Iwaitja tellin’ im properly
“Nah, nah, nah, that’s not right. My ole woraidjba, my granny’s granny had a story about that Balanda mob – long before dat Matthew Flinders come ‘ere! She showed me when I was just a little kid, she took me to that ‘ollow mountain and showed me ta bit o’ mirror, dat ole white smokin’ pipe. She reckon dem olden mob was gib it for showing dat Balanda, that Hollander mob the wobaidj – the water ‘ole behind the beach.”
I was sitting on the beach with Joshua Lamila, the senior man for the country around Coopers Creek, midway up the Cobourg Peninsula, east of Darwin. I had been reflecting on a recent read – Ernestine Hill’s My Love Must Wait, prompting me to mention Matthew Flinders, to recount what I thought was accepted history, Flinders’ contact with the Iwaidja people on his 1803 circumnavigation. A wonderfully shadowy, counter-story unfolded!
Joshua’s family were able to draw upon a long oral history. I reckoned that the story was at least three hundred and fifty years old, back to the earliest voyages of the Dutch East India Company.
His family recalled a distant fishing expedition, two lippa lippa in the shallows off the west coast, the family waiting on the beach. A huge sailing boat came from the north west, around the point and anchored. A small boat appeared, with gurana-warg-bi (moon men) rowing towards the canoes. The fishing was abandoned, and they reached the beach at the same time as the ‘ghosts’ landed. They gestured an urgent need for bogala, unloading a barrel.
The ghosts fell upon the spring, drinking greedily. The barrel was filled and they returned to the ship, and over the next few days, the rest of the strangers came ashore, in rotation. Iwaidja hospitality of roasted meat and fish was reciprocated with several glass mirrors, tobacco, meerschaum pipes and metal belt buckles.
Joshua’s story included recollections of sport on the beach – running races, jumping. The ‘ghosts’ joined a hunting party and used their guns to kill several wallabies. An old wa:rgbi, demonstrated his sublime skill with the spear, dropping an animal at 50 paces. The history also recorded the death, and beachside burial of a crewman during that week.
It was a few weeks later that Joshua called me aside, and said we would go “…to dat ‘ollow mountain.” We walked across the savannah, sometimes wading and swimming across remnant wet season flood plains. I tried to ignore the potential croc attacks. Joshua broke into liturgical song as we slowly approached the upland, a small fire was lit, its smoke used to cleanse us and with deft flair, I was instructed in the protocols to be observed inside the ‘ollow!
There was a crevice, maybe 300mm wide, a metre high and we squeezed through. There was a shaft of light softening the gloom. I followed Joshua. There was a ledge with a collection of old artefacts, two mirrors, a clay pipe, buttons and an old metal buckle.