The Undying - Mudrooroo Master of the Ghost Dreaming

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our feet had revived our spirits. After our days on the schooner, our stomachs rumbled for fresh meat and it was quickly decided that we would go on a hunt for some of those animals my father had seen. Wadawaka rowed out to the schooner and came back with the few ghost weapons we had. Jangamuttuk had gone with him and came back with an armful of spears. While Wadawaka checked the priming of the guns and loaded them, Jangamuttuk ran his hands over the wooden shafts which had come from our previous home. The sea air had warped some of them and these he discarded. The others he handed out, one to each of the twelve men, telling them what needed to be repaired. Most of the wooden points were blunt and needed to be sharpened. In some cases the barb also had become loose and had to be tightened. He grumbled to us that in the old days the barb had been placed in a notch made for it, then bound with wet kangaroo sinew which dried to hold it securely in place. This was not possible to do now and so a thin leather thong was used instead. Wadawaka shouldered a musket and handed me a pistol. I got to my feet and waited for my father to lead the way off the beach.

      ‘Arrh, this earth is strong,’ he exclaimed, stamping his feet. ‘It does not move as that boat did and, best of all, I have one of these in my hands again.’

      He chuckled as he weighed the spear in his hand, testing the balance, then poised it before making his cast. Although old, his arm was still strong and the shaft sped along the beach for about fifty metres then skidded along for another twenty. He gestured at a spear which lay at his feet and ordered me to throw it. On the island, we had had little use for spears. In fact, Fada had forbidden their possession and one night had collected those which were not hidden and burnt them. I had only thrown a spear about twice before so my stance was ungainly and my throw worse. A flush of blood came over my face, but who needed one of these unwieldy lengths of wood when I had a pistol? During the calm days on the ocean Wadawaka had taught me how to aim and fire it until I could hit a small fragment of wood tossed from the bow and bobbing past the schooner’s side.

      But my father clung to the old ways and weapons and did not understand such things as pistols and muskets. He growled, ‘Good time and place for this young one to learn how to use a spear, instead of that noisy ghost pistol which will scare away any animal within a cooee of us.’ He indicated with. a toss of his beard the spear I had thrown, then said with a chuckle, ‘His skill is such that he’d have to get right up to an old man kangaroo whose ears have been blocked up with age and even then he’d have to use his spear as· a waddy and club him.’ But then his words left him and his face clouded over with sadness. I realised that he was thinking of his other son whom he could never teach. He looked from woman to woman and I felt his sadness. I was the only young one there and none of the women were in the family way. He tugged at his grey beard to fend off his tears. I was the only one he could teach and pass his knowledge to. He turned his eyes back to me and to cheer him up I declared, ‘I can use this!’ I waved my pistol, cocked it and, aiming at a shell, pulled the trigger. There was a flash in the pan. To my dismay the pistol had misfired.

      ‘So much for that thing,’ Jangamuttuk growled, recovering his spirits at the mishap. He watched as I reprimed the weapon and said, ‘And beware of using it in the hunt, for the noise is like thunder. Remember, we are in a strange land where huge birds run instead of fly and spirits laugh at us from trees. Tread lightly and leave few tracks. Speak more with your body than your mouth. Time enough for noise when we are made welcome. Now, learn to use this.’ He thrust his spear into my hands.

      ‘And while you men play with your spears and hopefully get us some rich red meat, we women will scour the sand for pippies and clams. That rocky point should have mussels too. So off to your hunt and we’ll go to our gathering.’ Mother broke in to move Father’s thoughts further away from his grief. She was not a dreamer or singer of songs and was able to put things quickly behind her and get on with life. And this seemed to be the case now, for even though only a short time ago Augustus had died and the mourning period was still in effect – her hair was just beginning to grow back after she had shaved her head as was the custom – she had resumed her cheery no-nonsense self. Though perhaps she was only hiding her feelings, for she exchanged a long look of commiseration with her husband before leading the group of women off along the beach. As if to show that he had recovered his spirits, he called after her, ‘Perhaps you should take him along with you. He is more like a daughter than a son.’

      My mother did not reply or even look back. Determinedly, she led the group of women along the beach. They kept their eyes on the ground and every now and again stopped to dig with their toes, unveiling a pippy which they threw into the sack they carried with them. While the women moved towards where the rocky point entered the sea, Jangamuttuk now led us towards its base. He stopped to check the contents of the sack and tried one of the pippies. He pronounced it ‘delicious’, then continued on to where we could scramble onto a steeply angled rock face that rose up to the top of the point. He moved slowly as his joints had stiffened with age, and we kept behind him out of respect. Also, he was our strength and able to face whatever might be at the cliff top.

      The backbone of the point gradually bent up to the level of the land and then merged with it. We came up onto a wide plain, grey and hard, that stretched away from our eyes to the far horizon. It lacked the serrated appearance of our own island and seemed, at least to me, an infinitude of flatness with nothing much to describe about it. I was relieved at last to find some distinctions to rest my gaze on, a few smooth hillocks which broke the monotony on the northwest horizon. Jangamuttuk wended his way through tussocks of low grass which grew scattered over the featureless grey and tugged and scratched our legs as we followed in his footsteps. He moved even more slowly now, not because he was treading carefully to avoid the sharp grass blades, but because he insisted on explaining the techniques of spear throwing to me, stopping every now and again to demonstrate the proper stance and cast so that we moved together rather than in single file.

      After the tenth time he had done this, he tossed me the heavy spear and, as I went along, I practised my stance and cast. The wooden point had become blunt and the barb loose by the time we reached the base of one of the hillocks. From a distance, it had appeared smooth and round, but now I saw that it was a heap of boulders on the featureless plain.

      ‘Good for rock wallaby,’ Jangamuttuk grunted, then gestured for me to fix my spear. I scraped the point on a surface of a boulder until it was somewhat sharper, then sought to tighten the barb by twisting a stick in the cord until it felt secure. Jangamuttuk took a look and laughed. ‘Haven’t you heard about Crow and Eagle? In the old days they went hunting and Eagle, he the sly one, had his barb slanting back shaftwards and Crow, the silly one, had his slanting pointwards. Well, when Eagle flung his spear, it entered an animal and stuck there, but when Crow cast his, it came out easily and the animal got away. So be clever Eagle and not stupid Crow, if you can.’

      I fixed the barb until it pointed towards my hand while Jangamuttuk stared at the pile of boulders and softly sang a verse to bring us luck. ‘Now,’ he said to me, ‘in the hunt you don’t talk, you use the language of signs. Those wallaby don’t have big ears for nothing and they’re always inquisitive about the language of men. Once, it is said, they were the only ones that had language and we stole it from them. They still remember it, though they can no longer speak, and they listen in an attempt to get it back, so we must use gestures to confuse them. They see us making these signs and try to make out their meaning. They forget themselves as they watch us, then whammo, those wallabies learn something else.’

      He showed me the signs. ‘Wallaby’ was denoted by both hands held open to the sides of the head, denoting the big ears of the animal. Slight movements of the hands showed that the animal was suspicious, still hands that he was not. The flat of the hand held over the mouth indicated silence. ‘Stay, be still’ was a gesture at the person and the fall of the arm. ‘Spearing’ was simply the clutching of an imaginary spear and a slight forward motion of the hand.

      He gave me other signs such as go that way or this way and so on, then said, ‘These are but the rudiments of sign language. They will be enough for this hunt, but with all that time to fill in on that boat I'll teach you the whole grammar by and by. Body language is as complicated as mouth language. What you speak, I can gesture,’ he said, acting out a mime to illustrate. Then, grinning at my smile, he added, ‘If you could hear that, you would not be amused.

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