Chapter 17

“Do we in Gabbaitch need food rules? And if so, which?”

Tessa, Tadum, Katy and Susan each came from a different group. Tessa was pregnant. This wasn’t a trivial question.

She had stopped at the Amcal Pharmacy on a trip into town, first stopping at a BankWest ATM and later at the Coles, all in the same complex. She’d purchased two pregnancy tests: a Pregnosis and a Clearblue, as she’d heard that if you get the same result from different brands you can pretty well bank on the answer. They both tested positive.

Pregnant women, boys before initiation and girls before puberty are denied some foods for sacred reasons.

Certain foods are prepared by women, others by men. Generally, yams, roots, nuts, fruit and shellfish are prepared by women, while men prepare flesh foods such as kangaroo and emu. This rule is not the same in all language groups.

In some areas men do all the cooking, while in others it is the women’s job.

In some language groups, the food prepared by a man is not eaten by a woman and vice versa. [Queensland Studies Authority, April 2008]

Leaving the women, Tessa walked over to her husband and told him of the test results.

“I’m going to phone my mom and then yours,” she told Sam.

“It’s not quite two months.”

“I’m beginning to show a bit and the tests don’t collude.”

“No problem. There’s lots of dosh; we’re hardly spending anything.”

“I know. I took out $200 and was startled at the balance.”

“Hadn’t your mother told you to marry a rich man?”

“No. I don’t think she ever did. Most of the girls at school wanted to, though.”

“Well, go make her happy.”

Tessa was away for nearly an hour. When she returned she asked: “Could you make a billie before I call Rachel?”

“At your command. I’ll use the fire in that ring.”

Twenty minutes later, Tessa holding a billie of sweet tea was telling her mother-in-law that she would become a grandmother in March or April. Sam was thinking about all the things he’d never read about Aboriginal communities – especially sewage and sanitation. And he doubted whether boobook or frogmouth had any idea. At a dozen dwellings with no children, there was no problem. But by summer, there might be.

That led his thoughts to plumbing in general and water supply. There was a great deal in the literature about wells and cisterns. Sam wondered whether the spring might be diverted to fill a cistern.

Sam jotted down some notes on a piece of paper ... including solar power. He’d mentioned that to both his father and to Gordy. But he’d pursued nothing. He had to get busy. The small group of men had expressed eagerness to develop the community and Jos had been “warned” that a number of individuals, couples and a few families were interested in relocating from Timber Creek and Molly Springs before the rains began. He heard the sat-phone ring. Tessa, talking to her father-in-law, was walking towards him. She handed him the phone and went off towards the women.

“Congratulations,” Patrick said, “I was confident that the two of you could work it out.”

“Very funny.”

“Actually, I was going to phone you today.”

“And...”

“Have you ever looked at the Shire of Wyndham and East Kimberley Operational Plan?”

“You’re kidding.”

“I thought not. Anyway, the Shire executive put out a ten-year plan in color at, I’m sure, great expense. I got a copy from Wyatt’s office. It’s quite revealing. It doesn’t mention Lake Argyle, for example.”

“Not that surprising.”

“Oh? It mentions Lake Kununurra. It talks about a ‘second crossing’ of the Ord. And, most interestingly, it never mentions Molly Springs nor Mirima Village.”

“How about tribe or band?”

“Nope.”

“Aboriginal?”

“Hardly.”

“Indigenous?”

“Once: the requisite: ‘Increasing opportunities for indigenous people’.”

“‘Curiouser and curiouser.’ Let me ask yet another: ‘Miriwoong Gajerrong’.”

“Surely you jest, my boy.”

“Aren’t the Miriwoong Gajerrong the recognized native title holder to Kununurra?”

“Yes. You’re still stuck on the notion that federal designations mean something in the Kimberley. The law didn’t mean much in the 1800s, in the 1900s, and I doubt whether the whitefellas who commissioned and wrote this Plan ever thought much about either the law in general nor native title in particular.”

“Sad.”

“Definitely. Now, on a related topic. A spy in Perth informs me that the State is organizing a group to examine where the dam was.”

“Not unexpected.”

“I have several suggestions.”

“OK.”

“First, over the next few days, why don’t you have a group of men – um – ‘salvage’ as many flattish stones as possible. They might be used to line a well. Or to build a shelter.”

“Don’t you think that might interfere with their analysis?”

“Heavens! That would be dreadful. But they didn’t say not to, did they?”

“No one said anything at all.”

“Yet it might be best if you weren’t seen to be active in this activity.”

“Right. But may I talk to the group when and if they arrive?”

“Have you ever read Heller’s Catch-22?”

“Yes, you suggested it when I was in school. Why?”

“Because the bureaucracy you’re going to meet is just like the military one he writes about. If you’ve got the patience, your best procedure is to be as formal, verbose and obscure as possible. If one of them asks a direct question, divert it. Respond with a request for qualification or detail. Or answer, with prolixity, a totally different question.”

“I think I understand.”

“Sam, you dealt with the druggies when you were in Mintabie, you’ll handle the WA government. For example, if they ask about moving the stones, refer to the activity as restoring them to when they were taken from the Durack homestead.”