting in the shade and went hunting. She killed a cat and a snake. When she came back she cooked the game and offered some meat to her aunt. But the older woman was getting weak and refused the food. ‘I can’t eat — I feel sick,’ she told Ngarta. ‘You can have it.’

  ‘I never thought about giving her lizard,’ said Ngarta. Another man who had been speared through the body and showed symptoms similar to those of her aunt was said to have cured himself by eating raw lizards until he vomited, bringing up much of the blood that had accumulated in his guts.

  Ngarta’s aunt became delirious. ‘She said, “Those two are looking at us!” ‘Where, where?’ I said. ‘There, to the east, not far, near that tree!’ ‘No,’ I told her, ‘there’s no one there.’

  When darkness fell, Ngarta slept beside her injured aunt. ‘I stayed with her all afternoon. I made a fire for her, made her sleep. Then I went to sleep.’ During the night, her aunty died. ‘I never knew. I just woke up from sleep, morning time, at dawn. I tried to wake her up. Nothing. I sat down. I felt her — nothing.’

  Ngarta cried. She had to leave her aunt’s body lying there on the sand. She ran away in tears.

  Ngarta went back to Yartitirr, and that is where the two murderers found her. She had been living on her own for one full year.

  Near Kajamuka the two men had noticed Ngarta’s tracks and the group had followed her north, to Yartitirr. They saw her aunty’s body on the sandhill.

  As well as Ngarta’s mother, Jurnpija’s mother and two younger sisters were missing, all dead. ‘I don’t know what happened to Jurnpija’s mother. They took her hunting to get camels for meat. They took her alive. When they came back, no wife. They killed her. That man was living with Kurrapa’s sister now.’

  Jurnpija’s father, Tirinja, had made Nyangarni his wife.

  ‘They used to do that. They killed another sister, the mother of Jurnpija’s half-brother. I never saw that woman; they killed her before, a long way off. I knew that other one, Jurnpija’s mother. I was at Tapu when they killed her. Then that man took Kurrapa’s sister.’

  Ngarta had been away for many months and the first impulse of the two men was to kill her, but Nyangarni, in her new role as Tirinja’s wife, restrained them. Ngarta took the initiative and went up to the men. ‘I’ve seen a lot of bullock tracks,’ she told them. ‘We’ll have to go that way, north, and follow them.’

  Ngarta had indeed found cattle tracks well to the north of Kajamuka. But it was not the cattle that interested her. ‘That’s how I made them go to the station.’

  The men did as Ngarta wanted. Everyone started heading north on the trail of the cattle. On the way, Ngarta struck up a friendship with Jurnpija, the light-haired girl who had lost her mother at the hands of the brothers, just as Ngarta had. She taught Ngarta to speak her language, Manyjilyjarra.

  Although Ngarta never talked about it later, she is said to have been t
aken as a wife by one of the men.

  The group travelled north, following the same route Ngarta had taken. Eventually they reached cattle station country. Here were a lot of cattle tracks, which led them to a bore known as Parayipirri, where they saw a windmill for the first time.

  ‘They looked at it, at that windmill. The two men started crying, near the water. They were looking at the windmill and tank. I don’t know why they were crying. Might be they were frightened of that water.’

  The people camped one night at the bore, then moved on to a station camp they later learned was called Julie Yard. No one was there, but they knew they were getting close to the station itself. At Julie Yard the two men found a drum of tar, used for applying to spayed cows to heal their wounds. They had never seen tar before and, thinking it was a kind of food, like honey, they swallowed some of it. It burnt their throats and later they vomited.

  After a night at Julie Yard, the travellers kept going towards the station. They stopped at a windmill called Ngalparla, close to the homestead. Near the bore was a mob of cattle, and without a second thought the brothers speared one of the bullocks and killed it. Then the young women built a big fire to cook the meat.

  While this band of desert people was busy cutting up and cooking the bullock meat, an old man from the station came along on foot, hunting goannas. He saw the group of people at the bore, and the carcass of a bullock. Knowing these were travellers from the desert, he went back to the homestead and told the boss, Don Laidlaw. Then he passed the news on to the station people, many of whom were Ngarta’s relatives. They knew that hers was the last group of people still living in the sandhill country to the south, although they hadn’t heard news of them for a long time and didn’t know that the men with them had murdered several members of Ngarta’s family.