South of Darkness

by John Marsden

  I muttered to Johnny: ‘Good news that they have food. It means they are less likely to eat us.’

  He gave a mirthless smile in response. I think he was too done in to speak.

  The men who had now joined us seemed no more interested in us than were the first group. They threw the animal onto the ground, on its side, and proceeded to cut open its belly with one of their knife-stones. The efficacy of these tools was impressive; however, they could not rival the steel blade used by the European, and I fancy that as much was accomplished by the sheer strength of the hunter as by the sharpness of the ‘blade’.

  The man who appeared to be chief among them, a huge, powerfully built fellow who had been carrying the wallaby, then pulled out the gut of the animal and, to my disgust, proceeded to drink some of its blood. The other men all followed, but neither Johnny nor I, weak and malnourished though we were, cared to partake of this ceremony, in spite of being invited to do so, in an offhand sort of way, by one of the men.

  The big man then squeezed the animal’s faeces out and replaced the gut in the stomach. He pushed a sharpened stick through the stomach, hoisted the creature back on his shoulder, and signalled that we should resume our journey.

  It was a goodly time before we came upon the campsite of the tribe. By then Johnny and I had once again almost lost sight of the hunters, and we were greatly relieved when we realised that our day’s journey was at an end. As we approached I saw quite suddenly that there were bark shelters everywhere, but they were difficult to discern against the natural colours of the trees and ground. A couple of small fires burned in roughly arranged fireplaces. Native dogs skulked around, looking at us warily.

  Although the men had seemed to find the wallaby of more interest than they found Johnny or me, the women and children of the camp paid us somewhat more attention. Most of the women gathered around us, feeling our scanty clothes and mauling us with their dirty fingers. Hiding behind the women, the children peered at us with bright eyes, full of curiosity. They seemed especially interested in me; they had quite possibly seen white adults before, but not a white child.

  As preparations for the evening meal began we were left to our own devices. This did not displease us at all. The campsite was near a stream; we went down there to drink, for we were both thirsty. I was surprised that we were accompanied on this little excursion by two men, still carrying their spears: they themselves did not drink but merely watched us, as though ensuring that we had no nefarious purpose.

  Returning to the campsite was an ordeal. Although only a short walk, the energy that had sustained me as I followed the hunters was now completely depleted. Johnny was in no better condition. We went to a place under a tree, at a respectable distance from the biggest cooking fire. I felt dizzy and sick. There was nothing in my stomach to vomit, except water, but I wondered if I might faint at any moment.

  A woman threw a couple of yams to us. They were raw, but they represented some form of nourishment. I had reached the stage where, starving though I was, I could barely find the energy to eat, but I made myself nibble at the vegetable. It took ten minutes or so to finish it, but it did help revive me, a little.

  I tried to take more interest in my surroundings, still fighting off the sensations of dizziness and fainting. In an effort to get warmer I inched closer to the fire. Wherever these people travel they take fire with them, from camp to camp, carrying firesticks which smoulder all day. I had to admire their ability to manage this forbidding environment in these subtle ways. Johnny and I were as good as helpless in it, but the native people seemed to me adroit and clever.

  I watched with some squeamishness as the wallaby was prepared for cooking. The men did this work. Several of them dug a kind of pit and lined it with dry grass. One of the bigger men then stood on the buttocks of the creature and broke the hind legs, at the ankles. With a confidence and ease no doubt born of long familiarity, he pushed a stick into the legs and removed the tendons, which he wound around the stick and put to one side. These, I was to find, would be used later to bind sharp stones to the end of spears, to make the killing points.

  The men then set fire to the dead grass in the pit, and another of them, holding the wallaby by one front leg and one rear leg, swung it repeatedly through the flames to burn off the hair. At the completion of this task he broke the legs completely away from the body, cut through the tail and put all the parts of the animal, including the gut, beside the main fire, covering them with hot coals. Later, the women threw their contributions onto the fire. These appeared to consist of a number of different roots, as well as grubs of several varieties.

  No matter how disgusting it may appear to be, food which is cooking has an aroma that is irresistible. To Johnny and me, sitting there in our starved condition, the smells had our heads spinning until I would almost have leapt into the fire and pulled something, anything, from the coals and crammed it into my mouth. However, fear of the reactions of my sable companions kept me from doing anything so foolish. I attempted to divert myself by studying the members of the tribe in which we found ourselves, in an effort to differentiate their various personalities.

  It was by now evident to me, as I indicated earlier, that the man who carried the wallaby, and who had presumably been responsible for its spearing, dominated this group of thirty or so persons. Taller than the others by a full head, and weighing perhaps thirty pounds more, he cut an impressive figure. Like all the men, his chest bore raised ceremonial scars, only his were greater in number and size than any others. He had a magnificent head of tangled black hair and a massive black beard; his eyes were fiery and alert. He would have been a formidable opponent in battle.

