Chapter 20: Kununurra - 4

Sam and Tessa were served bush fruits, mangos and witchety grubs for lunch. They each took a bottle of water and their torches from the Land Rover – which Potoroo had called a ute. Then Tom led them down a path to the east and south.

“Before the whitefellas made the lake,” he said as they walked, “The land was full of giants. They lived east into what’s now the Territory. They did something wrong and the spirits turned them to stone. Where we’re going you can see their heads where it looks like hills from here. What were their mouths and noses are caves. Our fathers’ fathers carved and painted the insides so the evil couldn’t get out. I lack the courage to spend the night there. What if one were to sneeze? Or close his mouth? They have been there very long. What if one yawns in the night?”

“The freshwater crocodiles near Katherine never catch Karlo. They never eat Yelka. And my father, Dayah Minyah can crush and devour a crocodile.” [“A snake has defeated a crocodile in an epic five-hour battle at a lake in Australia which left onlookers shocked as the python slowly devoured its prey.

“The clash between a large water python and a three-foot fresh water crocodile occurred at Lake Moondarra near Mount Isa, a remote town in the north-west of the state of Queensland.” Telegraph 2014-03-03]

“Hmm.” Tom was silent for a while. The line, northwest to southeast, that marked the edge of the hills was quite distinct.

“I see faces,” Tessa said. “There’s one! I can see eyes and nose and mouth. And another! And a very large one, over there!”

“That large one is above Thompson Spring, running from his mouth into his beard.”

“Of course,” said Sam. “How else could the shrubbery and the water be explained.”

“Whitefellas from Perth take pictures there. They never bin to the others.”

“Then, let us go to the others first.”

Tom led them uphill nearly due north to an overhang about five metres wide.

“I wait here. Mebbe not good for me to see.”

“Let me go first,” Sam said, “There may be that which a woman should not see.”

He climbed under the ledge and turned on his torch, revealing a procession of Gwion Gwion [tassel Bradshaw] figures in fine detail, colored brown, yellow and pale blue. There was a large snake. “You can come in!” he cried.

Tessa arrived within minutes. “How could you tell?”

“Look at the pictures. Pure Bradshaw. No Wandjina depicting cloud and rain spirits. It’s very old. Many thousands of years.”

“I see the images, but I sense nothing.”

“Yes. Once there was meaning here. But no more. The spirits that were here have gone. I cannot see whence they have gone. Perhaps my father could know; perhaps the one who taught me, Rock-Wallaby. There is nothing here for us. Let us look at the other cave.”

They exited and Sam waved to Tom. They walked to him.

“Can you put us on the path to the third cave?”

“Potoroo told me to do so.” Tom led them a bit downhill to a point where a faint track led up at a slightly northerly angle. Five more minutes and Sam could see another dark overhang. The sun was more than halfway to its rest, so the shadow was large.

“Let me go first. You wait here.”

Sam walked up to the shadow and cast his torch’s beam into the black, illuminating a two-meter high wall full of pictures. He laughed.

“Tessa! Say farewell to Tom. Tom, we will see you in the morning. This place has been prepared for us.” He turned to Tessa, who had climbed up rapidly to stand beside him. “We will spend more than twelve hours here. Look and see that it has been prepared.” He turned his beam into the cave.

“Oh! Wonderful!” she cried.

There was a frieze several meters long about waist-high. There were more than a dozen Gwion Gwion moving east to west, from a part sun peeking to a part sun down in the water. And above the second figure flew a Raven and west of the Raven hovered a Wedge-Tail.

“How could that be?” she asked.

“It is not for me to question how or why the powers that Be do things. We will drink some water and sit together in the dark. It may be that we will learn tonight. But we have come to a place we were meant to come and which has been prepared. Come. I will embrace you and kiss you. And we will be what we were meant to be.”