The Songmaster (33 page)

Ardjani’s chant stopped and he paused, head cocked as if listening for a reply. Then he turned to the two women and made a little gesture
towards the rocks in the grass. He stood back while they both walked forward.

The rocks were sharp edged, less than a metre high, with faint scratch marks on them. They didn’t look much different to other rocks they’d seen that day. But then the mother and daughter dropped to their knees beside the rocks and began pulling away the grass that partially obscured the site.

Ardjani walked back to join the group. ‘Lilian find the stones of her daddy and grandfather. This is mahmah stone. It is everything in creation, in nature, inside the earth, and what grows. It holds their spirits.’

Barwon stood apart from the group. Ardjani’s words had carved into him, and he reached out and rested his hand against a tree, not yet knowing that, to the Barradja, this was a gesture of seeking and longing.

After a few minutes, Ardjani started walking back to the vehicles and everyone followed quietly, leaving the two women at this sacred place.

Back at the van, Beth passed around drinking water and mugs, this practical act defusing the emotive silence that had fallen over the group.

‘We’ll come back for the women later,’ explained Ardjani.

‘We have to keep going, if they’re to show us the Wandjina,’ said Beth. ‘They don’t like staying in spirit places after the sun goes down.’

It was a hot climb, clambering between giant red sandstone boulders. Alistair took frequent rests, sitting on a rock, rubbing his knees. Susan trod carefully, steadying herself. Mick, his face wet with sweat, handed her a stout branch he’d been using as a walking stick. ‘Use this, I’ll get another one.’

Shortly they were in a small amphitheatre formed by large rocks, some as high as a two-storey building, and in the confusion of blocks they could see shallow overhangs and curving canopies of ledges that looked cool and inviting.

They moved closer and Ardjani stopped, again holding up his hand to signal those behind to wait. This time his chanting sounded more of a song than a call, the musical notes echoing against the cliff face. He sang to his ancestors. And he told them about the people he brought here, who wanted to understand and learn their stories, their power and knowledge.

Ardjani paused for a moment. He turned back to the group crowded behind him. ‘The ancestors say it’s okay. We can go in.’

Everyone forgot their sweating, aching bodies. The excitement and expectation was palpable. This was what they had come to see. At the base of the main shelter, Ardjani turned to his sons and spoke sternly, ‘Josh, Luke, you stay here. Till you initiated, this place, these images are taboo.’ The boys, their exuberance dampened, squatted under a shady overhang watching
their father and hugging their knees. They knew this was a powerful place, and they sat close.

The group straggled behind Ardjani. They followed around boulders and into the rock shelter. The Wandjina, larger than life, silent, mouthless figures with their halos of clouds and lightning, stared down at the group of black and white Australians who peered back.

As they moved closer, the sense of power that radiated from this place seemed to become more intense, and the figures gradually lost the appearance of paintings and became part of the texture of the rock.

Susan whispered to Alan, ‘I can see what is meant by the concept of these spirits being pressed into the rock face.’

‘It’s to do with the pigment “fossilising” into the rock, so it becomes like a varnish. Much of the ancient art has disappeared, but that’s not to say it wasn’t there. Archaeologists are finding ochres and fragments of painted rock that are 60,000 years old.’

‘Is that white ochre in the background of these paintings?’ asked Veronica.

‘They sometimes used a white clay among other things – calcite, burnt selenite, gypsum – and a rare mineral found up here, huntite.’

‘I wouldn’t want to upset any of these spirits,’ said Mick in an aside to Alistair. ‘You feel you’d be struck dead by lightning if you laid a hand on any of this.’

‘The energy that radiates from them is
tangible. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.’ Alistair sat down on a small boulder smoothed and almost polished by thousands of years of being used as a seat. The others found similar rocks, or squatted on the dirt floor of the rock shelter.

Ardjani stood by some of the largest paintings. The staging, thought Alistair, was magnificent, great theatre, the space-like figures of incredible antiquity providing a backdrop that gave Ardjani the enhanced charisma of a thespian holding centre stage.