  His dignity was remarkable. He took no part in the butchering of the wallaby, ignoring the scene completely, as he ignored everyone most of the time. At no stage had he taken any notice of Johnny and me. The only member of the tribe for whom he seemed to soften was a lad, perhaps six years of age, who had run to him as soon as he returned to the camp and had dogged his footsteps ever since. I took this boy to be his son; I later found out that his name was, as best as I can reproduce it in the English tongue, Mudaree, and the father was the famous warrior, Chaginnini.

  Mudaree was a slightly built lad, not particularly robust, and with little to say, but whenever his father’s eyes lighted upon him, a fondness crept over the face of the big man, and he murmured words of endearment to the child. Young though I was, and ignorant of any first-hand knowledge of the bonds between parents and children, yet it was a touching sight to witness this father and son together and to observe the same sentiments as might be found in the most fashionable thoroughfares of London.

  The leader among the children was a lively and quick youngster, about ten years of age, whose name I was to discover was something like Nama-Nama. He was a dextrous lad. Like all the boys he fashioned toy spears out of any materials which came to hand. They used these weapons continually in their games to hurl at any target, including each other. Nama-Nama threw with more strength and accuracy than the other boys, and this aptitude alone would no doubt have given him great status with his fellows, but his popularity was further enhanced by his sense of humour, for he loved to laugh and seemed able to find a jest in every situation.

  The group seemed to comprise about nine men, twelve women and thirteen children. I had doubts about the capacity of one wallaby to satisfy the appetites of so many, but he was a fat little beast, and the meal was enhanced by the grubs and roots obtained, apparently, by the women. When the meat was dragged from the fire it was placed on sticks laid close by, presumably so it could cool. It was then apportioned according to protocols which took me some time to work out, but the first thing I noticed was that the cooked gut, and the fat around it, was given to the oldest men. Fat appeared to be much valued, for that which was not given to the old men was given to the hunters who had been responsible for the slaughter of the creature.

  Access
to the meat was gained by cutting open the back of the carcass. Whilst one man pushed a stick into the animal’s anus, thereby enabling him to lift the body clear of the ground, another broke off the ribs. He made a small hole on each side of the animal and used this to loosen the hipbones. The ribs, the hipbones and the backbone were then cut from the flesh, and the backbone broken in the middle. I noticed the care with which they cut the neck; for some reason they appeared to have a great fear of damaging the Adam’s apple. In the absence of any reasonable explanation I was forced to put this down to superstition.

  The neck was then broken off the backbone. The various parts were laid upon the cooling sticks again, in an order which appeared to be strictly prescribed and showed much respect for fairness and equity. One leg was placed in one row, the second in the other. The same procedure was followed with the two rib parts and the two sections of the backbone. The stomach, the neck, the head, the hipbones, the tail and the tail end of the backbone were carefully placed according to some etiquette that was beyond my comprehension.

  The food was then further divided among smaller groups, at the discretion of the men, and at last the eating began. Nothing was offered to Johnny or me. I believe I groaned aloud several times with the agony of the hunger in my belly, and with my sense of the injustice of it all. If I did, it evoked no response from anyone. At last, when most of the natives had eaten, a woman threw us a few remnants of backbone. We flung ourselves upon them with a fervour only the starving can understand. They were still warm, but only half-cooked. It mattered not to us. I glanced at Johnny as we ate, and it struck me that the two of us, squatting there in the dust, tearing ferociously at the bones, filthy and ragged as we were, had been reduced to nothing better than wild animals ourselves. The Indians, so at home in their natural surroundings, had a grace, and easy manner, which put us to shame. It hardly needs saying that I was beyond caring about our degraded state.

  When we had finished the meat, the same woman brought us some of the cooked roots. A few of these had quite a pleasant nutty flavour, but most were bland and lacked taste. I was surprised at how quickly my belly had shrunk, for I could only eat half-a-dozen before feeling too full to continue. Glancing at Johnny I saw that he had reached the same point. He had lain down the root on which he had been nibbling and was now slumped backwards against a rock. He looked utterly exhausted.

  As no further notice was taken of either of us, it seemed that we were free to do as we wished. The Indians had their bark shelters, under which they slept, but we dared not abuse their hospitality by going close to those. We found a comfortable enough area of grass and nestled up together against a dead log, endeavouring to keep each other warm. I believe not even the log could have slept more soundly than I did that night, in those strange and fearful surroundings.

  Chapter 39

  The woman who had fed us the night before was named Baroo and she showed us more kindness in the days that followed. Johnny alarmed me considerably by suggesting that she was fattening us for the cooking pot, but I hoped this was mere facetiousness on his part. The natives showed no sign of animosity towards us. However, we were careful to conduct ourselves with modesty and deference, and in time their indifference seemed to give way to something resembling friendliness.

  This began with the children, who were more open to our presence than were the adults. They seemed particularly interested in me, being closer to them in age and no doubt less of a threat. Yet their ways were extraordinary to me, as indeed they would be to any God-fearing person. It took me a deal of time to adjust to their pagan customs. I blush to recount some of the behaviours freely indulged in by those as young as two or three years of age, but I will be as true to my chronicle as I can. I crave my readers’ indulgence if I mention some of the less savoury aspects of these savages’ lives.

