Riding the Black Cockatoo (17 page)
Mary © Wiran Aboriginal Corporation
Kumba
Nguteyuk kurruk pa yemin-yemin
Lie down and sleep
Your country and burial ground
{ 13 OCTOBER 2005 }
I ding-dinged the little ships bell by my parents’ front door and let myself in. Stepping through the doorway – a doorway I had walked in and out of all my life – I noticed a change that stopped me in my tracks. The air, the energy,
something
felt different, looser. It was like walking into an empty house after the removalists had been, but everything was just where it had always been – everything except Mary. There was a sense of lightness, of cleanliness, of wellbeing.
‘We made the front page,’ I said as I passed Mum the local paper. A photograph covered almost the entire page; it was close-up of Jason and me in an emotional embrace after the handover. Two men hugging; not the sort of thing that usually makes front page news! The funny thing was I couldn’t even remember the hug taking place. We’d made the television news too; my father pressed the Play button on the VCR and made us watch the story three times. It was interesting seeing the ceremony from a different perspective, seeing it condensed down to a one-minute news story, without all the behind-the-scenes uncertainty and fumbling – I was pleased.
Jason was waiting as I pulled up at the hotel.
‘Man, how did you sleep last night?’ he asked as we loaded his gear and Mary back into the car.
‘Best sleep I’ve
ever
had,’ I answered, ‘I just fell back into this black hole and woke up feeling amazing – totally rested.’
‘Me too!’ he said. ‘I got home from dinner and just collapsed, wow, what a sleep, I feel brand-new!’
Jason was a little worried about getting Mary onto the plane. He explained that he’d phoned the airline to make sure he’d be able to take Mary on as hand luggage.
‘The airline said they’d need some sort of official papers, but when I asked them who to contact, nobody in the office could tell me.’
‘Maybe this will do the trick.’ I reached into the back seat and grabbed the local and state newspapers.
‘Hey, front cover! Man, that’s a beautiful picture, I’ve gotta get a copy of this to take home for Gary.’
‘It’s yours,’ I said. ‘And check out the
Courier Mail
, page 11, and a guy from the
Australian
was there too, so we’ll be in that paper too. Mate, if they give us any trouble at the airport, I’ll just wave these under their noses. Nobody will want to mess with Mary’s return home, this is news.’
But there would be no trouble. When Jason checked in and explained what was in the camera case the attendant’s eyes lit up. ‘Yes, we heard you were coming. I’ll just let the duty manager know you’ve arrived.’
The Yorta Yorta songman received the red-carpet treatment; they handled his didgeridoo as if it belonged to the Queen, and when the attendant wished Jason and Mary a safe journey home, she said it with a sincerity that encapsulated the goodwill of every well.wisher that we had encountered over the last couple of days. The manager escorted us to the security counter and then turned to us apologetically. ‘I’m terribly sorry, but I’m afraid that the case will still have to go through the X-ray machine.’
‘Hey, not a problem,’ said Jason, placing the case on the little conveyor belt.
Word of our arrival had preceded us, for more security officers than seemed necessary had gathered behind the X-ray monitor to watch Mary pass through. I couldn’t resist a last glimpse and without a word the security people made room so I could see my old friend one last time. Jason didn’t seem to mind all the interest but was careful to look the other way as Mary disappeared beneath the black rubber drapes and into the bowels of the machine. Mary lay on his side surrounded by the garland of leaves from my garden; the monitor’s picture was all greys and blues, and as he passed through he looked distinctly regal, like the sideways bust of a Roman emperor on an old silver coin.
‘What a journey you’ve had,’ I whispered as the case emerged out the other side. As we made our way up to the departure lounge I asked Jason if he’d opened the case. ‘You know, for a peek.’
He turned to me with a horrified look. ‘Of course not! That’s not my business, that’s for the old ones.’ I still hadn’t learnt to think before opening my trap.
We found the gate and sat in a quiet spot.
‘I’ll send the case back after the burial, is that okay?’ Jason asked.
‘No, keep it, as a thank-you, use it for your work. Anyway, how did you get into repatriation?’
Jason told his story, of how he’d been awarded an internship at the Melbourne Museum. He had loved the job and was proud to be a part of the museum’s Indigenous unit and program.
‘It was all about keeping our culture alive. Anyway, I was keen, curious – I wanted to learn, to get more knowledge so I could pass it back to our people. I used to poke around in the storerooms, but my boss used to try and distract me, to divert my attention elsewhere, and soon I found out why.’
Jason’s eyes darkened. ‘One day I tripped over this box, literally tripped over it. I opened it up, and inside were the remains of my people. Can you imagine that? They tried to keep it a secret from the dumb young blackfella. The more I looked, the more I found. Well, I started making noise, asking questions: “Why do you need all these old ones, what use are they, why can’t they go back to country?’’ ’ Jason sat silently.
‘Well, what did they say?’ I asked.
‘Research, they said, we need them for research.’ He spat the words out like pieces of rotten food.
