The Songmaster (48 page)

‘How many thousands of years? What’s the bottom line here?’ broke in Rowena impatiently. Her eyes had a feverish brightness to them.

Esme turned to the archaeologist, de Witt. He stood, as if delivering a dry lecture to an academic audience. ‘Bear in mind final dating with thermoluminescence is yet to be completed. But based on the lab work already done, we believe this site, and possibly others across the north of the continent, range in age anywhere from 80,000 to 170,000 years.’

There was a stunned silence. Rowena wiped a hand over her forehead. Hunter watched Ardjani, who remained impassive.

Mick found his voice first. ‘If that’s the case . . . it really throws the theory of the origin of man evolving out of Africa out the window.’

‘Does that mean that all races originated from Aboriginal man?’ asked Veronica.

‘Are you saying Homo sapiens walked on earth here, on this continent first? Since creation time, eh, Ardjani?’ Susan was elated. ‘It’s staggering.’

‘Are you ready to announce it publicly?’ Veronica knew this was a story to snare world headlines.

‘We’ve written an academic paper on it for
Nature
magazine, they’ll withhold publication until further results are in . . . in several months.’

‘Veronica, you realise this is privileged information, off the record,’ said Beth.

‘That’s a shame. But I respect that. I would like to talk to you about the ABC having the first rights to broadcast this very important story for Australia, Professor.’

‘It’s possible. If the team is agreeable.’

‘And how does this testing work?’ asked Alistair.

‘Similar to counting rings on a tree, but instead of rings we’re looking at electrons in grains of sand and quartz. Buried grains collect electrons, the older they are the more they have.’

‘Can we see this place?’ asked Rowena. Nobody answered the question.

‘Without wishing to be disparaging in any way, how certain are you of your findings?’ asked Alistair, ever cautious.

‘Certain enough to be telling you lot,’ said Esme tartly.

‘There’s going to be a lot more people wanting to get in here when this gets out,’ noted Hunter.

‘So what does this mean to your land claim?’ asked Andrew. ‘It will give you ammunition against any mining being done.’

‘Yes, if it’s a place of significant cultural
heritage, especially of World Heritage status. It makes it more valuable than diamonds in my view,’ said Beth.

‘Puts the French and Spanish in their place,’ observed Mick, with some relish. ‘They reckon they have the oldest cave art.’

Alan was thoughtful. ‘There’s an opportunity here for either a step forward in the reconciliation process or massive exploitation. It will have to be handled with great delicacy.’

‘So what do these things you found look like?’ asked Shareen.

‘They’re simple geometric shapes and circles,’ said de Witt.

‘It’s something we all can see, you know when you push on your eyeballs and you see stars?’ said Esme. ‘Like that. It’s been described as similar to a transcendental experience, or how young children see the world and draw similar patterns.’

While the rest of the group chattered excitedly about the consequences of such a find for Australia, Shareen looked uncomfortable. ‘I don’t think that this should be made into such a big deal. What if the results show you’re wrong?’

‘Over 50,000 years is definite and that’s pretty significant in human history,’ said Mick.

Ardjani spoke for the first time. ‘We’ve been here since creation. This always been our country.’ He looked directly at Shareen. ‘Why you don’t like us?’

Shareen recoiled at the blunt question that caught her unawares. ‘I’ve never said that.’

Ardjani addressed her. ‘You listen, you learn. Open your mind, your heart.’

Esme sat down. ‘I think we should go on to see the guyon guyon. They’re special too.’

In the Oka, Alan explained the guyon guyon were known in white Australia as the Bradshaws and he tried to describe these guyon guyon – the whimsical art treasures that had been painted in caves across this land – realising that he had only ever seen photographs of them and cameras could never do justice to the beauty of these stick-like dancers. The so-called Bradshaws they were going to see were in an overhang on Eagle Rock Station, again a sacred site the Barradja had not been able to visit for years. But that had changed now thanks to the meeting Len and Dawn Steele had held with Jennifer and the lawyers.

‘The Bradshaws have become something of a contentious art form in recent years,’ explained Alan. ‘Certain people have made their own claims and assessments as to who did them, what they mean.’

‘As the judge said, it’s like Von Daniken writing in
Chariots of the Gods,
saying the Wandjinas were done by aliens,’ said Veronica.

‘Yes. Some people claim these have been done by another culture, people who came here when there was only a small gap of water
between Asia and Australia. They base their argument on the fact that the art style of the Bradshaws is different from the other Aboriginal art in the region. At some sites they are painted behind the Wandjina figures. So these people argue that there was an earlier race here. The Barradja don’t subscribe to these ideas. Nor do knowledgeable academics.’

‘I bet not. Wouldn’t that mess up the native title claim of continuous relationship with their land?’ said Shareen.

‘How far back are they supposed to prove?’ exclaimed Susan.

Ardjani lifted a hand directing Beth to speak. ‘As Ardjani explained when we visited the last art site, the Wandjina are the messengers of the wunggud power, and after forming the land the Wandjina incarnated themselves in the rock. So it was the guyon guyon bird that pecked at the Wandjina’s rocks and brought the image from inside the sandstone to the surface. Like the negative printing the positive, which is why the Wandjina painting sits over the guyon guyon painting. They are all still part of Barradja culture.’

‘We bin here from the beginning,’ repeated Digger simply.

