Chapter 52

Henry and I met on schedule. I got him a "visitor" badge and we went to the storage room, which one of the guards unlocked for us. The body bags were, indeed, gone. The floor looked as though it had been swept/washed and a unit of empty shelving now occupied part of the wall.

"There's my job," I said, pointing at the cartons. "Let's move those three to the empty side, so we'll know what's done."

The next box was marked "Guanaba – 1958."

"Oh, this will be a sad story."

"How come?" Henry asked.

"This is from an area right on the Queensland – NSW border near the Pacific Coast. In the late 1890s, colonial government policy resulted in the removal of many of the native peoples to reserves. Despite this enforced separation from their lands, Yugambeh still felt responsible for traditional law, ceremonies and spiritual places. These traditions were kept alive through artwork, dances and songs until the 1940s, when the last of the 'removed' people died. It was made a protected area in 2000, but it's really too late."

The Indigenous Protected Area lands were purchased in 1998 by the Indigenous Land Corporation on behalf of the Ngarang-Wal Land Council. Guanaba is part of the traditional lands of the Kombumerri people, a clan of the Yugambeh, who lived along the Gold Coast and its hinterland for at least 24,000 years.

Land use changes including timber harvesting and cattle grazing resulted in the disappearance of native wildlife, which the Yugambeh relied on for food. Guanaba's plants escaped much of this early damage because of the steepness of the land and difficulties in access and removing timber. – Australian Department of the Environment.

"Sad, but not singular. I've read and heard too many such histories."

"Yes. The Europeans seemed determined to place their mark on the world."

"Not just them. The Japanese with the Ainu and the Okinawans, the Chinese in southeast Asia, in Tibet and in Mongolia. Humans conquer both empty spaces and other cultures, because for each group the 'other' isn't really human." Henry sighed.

"Let's see what there is."

I slit the tape and right under the flaps was a newspaper for February 8, 1958 with headlines and a photo of the air crash in Munich which killed most of the Manchester United team. More depressing news.

"Cheer up," said Henry. "It's over half a century ago." He picked up a long bundle and unwrapped it. "Spears and two throwing sticks."

"Uninteresting." I began on the next bundle. It was a medium-sized piece of bark which had been rerolled. There was a painting on the inside. We unrolled it gently.

"Can you 'read' it?" Henry asked.

"Probably," I said. "See, along this side are some golden wattles, acacias. And in front of them are several women. Here is water and in it are men with spears and there is a shark. So it is a band of men hunting a shark while watched by their women."

"I see it. The sitting women are quite different from the men. We have many stories of Kamoho'ali'i – the king shark."

"Tell me one."

"Once there was a beautiful girl, called Kalei, living in Waipio, who was very fond of shellfish, and frequently went to Kuiopihi for it. She generally went in the company of other women, but if the sea was a little rough, and her usual companion was afraid to venture out on the wild and dangerous beach, she very often went alone.

The King shark god, Kamoho'ali'i, used to visit this pool very often to sport in the fresh waters of the Waipio River.

Kalei, as was to be expected from a strong, well-formed Hawaiian girl of those days, was an expert swimmer, a good diver, and noted for the neatness and grace with which she would jump from the rocks into deep water without a splash, which would happen to unskilful divers.

Kamoho'ali'i, the King-shark, had noted the charms of the beautiful Kalei, and his heart, or whatever answers in place of it with fishes, had been captured by them. But he could not expect to make much of an impression on the maiden's susceptibilities, even though he was perfectly able to take her bodily into his capacious maw; so he had to appear in a more pleasing way. Assuming the form of a very handsome man, he walked on the beach one rather rough morning, waiting for the girl's appearance.

Now the very wildness of the elements afforded him the chance he desired, as, though Kalei was counted among the most agile and quick of rock-fishers, that morning, when she did come, and alone, she made several unsuccessful springs to escape a high threatening wave raised by the god himself; and if it had not been for the prompt and effective assistance rendered by the handsome stranger, she would have been swept out into the sea.

Thus an acquaintance was established. Kalei met the stranger from time to time, and finally became his wife.

Some little time before she expected to become a mother, her husband, who all this time would only come home at night, told her his true nature, and informing her that he would have to leave her, gave orders in regard to the bringing up of the future child. He particularly cautioned the mother never to let him be fed on animal flesh of any kind, as he would be born with a dual nature, and with a body that he could change at will.

In time Kalei was delivered of a fine healthy boy, apparently the same as any other child, but he had, besides the normal mouth of a human being, a shark's mouth on his back between the shoulder blades. Kalei had told her family of the kind of being her husband was, and they all agreed to keep the matter of the shark-mouth on the child's back a secret, as there was no knowing what fears and jealousies might be excited by such an abnormal being, and the babe might be killed.

The old grandfather, far from heeding the warning given by Kamoho'ali'i in the matter of animal diet, as soon as the boy, who was called Nana'u'e, was old enough to come under the taboo in regard to the eating of males, and had to take his meals at the mua house with the men of the family, took especial pains to feed him on dog meat and pork. He had a hope that his grandson would grow up to be a great, strong man, and become a famous warrior; and there was no knowing what possibilities lay before a strong, skillful warrior in those days. So he fed the boy with meat, whenever it was obtainable. The boy thrived, grew strong, big, and handsome as a young lama tree.

There was another pool with a small fall of the Waipio River very near the house of Kalei, and the boy very often went into it while his mother watched on the banks. Whenever he got into the water he would take the form of a shark and would chase and eat the small fish which lived in the pool. As he grew old enough to understand, his mother took especial pains to impress on him the necessity of concealing his shark nature from other people.

This place was also another favorite bathing-place of the people, but Nana'u'e, contrary to all the habits of a genuine Hawaiian, would never go in bathing with the others, but always alone; and when his mother was able, she used to go with him and sit on the banks, holding the kapa scarf, which he always wore to hide the shark-mouth on his back.

When he became a man, his appetite for animal diet, indulged in childhood, had grown so strong that a human being's ordinary allowance would not suffice for him. The old grandfather had died in the meantime, so that he was dependent on the food supplied by his stepfather and uncles, and they had to expostulate with him on what they called his shark-like voracity. This gave rise to the common native nickname of a ravenous shark for a gluttonous man.