Aug 20 2009
Rain from Antarctica on Stolen Soil
Rain from Antarctica on Stolen Soil
“Geez, it’s been wet for spring,” Jobie declared last year. “It’s never been this wet in August – none of the older people can remember a flood at this time of year before,” the young Elder of the Gumbaynggirr tribe reported. “’cept for last year and this one. It’s supposed to be the dry season – but I don’t hear anyone complaining!”
He slapped me on the shoulder in the village computer centre, when he walked in to find me updating the Her(m)etic Hermit, New Illuminati, Prince of Centraxis and RamPage. He’d noticed the Jackaroo Deva parked outside, its usual coating of dust and mud completely washed away from its well scratched gleaming body. It was a surprise to see him in the technology centre and some of the Goori kids using the computers glance up askance to see their Uncle Jobie chatting so amiably with this weird Gubba. “Ginneggay!” I greet him. “You’re back in town? They told me you were away on the other side of the territory…”
“That’s right – been up in Darkwood, keeping an eye on things.”
“‘Darkie’s Wood’, eh?”
“That’s what they call it on the old maps. That isn’t the real name, o’ course. So what you putting up there on the web, eh?” The screen maximises to show him an aerial view of the Twin Peaks – a shot of our backyard which I took from an open two-seater ultralight. “Ah,” he says, smiling and shaking his head. “You’re putting that up there? I see… You wouldn’t get me up there in the sky in one of those things. I leave that to the hawks and eagles – not my totem.” He grins a wry grimace. “Where you going next?”
“Picking up Wonder Boy from school and heading back to the hills. There are a couple of visitors waiting for us, staying in the Pentagon.” Jobie cocks his silver-capped head, waiting for more information. “You know one of them - the Freeman.”
“Y’mean the guy who stopped the loggers in Wild Cattle Creek – the dookie fella who disappeared with their chainsaw and led the cops a merry chase for days?” he asks.
“That’s right – when they thought he was lost in the rainforest. He’s pretty calm these days – loves to visit the forest he helped save. You’ll have to come over – swimming season’s starting early this year.”
“Everything’s early this year – but what a great spring!” Jobie’s smile lights up the fluorescent room.
“Perfect for planting cow killers,” I agree. “Been planting a lot of Black Bean trees along all the waterlines.”
“They used to be everywhere before Johnny Red came and cut them all down. They killed just about every Black Bean tree so their cattle would be safer. They’re good eating, after a couple of weeks of washing; make a good damper. Plant as many back as you can while the rain’s here!”
“Aye - there are plenty potted up and waiting to go in and this is the perfect time to do it. Besides being cattle killers, they’re nitrogen fixers and have those fantastic flowers – and you can eat the nuts…”
“If you pound them and leave them in the rapids in a dilly bag for a week or two,” Jobie agrees.
This amazing spring raises the enthusiasm levels and gives me confidence that it’s another good year for planting trees in this regenerating paradise. “It’s a great year for expanding the orchards, too – right now we’re planting chestnuts, down by the pecans and bunya. But you know where all this rain’s coming from, don’t you?” Jobie lifts his chin, telling me to continue with a subtle display of tribal body language. “It’s coming from Antarctica.”
“It’s melting,” the elder observes non-committaly. “You could be right. All that fresh water has to go somewhere.” His eye movements inform me he has to leave.
“So where are you off to?”
“Up the mish to see brother Kerry,” he says. “You’ll have to come see what Bobby and the young fellas have been doing there with the landscaping. They’re putting in a lot of bush tucker. Some of the jindas, too – it’ll be great for the jarjems.”
“Okay – I’ll be there. See you up there in a day or two.”
“See you there. Yaddayarrang!”
“Yaddayarrang!”
The mission has come a long way. Twenty years ago – when I moved to the area without any idea that this was where my mother had come from – the local Aboriginal ‘Mission’ was a handful of utterly decrepit fibro-asbestos shacks with no hot water, hardly any running water, no power and no windows or doors. Squeezed between the Cathaholic Pedophile Church and the cemetery on the old town dump – a common location for Aboriginal reserves in many towns – the place was rife with illness, grog and hopelessness.
Then, in 1992, the local Aboriginal Land Council discovered that they’d owned the land since twenty years earlier, when it was handed over to them during Prime Minister Gough Whitlam’s extraordinary reign (It happened during the bygone Socialist Camelot era of the sacrificial White Lamb, the leader who addressed his peers as ‘comrade’ and who was deposed in an unconstitutional coup sponsored by U.S. and British Intelligence interests after he threatened to remove a constitutionally illegal US base from the centre of Oz. Look up ‘Pine Gap’, o student of deeper realities…).
The only problem for the destitute local members of the Gumbaynggirr tribe was that nobody told them the land had been returned to them. They couldn’t understand why the local municipal council had stopped providing services like garbage pickups, road repairs and general maintenance, like everywhere else in town. Years of asking the council for an explanation had produced no reply.
When they finally learned that they owned the place through the researches of Aboriginal lawyers, the decrepit mish was completely transformed over the next couple of years by teams of eager local indigenous men and women. Now their solid houses are in much better condition than many of the aging structures in the rest of town and the mish has its own laundry, childcare centre, kindergarten and medical centre. It hasn’t been an easy mission but they’re doing really well, now that the tribe has regained its autonomy and a measure of self-confident pride.
The tribe owns a very few small parcels of their ancestral land, tiny postage stamps in the vast enveloping ‘private’ land held in the hands of newcomers like me - who all purchased stolen goods from the descendants of ‘pioneer’ slavers, rapists, murderers and thieves. The tribe takes the long view and shows surprisingly little resentment, even though they’re unwelcome in almost the entirety of their tribal lands - except at our place, of course, and one or two other blocks of ‘private’ land.
But as one of Jobie’s cuzzes, the great artist Les Murdoch once pointed out to me, “You don’t own that land, you know.”
“Of course not.” How could one disagree with him?
“No, you don’t understand – even under white man’s law, you don’t own your land.” He sipped his beer and waited patiently for my ignorance to unfold.
“You’re talking about mining rights?”
“There’s that, too – but I’m talking about your deed,” he replied with a crooked smile. “The piece of paper that all you gubs think gives you the right to own the land. You ever looked at your deed of title?”
“Aye,” I tell him. “Once or thrice.”
“I suppose it’s in a bank vault somewhere, eh? As far as you know, anyway. But you know what it doesn’t say?” He continues without waiting for a reply. “It doesn’t say you own the place – it only says you have the right to occupy it. The land is owned by the Crown – or whoever’s wearing it this week. You don’t own a thing. The government can kick you off any time they like – just like they did with us. Except they’ll probably pay you something for it, seeing as you’re a gubba…”
If you’re very lucky you may get to see one of Les’ paintings someday.
Time appears to flow on…
- R.A.
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