‘I seem to recall that in Latin,’ said Mick unexpectedly, ‘
Ab origine.
It means
from the beginning.
’

Shareen stared out the window. Although she lived in a rural city, she rarely ‘went bush.’ She was feeling an outsider here, trapped in an alien landscape as events spiralled past her in a confusing swirl. She had always prided herself on being a no-nonsense woman. And it was this image she had of herself being able to make contact with the common man and woman in the street that had made her feel she could succeed as a politician.

She was a product of dinner table discussions where her father thundered at the family about bureaucrats running the country and her mother reduced everything that was unallowable or unaffordable in their lives to being the fault of ‘the rich’.

Shareen was imbued with the mantra ‘if you want something done, do it yourself’. So when she had been approached to stand as a WA Independent by a right-wing farmers’ group from far north Queensland, she’d agreed. Now, here in this uncivilised place she was finding the issues, previously cut and dried, were beginning to curl around the edges. All this talk, these theories and especially the attitudes of these white people were very unsettling. She wished she already had the new adviser the farmers were appointing for her, to help her put all this back into perspective.

The Oka rolled through country that was classic Kimberley . . . a sub tropical kingdom ‘over the
ranges’. . . rusty whorls of orange sandstone escarpments against azure sky, palm-fringed pools, flashes of brilliant budgerigars, majestic black cockatoos, and between stands of open spinifex country, the eerie bulbous tough-skinned boabs, their knotted arms and spiky fingers grasping for the sky like old hobgoblins.

Shareen stared at the patterns etched by wets and wind into the cliffs. She shivered, knowing they sheltered mysterious paintings and a power and belief system unlike anything she’d ever experienced. She looked across to Jennifer and Lilian. Her only contact with female Aborigines had been a brief orchestrated visit to a health-care centre where the women were either too shy to speak, or suspicious. The only Aboriginal men in the political arena that she’d crossed swords with were activists whom her colleagues regarded as troublemakers.

As soon as she’d put up her hand in the wake of controversial politician Pauline Hanson, she’d been branded. But that was all right. She was pretty clear on black-and-white issues like too much money being thrown at them, and most of that being wasted. They’d always been a nomadic people, so how dare they now turn around and claim land ‘ownership’. They were already getting special privileges and advantages over the rest of the population.

While the old Barradja men at Marrenyikka looked as scruffy, if cleaner, than the blacks she
saw hanging around the pubs in Kununurra, she was unnerved by their dignity and their passionate arguments. At first she’d thought it ridiculous that Jennifer, a trained nurse, would choose to come back here to learn from the elders. Of what use would any of that traditional stuff be in the real world? Shareen’s view had always been that Aborigines should stop trying to hang onto the threads of a dying culture and get on with joining white society, the quicker the better. But after this brief encounter with the Barradja, the black-and-white picture in Shareen’s head was becoming grey and fuzzy.

She disliked not being in charge, and had been secretly pleased when her political supporters had publicly described her as ‘a woman of substance, a potential leader with strong independent views’. But the more she stayed out here, in this company of lawyers, Aborigines and opinionated white women, the more she felt her ordered life being undermined.

They reached a small rise and the truck ahead stopped. Rusty trudged back and rapped on Billy’s window. The electronic window hummed down, letting hot air into the airconditioned vehicle. ‘Down that rise, cross the creek and along a little bit,’ instructed Rusty. Then looking concerned, he asked Billy, ‘You got brakes?’

Billy kept a straight face. ‘Yeah, Rusty, we got brakes.’

‘Good. You follow, okay?’

Further on, having skittered down the hill and forged the little creek, Rusty waved an arm at them, pointing to a place to pull over.

They stretched their legs, gasping at the thick air. Rowena gazed about her, saying nothing about the Europeans she’d guided here a few days before, and hoping they’d left no tell-tale signs.

They stopped at the base of the rock shelter and Ardjani and Rusty went to gather leaves for the smoking ceremony to appease the ancestral spirits.

Hunter looked at Rowena. She watched them, pale and concerned, knowing there’d been none of this observance of ritual when she’d brought the Europeans here.

Ardjani lit the small pile of leaves and he walked forward, singing a chant in a strong clear voice. Then waited, head cocked. Then he called again, with a different note in his voice that caused Rusty and Digger to pause. Ardjani signalled them to join him. There was a murmured exchange and Ardjani began to chant again.

‘What seems to be the problem, Lilian?’ asked Beth.

She pursed her lips. ‘Ancestor spirits flying all over the place. Bad feelings.’

The elders looked back at the group. ‘Spirits
say problem here. They very unhappy. We better go check ’im out,’ said Rusty. The words were delivered with a clear note of fear in his voice.

The group trailed behind Ardjani, flanked by Rusty and Digger. Susan offered a hand to Esme, who shook her head, using her stick to lean on as a climbing prop.

When they reached the shelter, the elders were first to turn into the overhang. Their sudden expressions of shock echoed off the rock face.

‘What is it?’ cried Beth. Then, ‘Oh, my God.’

The others scrambled behind her, staring up at the rock where paintings of waif-like dancing stick figures trailed around the protected shelter to a flat sheet of the cliff face.

A gaping wound, like raw flesh, shone in the centre of the weathered and aged sandstone. It was roughly rectangular in shape, a metre across, the metal wedges driven into the rock to create fissure and pressure lines still in place.

‘It’s been stolen!’ Susan gasped the obvious, as they all tried to comprehend this desecration. She looked to the three old men.