Chapter 50

The next Monday morning I got a call from dad.

"You're out of classes, aren't you?"

"Till the end of February."

"Can you do me a favor?"

"Of course."

"We've a storage room of Aboriginal materials. Would you be willing to spend a few days going through it all? I need to know whether there are items that should be returned to various bands, whether there are things that ought to be on display and whether there are things that might be of interest to the anthropologists."

"I can come on Wednesday morning. But until I actually look, there's no way of knowing how long it will take."

"Right. I'll be in my office from about nine on. Just ask at the main entry."

"Fine. I'll aim for half-past."

When I got off, I looked at Rachel. "Will you be at the Gallery on Wednesday?"

"I was planning to be."

"Lunch with me?"

"Aha! Going to the Museum?"

"Yes. What might be a big job for my dad." Her phone rang.

"Hello ... yes ... certainly ... tomorrow's fine, Wednesday's bad. Right ... see you then." She looked at me. "Your sister. She's meeting Cait to look at the campus here. I'll meet them at the Fisher Library, just past the Law School."

"Well, I'm staying home to read. I want to get a start on case law. I wonder whether the uni can bear up to the strain of three Hollisters."

"Silly!"

"Yes, that's me. A clown. But, do you know whether my dear sister knows what she wants to study?"

"No. Not at all. She wanted to be a presenter on the telly. Your friend Sue said she'd done well as an undergraduate intern. But Sarah says Sydney doesn't offer that. UNSW does have media studies. And she thinks that Macquarie does, too. But she'll have to work her way through it."

"Too true."

Late Tuesday afternoon Rachel told me that while Cait and Sarah had hit it off well, Sydney didn't appear to be Sarah's first choice. She was going to visit the Macquarie campus tomorrow or Thursday. Tomorrow came soon and we traveled downtown together to our separate museums.

The "storage room" was bigger than a large walk-in closet. One long wall was occupied by steel shelving supporting several dozen boxes of various shapes and sizes. The facing wall sprouted a number of coathooks, from which garment bags were suspended. There was a stepladder and a table.

"There you are," dad said. "There's a guard around the end of the corridor. He can help if you need extra hands to move things. There's a phone on the wall outside. Need anything else?"

I looked around. "Yes. A box cutter, some tape and a black or dark blue marker."

"Right. I'll have them brought to you. If you leave for more than a few minutes, tell the guard. He'll lock up."

"Thanks. This should be an adventure. There is a pull, but not a strong one."

I decided to be methodical and put the top right carton on the table and looked at the label: "Sesia and Crab Island / March 1954." Well, I'd spell it 'Seisia, ' but to was up Cape York. And I thought Crab Island was uninhabited. But it would be Torres Islander stuff, not mainland. I put it back unopened and took down the next box. This one said: "Ngaut Ngaut – fish spears? – 1957." Well, that would be South Australia, along the Murray. I slit the tape. There were, indeed, several fish spears, none particularly well-crafted. There was also a small bark painting of a river scene with a boat. I knew that story.

In the Dreaming, Ngurunderi travelled down the Murray River in a bark canoe, in search of his two wives who had run away from him. At that time the river was only a small stream, below the junction with the Darling River.

A giant cod fish (Ponde) swam ahead of the Ngurunderi, widening the river with sweeps of its tail. Ngurunderi chased the fish, trying to spear it from his canoe. Near Murray Bridge he threw a spear, but missed and it was changed into the long island, Lenteilin. At Tagalang he threw another; the giant fish surged ahead and created a long straight stretch in the river.

At last, with the help of Nepele (the brother of Ngurunderi's wives), Ponde was speared after it had left the Murray River and had swum into Lake Alexandrina. Ngurunderi divided the gigantic fish into many pieces with his stone knife and created a new species of fish from each fragment.

Of course, Ngurunderi had to use a spear: the Muldjewangk monster had tormented him and his wives when they settled on the banks of Lake Alexandrina by wrecking their fishing nets.

I set the painting aside and noted that I'd removed it on the box.

The third carton, labeled "Fortescue River – winter 1959," interested me. I knew where the Fortescue was – in the north of Western Australia. It flows into the Indian Ocean near Dampier ... when it flows. The area is "owned" by the Indjibandi. But there are many bands in the area, most of them displaced by the colonial pressures. The Pilbara is full of rock sites: paintings and scratchings that are thousands of years old. And the carton was quite heavy.

When I opened the box, I found a number of stones, individually wrapped in brown paper. The first one was an oval, about 40 cm. on the long axis, it was brownish-red and had been turned into a turtle with white lines marking the shell. It was quite lovely, but it was not a sacred stone. I knew it had been drawn by a man of the right name, but it held no power. But the artist had emulated an example of Murujuga rock art thought to date back 30,000 to 40,000 years. Rachel would be interested in the preservation of the tradition; it was like Picasso and others re-imagining primitive art.