Chapter 2

Jos was really shocked when the old man said: “Josiah the Wirrimanu, I call upon you! Will you renew our people?”

Zeke elbowed him and Jos stood.

“I am honoured. I am no one. I was taken from my mother. I am from no where. I hear the nungungi, but I know not what I can do. I agree our people must be renewed. King Josiah restored Judah to the Temple. I am no king. We have no temple.” He remained standing.

“Being unassuming is a virtue. Only the strong can declare what he cannot do. Here, we see where the great pythons that travelled from the east to the west. The tracks they made became the rivers. On their travels they reached the northwest corner of the Kimberley then travelled south along the coast until the reached the Worora country. But here in the Kimberley the Rainbow Serpent is replaced by the Wandjina, who is the most significant of the Creation Spirits. He associated with rain, the seasonal regeneration of the land and all natural resources. In the pictures, body of Wandjina is shown covered with dots that represent the rainfall, those pictures are in the caves, northeast of here. I was born near Derby, but my mother was Dalabon, from far east, near Katherine. She was put in school to unlearn her tribe. My father was beaten when he used native names.

“We have been promised much. But my mother’s tongue is dead, my father’s tongue will soon die. Ngalyod and Borlung still inhabit the deep waterholes. But the dams and the buildings block them. They cannot come and go. We must liberate them. Then they will renew the land and from the land will grow the people.”

Several of the men echoed “yes.”

“You know, if you look up at the stars, you can see the dark where the Rainbow Serpent fell from the heavens. And not that far away from here, the Wolfe Creek Crater is where the serpent entered the earth. We have the hole in the stars, the hole in the ground, the pictures in our caves. We need no more.”

“Yes.”

Jos was still standing.

“We will all sleep now. Tomorrow you, Josiah, will be shown the caves and the ancestors.”

At dawn, a guide was appointed to take Jos and Zeke to the caves.

“Before the whitefellas made the lake,” he said as they walked, “The land was full of giants. They lived east in what’s now the Territory. They did something wrong and the ancients turned them to stone. Where we’re going you can see their heads, there, 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?”

“I expect to spend the night there. I have brought nothing with me. I will drink, but I will not eat. Perhaps I will learn something. I have no reason to fear the ancients. Zeke will return with you.” Jos looked at the stone outcrops. “Yes. I can see the heads of those giants.”

Jos and Zeke were shown one cave decorated with a line of figures wearing headdresses. They were shown another and then their guide said: “There is another, over there.” He gestured. “I cannot go there. Perhaps you should not go there.”

“I will go. Give me a drink from your bottle. Zeke, you return with him. I will see you in the morning.”

“Will you be safe?”

“I will be what I will be. I could have been bitten by a spider or a snake, by a croc or a parentie. The sky might fall. I expect to see you in the morning.”

Jos took a drink and turned toward the cliff, walking along a faint path.

Zeke and the guide watched for a few minutes, then turned to walk away.

The night had been very strange. Jos had had two dreams: the first involved whitefellas blasting a hole in the ground from which many-coloured sparkles emerged. The second involved blackfellas making a hole in a wall that then wore away to no wall.

He thought about it. The blasting wasn’t the kind he had done, but Jos knew there had been blasting about 100 klicks to the south, where there was a now-closed diamond mine. [The diamonds’ pipe was discovered by Maureen Muggeridge in 1979. The mine was staked out by her and exploitation began in 1983, with formal commissioning two years later.] The wall was the earthen dam here at Lake Argyle. The mine was the Argyle Diamond Mine. The sparkles were the diamonds.

Jos could now see what needed to be answered. He could now articulate the question. But not the answer. He had no idea how it might be done. How what he saw might be used. The elder might help him. But everything had to change. He needed advice.

Some things were clear. Since 1788, since the first fleet, the Europeans had been superior. There had been white men coming to his people and telling them what they should do and how. Where they should live and how. But the people had had a way. The white way was a different way, not a better way. But the old way – a way that was far older than the white way – was taken and what was given was tobacco and alcohol and poverty and contempt.

He was at the village. The nungungi was seemingly still sitting on the same log.

“I greet you, Josiah!”

“I greet you. I have dreamt. I do not know what my dreams import.”

“Tell me.”

“I need tea and some food.”

“It shall be brought.”

Tea and brownie were brought by the women. Zeke appeared.

“I see you made it OK.”

“Yep. Sit and hear my story.” Jos told of his dreams.

“The first is simple,” the nungungi said. “It is the Argyle Mine.