Dinewan went to see Goomblegubbon to tell her that her advice had been followed. Goomblegubbon started laughing and dancing with joy at the success of her plot. “I still have my wings,” she cried. “I tricked you. You are not very good leaders if you can be fooled so easily.” Goomblegubbon flapped her wings, gloating, and flew away.
Dinewan brooded and vowed to get revenge. She thought of a plan. She hid all her babies in a bush, except for two. She walked to see Goomblegubbon with her two little ones. She found Goomblegubbon feeding her twelve babies.
After a friendly conversation, Dinewan suggested to Goomblegubbon that she should only have two children. “Twelve are too many to feed. That is why your children never grow big like Dinewans.”
Goomblegubbon did not answer but thought this over, impressed by the idea that her babies would grow big like the Dinewan. But she was hesitant because she remembered the trick she had played on Dinewan. So she studied Dinewan. She was tempted because she thought that if her young grew as big as Dinewan and still had their wings, they would be the leaders.
So Goomblegubbon killed all her young except two. When she saw Dinewan she told her what she had done. “The two that are left will have plenty to eat now and grow as big as your children.”
“You are a very bad mother,” Dinewan replied. “I have twelve children and they all have plenty to eat. I would not kill any of my children, not even to get my wings back.”
“But you only have two children,” the surprised Goomblegubbon responded.
“That’s what you think. I have twelve,” said Dinewan and she went to get her young to show them to Goomblegubbon. She presented her twelve children to Goomblegubbon and cooed. Then she said seriously, “I have twelve babies. You can look at them all and think of the children that you have slaughtered. You will be reminded of what your ambition and jealousy have made you do. By your trickery and deceit you made the Dinewan lose their wings, but for as long as we cannot fly, you will only ever have two children at a time. You can have your wings, but I will have my children.”
When she finished her story, Granny paused before adding, “Whatever tricks people play on you, whatever they do to you out of jealousy and spite, we will always have our children. They will always be ours.” She seemed to be talking not to me, but to the grass blades that answered her with a gentle sway, urged on by the breeze.
History is a narrative of events. The word ’history’ has French (histoire), Latin (historia) and Greek (istoria) roots. It used to mean ’inquiry’ but now it also implies a story, ’His Story’, as some feminists have dubbed it. In English, the words ’story’ and ’history’ mean different things, but they were originally both used to describe an account of events either imaginary or true. It was only in the fifteenth century that the term ’history’ was used to describe the telling of real past events and ’story’ used for imagined ones. The German word historie refers to the telling of past happenings. The Germans have another word, geschichte, which refers to the processes of past, present and future. Thinking of history as a future process is a relatively modem notion. The Enlightenment concern with progress and development, Hegel’s world-historical process, and Marx’s belief that the products of history are part of our present and will shape the future in a predictable manner, have all profoundly influenced our understanding of the concept of ’history’.
As we head back to town, I recognise the landmarks we drove past to reach the place where the rivers meet.
Granny turns to me. “You are too uptight,” she says bluntly. “Where’s all that going to get you?”
“And one more thing,” she says curtly before I can answer. “It’s what’s in here that matters,” She taps on her skeletal chest, “Not how dark this is.” She pinches the limp skin on her arm. “You’d do well to remember that,” she says, peering into me and at all of my shortcomings — my insecurity, my seriousness, my inability to trust. I know that she has cut into truths, yet I feel as though the worst parts of me, the weakest, most confused and insecure parts of me, have been shed on the soil, on a spot where grief had begun to bleed generations ago.
My thoughts turn to Christoph and I suddenly feel the urge to call him, to tell him to catch a plane to Sydney as he has wanted to do since I left Paris almost a year ago.
I look out of the window and watch the landscape fold into its now familiar landforms. “Garibooli,” I whisper. I like the way the word sounds on my tongue. “Garibooli. Garibooli. Garibooli.”
Acknowledgments
With deepest thanks to Sue Abbey; Geoff Scott; Kris Faller; Kate Sutherland; the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning; the University of Technology, Sydney; and Raema, Jason and Paul Behrendt.
The stories of Eualeyai that appear here belong, as they always have, to the Eualeyai people. I heard these stories from my father.
Sources
Lawrence Binyon, from Poems for the Fallen, here.
Kenneth Clark, Civilisation: A Personal View.
A.G.L. Shaw, The Story of Australia.
Kenneth Slessor, “Beach Burial”, (here) from
Kenneth Slessor: Collected Poems, Angus & Robertson, 1994.
F.L.W. Wood, A Concise History of Australia.
First published 2004 by University of Queensland Press
PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia
Reprinted 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009
www.uqp.com.au
© Larissa Behrendt, 2004
This book is copyright. Except for private study, research, criticism or reviews, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any foram or by any means without prior written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.
Typeset by University of Queensland Press
This project has been assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Sponsored by the Queensland Office of Arts and Cultural Development
Cataloguing in Publication Data
National Library of Australia
Behrendt, Larissa
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