Beth settled cross-legged on a little ledge close by Ardjani, almost as if sharing the stage, but clearly in a minor role. Alan, with his artist’s eye for composition and content, relished the moment.

Veronica sat down with the tape recorder in her lap, the microphone pointed towards Ardjani. Barwon hung back, unsure of which group he belonged to – Aboriginal or European. He edged apart from the others, squeezing himself into a seat in a crevice between two rocks.

Ardjani, with his fine sense of timing, ended the long silence. ‘The Wandjina spirits lay down here.’ Shaking his index finger emphatically at the rock paintings, he began to tell the story of the creation of the earth by the Wandjina. ‘The creator spirits came as Wandjina in human
form, and they walked,
walked,
’ he repeated, ‘making the land as they travelled.’

Pointing to the halo-like shape around the heads of the painted figures he explained, ‘This lightning and cloud . . . this coming down him like a coat, is rain. The Wandjina is rain god. He has no mouth because it is hidden in mist, and he knows much that is beyond our knowledge and understanding. He speaks to our minds. This mist, here in the painting, separates us from the Wandjina, they have high understanding above us.’

Ardjani brushed a hand across his face, drew a breath and, with a stronger voice, he told of how the Wandjina had created the rivers, mountains, trees, landscape and, when their main work was done, they merged themselves into the rock wall to stay forever and watch over the people of their land. ‘This place is like our Garden of Eden, where everything begin, all land, all people, all animals, all plants, in the Barradja country. When the Wandjina come, everything is yorro yorro – standing up new, alive. Here is the seed of our culture, all this is wunggud – earth power place. This is where the wurnan law comes from. Wurnan is the sharing system that links all the Barradja people together, no matter where they gone to. We keep the law in the songs that have been passed down to us, and we hold them, learn from them and trade them on. This is our way.’

Like an oracle, Ardjani spread his arms,
gesturing to one of the figures that was fading in parts. ‘He look sad, this one. No one look after him for long time.’

‘We have to fix him,’ said Rusty.

‘Okay. We the custodians. We got to come back here and do ceremonies, fix up the paint to make the Wandjina strong, so they can work and look after our country. It is the job of each generation. We need the Wandjina make rain, make everything grow.’

He moved along the gallery and pointed to a painting. ‘This one is freshwater turtle, he sings of the heart, he is love. And this one is sugarbag, he is the sweetness of life. And all these, they are thunder, rain, and the lightning brothers.’ He swept out his arms again as if to embrace all the paintings. ‘These in our country hold our stories.’

Ardjani moved to stage right, stepping across the ledge to a cluster of smaller drawings nestling into a niche in the curve of the rock face. ‘I now tell you the story of this one . . . Dhumby.’

It was a small picture, child-like in its simplicity, of a tiny white owl. In place of feathers, were dots.

Ardjani turned to the wall talking softly in language, then faced the people who’d made it possible for him to come back to this sacred place. The group looked at him expectantly.

Alan squatted beside Beth and she returned his look. ‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘The baby’s shawl.’

Alan felt the excitement of the adrenalin running and was about to speak, but Beth put her fingers to her lips.

Ardjani had begun the story of Dhumby, the tragic owl. ‘This little bird was teased by disobedient boys. They pull out his feathers and stick spinifex in him so he can’t fly. For this, the boys’ parents are punished. They put to death.’

‘But it wasn’t the parents’ fault.’ Susan was shocked at the harshness of the law.

‘That’s white culture talking,’ said Rusty. ‘Barradja way of bringing up the young men is very different.’

‘Those boys who were cruel to the little owl, they were thirteen, fourteen therebouts. That is their taboo time when they’re not allowed to mix with girls, look at certain sacred places, or see some ceremonies. They must begin their initiation. They know they must obey our law,’ said Ardjani. ‘At this age we take the boys away from the family to be taught by the old men till they be ready for initiation to become men too. Barradja boys are navigated into adulthood by the elders.’