  And yet, ‘One calls “barbarism” whatever he is not accustomed to.’ It is hard to conceive of customs more barbaric than the procedures I witnessed in London for the punishment of criminals, many of whom had done no more than steal a little food to keep hunger at bay. It is hard to conceive of anything more barbaric than the conditions in Newgate and on the Hulks. Mr Ogwell was a God-fearing gentleman, but his treatment of his four-year-old daughter Josephine could not be compared with the tender and affectionate way these natives treated their infants. The behaviour of Corporal Arnold towards me and others on the ship was coldly and cruelly barbaric – and so was the punishment meted out to him. And nothing could be so savage, so inhuman, as the practice in our civilised society of inflicting hundreds of whiplashes upon the back of some poor fettered soul until his skin and much of his flesh lies in shreds on the ground and still they flog him upon his raw and bloodied body. I am told that the natives with whom Governor Phillip and the first colonists had intercourse shrank away in horror and revulsion from the spectacle of men being flogged or hung, even if they were being punished for crimes committed against the natives themselves. Doubtless they thought the white man a most primitive creature.

  Pope has it thus:

  Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor’d mind

  Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;

  His soul proud Science never taught to stray

  Far as the solar walk or milky way;

  Yet simple Nature to his hope has giv’n,

  Behind the cloud-topp’d hill, a humbler heav’n;

  Some safer world in depth of woods embrac’d,

  Some happier island in the wat’ry waste,

  Where slaves once more their native land behold,

  No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold!

  To be, contents his natural desire;

  He asks no angel’s wing, no seraph’s fire:

  But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,

  His faithful dog shall bear him company.

  Yet Pope’s lines did not reflect my observations of the Indians of New South Wales either. They were kept company by their faithful dogs, but the dogs were a miserable collection of half-starved mutts who would as likely snap at the hand that fed them as accept a scratch behind the ear. I sought in vain for some sign of the workings of a divinity in the lives of the dogs’ masters. They appeared to keep no religious observances, to worship no Creator, to bow their knees to no all-powerful Father. They were most mindful of their surroundings, the woods, the cloud-topp’d hills, the wind, and the sky at night. They told stories and acted them out in their dances, for which they decorated themselves in all kinds of queer ways, and although these narratives were often all but incomprehensible to us, yet they had a strange and compelling fascination, so that I came to look forward to the performances. Still, the natives themselves seemed oblivious to the idea that their destiny was in the hands of the mysterious One to whom we Christians believe we are beholden for our lives, and who shall determine the manner of our death and our fate thereafter. The dogs, in the way that they deferred to their human masters, seemed to have a greater appreciation of the meaning of worship than did the natives in any relationship they might have with their Maker.

  As the poet says, ‘to be’ appeared to represent the extent of these people’s ambitions. Pope surely spoke the truth when he observed that they did not thirst for gold, nor did they aspire to the study of science. As far as I could tell, they simply existed, as much a part of their surroundings as every other manifestation of Nature. There was a rhythm to their lives, although I did not dwell with them long enough to discern the patterns of it. They got up in the mornings, whereupon the men repaired and prepared their spears. They used tendons such as those taken from the legs of the kangaroos and wallabies they had killed to tie sharp rocks to the shafts of the spears; the spears without such accoutrements were put in hot ashes to make them more flexible, so they could be straightened. The men then set off on their hunt. The women took their woven baskets and went searching for food, generally yam roots, or other roots including thos
e of ferns. The children helped the women, or played. The tribe moved from place to place according to whim, or for reasons that I did not comprehend. As the wind moved through the trees, bending the branches and rustling the foliage and then was gone, leaving no trace of its passing but a few leaves on the ground, so these people traversed the land.

  Much of this perspective has come to me in later years. As a young boy, ignorant of the ways of the world, I was not perhaps so measured in my response to the customs of the tribe. From the first morning, the children started drifting closer to me, but it did not take long for me to feel astonished by the way they conducted themselves. ‘One calls “barbarism” whatever he is not accustomed to.’ The play of the children of this tribe, free of any apparent moral strictures or divine laws, appeared to me barbaric in the extreme, but it seldom strayed into acts of violence. They seemed to play at but two games, which had in common that they were both imitative of adults.

  One of these games was hunting, by both girls and boys, and house-making, generally by the girls alone. In the hunting games the children used their fingers, or long pieces of grass, or sticks, to attack each other or to attack rectangles of bark that the defenders held as targets. They chased and fought and duelled, and in so doing the boys at least were no doubt learning the skills they would need to become successful hunters and warriors who could fight for the tribe. Frequently they played a game where one held a bark shield, catching in it the pointed twigs thrown by another. When the thrower’s stock of twigs was exhausted, the shield bearer collected the twigs and the tables were turned: he threw them back at his opponent.