‘ “Well, show me,” I said, “show me the research.” And you know what, they couldn’t show me one bit, not one paper. And after all these years – decades, man! – that my people have been jammed in boxes with little metal tags attached to them as if they weren’t even human beings.’
I sat there, not knowing what to say. I couldn’t even imagine how it would feel to suddenly discover that your ancestors, your family, had been stashed away in boxes, drawers and bags all around your workplace – the place where you spent a sizeable proportion of your time, a place that helps define who you are.
‘They wanted me to be quiet, but how could I,
how
could I
, these are my people, my great-grandfather could have been in one of those boxes. In the end they said I was disruptive, I had to go, I had to leave the job I loved.’
Jason explained that that’s how he got involved with his Uncle Gary in the repatriation struggle, not just for the return of remains, but for access to and for custodianship of all their cultural heritage.
‘I’m working on the other side now. These institutions have to pretend that they’re working with us, you know, so they look good in public, but they don’t respect us. They don’t understand what these things mean to us, they don’t have a clue.’
The departure lounge had begun to fill up. Businessmen and women feigned interest in newspaper articles and laptop screens, but from their straining ears and furtive peeps I knew they were being drawn into Jason’s story as much as I was.
‘Did you know about the barks that came out from England, did Gary ever you tell you about those?’
My mind went back two weeks, to the photo I’d found on the internet of Gary wrapped in the cloak holding what looked like a shield.
‘Yeah, I do remember reading about those. You took the British and Melbourne museums to court to try to keep them here, in Australia.’
‘That’s it.’ Jason was delighted that I knew what he was talking about. ‘Well, I tell you, they came out on loan from the British Museum, went on display here and it was like – whoa! – we didn’t even know this kind of wood carving was part of our heritage. After they cleared all us Kooris from the land, they cut down all the big old trees, including all the ones that were carved. These barks are the only ones left in the world. None of us knew we made these things, it was lost knowledge. Well, suddenly all the young fellas are studying these barks real close, trying to read the symbols, trying to work out what kind of tools they used, and the next thing you know we’re all carving barks like crazy, we had an exhibition, we were reconnecting!’
I looked at Jason and saw that the brightness had returned to his eyes. We sat quietly for a few minutes; sometimes you can say more with your mouth shut.
‘Can you do me a favour?’ I asked.
‘You name it, brother, anything,’ said Jason, looking ahead.
‘Mary’s packed in lemon myrtle leaves. When you, or whoever puts Mary back into the ground, can you put a branch or two into the earth with him – if that’s okay?’
He gently patted the case which rested between us. ‘Consider it done. Tell you what, we’ll put some on the fire too, so some of that good smoke can blow up your way, eh.’
The call to board the plane came and we wandered over to the queue shuffling towards the gate.
I asked Jason if there was a girlfriend waiting for him at the other end. He shook his head.
‘I tell you what, you turned a few heads yesterday. I reckon you made a few of those Murrie girls go very weak at the knees. Some of them were gorgeous too.’
‘No way!’ he said, ‘I didn’t notice any girls, I couldn’t. I was responsible for the business;
everything
I had went into that.’
Again, I wished I had kept my trap shut, but Jason didn’t seem annoyed. We approached the gate; he put down the case and opened his arms to embrace me. As we hugged, the Yorta Yorta songman said softly, almost as if to comfort me, ‘Brother, oh my brother.’
As I watched Jason pull his boarding pass from the back pocket of his baggy jeans, I had that left-behind feeling again, the feeling that the wave was rolling on without me. And then, just as he was about to vanish into the boarding tunnel with Mary, the songman turned and called out, ‘Now you and your family come down and see us
any
time, you’re one of our mob now.’
That night the phone rang. It was Gary and Jason. They’d just crossed into Wamba Wamba country and had pulled over the car so they could call and tell me Mary was home; back in country. Gary painted me a sketch. The sun was fat and low, bathing the Riverine plains in pre-dusk gold. I could hear the silence that surrounded them. Then, all of a sudden a choir of frogs – 500 voices strong – started croaking and singing from a damp hollow somewhere near the car. The great noise pealed up the phone line, out of the earpiece and tumbled joyously into my office. It was impossible to talk, and anyway, who were we to interrupt this raucous hymn. Gary just laughed and laughed.
I phoned my parents with the news that Mary was safely home. My mother began to cry and in between her sobs she told my father. I heard him honk into the man-sized hanky he always carried.
‘Those people today – just so beautiful and kind – not one bad word – just kindness.’ Mum could barely get the words out. ‘Your father can’t come to the phone, he’s too emotional to talk now – oh those people – just so beautiful.’
Tears bathed my cheeks and fell into the little holes of the telephone mouthpiece, disappearing like raindrops into a parched earth. Right then, during that phone call, my parents taught me a lesson; that it’s never too late to learn, that it’s never to late to change. The moment I put the phone down, rain fell like a curtain from the night sky. We needed it too. It hadn’t rained for a long, long time.