‘They still see the family,’ Digger elaborated, ‘but they also belong to we elders, to be taught the laws. And also, they must pass the tests of courage and strength.’

Ardjani said, ‘I give you an example. You know how hot a kangaroo be when it cooked. The boy has to take that baked kangaroo from out of the oven in the ground, and put the hot
skin on his shoulder, and run with that kangaroo with all the boiling juices going down his back.’

Alistair leaned towards Mick, ‘And I thought boys’ boarding schools were tough.’

‘If they were growing up in a town, this mob’s kids would probably watch TV, play football, and give the local cops hell. Odd business, isn’t it?’

Beth caught the judge’s comment and pointed at the elders who were to one side, listening. ‘These old men are watchful and very strict with the young boys, and the boys respect what they say. We’ve mostly lost that in our culture. A lot of fathers are afraid to interact with their teenage sons these days, because looming behind our children today is the State. If children want to complain that their parents have shouted at them, or refused to let them go to particular places with their friends, the government workers can say, if you’re not happy at home, you can leave. We have the young homeless allowance for you.’

‘So the kids are saying, get out of my face, Dad, the government will look after me.’ The judge shook his head. ‘You know, it makes you really wonder where our so-called sophisticated society has taken the whole business of parenting and family responsibility, in the name of progress.’

Beth agreed. ‘Like the Dhumby story says . . . In the Barradja community, the parents are punished for the misdemeanours of their children. But when our kids show lack of respect,
abuse animals, people and the land, society is reluctant to punish parents for the misbehaviour of their children. Instead, we punish the child,’ said Beth. ‘The State has eroded the responsibility of parents for their children.’

Alistair was quick to take issue. ‘That may be so, Beth, but admirable though these rites of passage are for the young boys of the Barradja, it’s not the answer for our society.’

Beth raised her eyebrows. ‘Isn’t it, Alistair? I wonder whether there isn’t something we can learn from them. I’ll bet a lot of street kids, who are drug-addicted and working as prostitutes to pay for their habit, could see some relevance.’

‘Point taken,’ said Alistair and he turned to Ardjani. ‘Sorry about that, my friend, but your story about Dhumby has impressed us in more ways than perhaps you expected. I rather feel Dhumby has inspired a discussion that will continue for quite some time. Your people accept parental roles easily. In our culture, we’re still arguing about them.’

‘Yeah,’ said Ardjani smiling, ‘we notice whitefellas like arguments.’ He gestured towards Digger to take over the lecture. Being an artist, he liked to talk about traditional paintings.

Beth signalled to Ardjani and Alan, and they moved away from the shadowy shelter to sit on a boulder, under a spindly tree.

‘Ardjani, you remember I told you about that Aboriginal baby left in the art gallery in Melbourne? Her mother was murdered.’

‘Yeah. You heard any more about that baby?’

‘Joyce Guwarri at welfare is still looking after her. Joyce spent ten minutes on the radio phone the other day telling me what a perfect child she is. She smiles a lot and gurgles. I suspect Joyce’s getting quite attached to her. She said they’ve had no luck at all finding the baby’s father, and it doesn’t look like the girl’s parents want anything to do with their granddaughter. Apparently they’re religious nuts, they belong to some sort of church that doesn’t allow young girls to mix outside the congregation. This girl, Lisa, had run away. The parents also made it clear that their so-called religion does not allow intermixing of races.’

Ardjani rolled his eyes. ‘Baby better off not with these crazy people.’

Alan spoke quietly. ‘Ardjani, I’m confident the picture up there of Dhumby is the same that’s on the shawl left with the baby. Someone must have told her about Dhumby, and most probably it was the Aboriginal father.’

Ardjani tipped his hat forward and scratched the back of his neck. ‘Dhumby is a Barradja story. That baby belongs to Barradja family. We just have to find that father, eh?’ He gave a reassuring smile. ‘I think this is a special baby, she find her way home. You see.’