The Mob at Rio

The Mob at Rio

Families:
Hickling
Avery
Williams
Walker
Torrens
Bell
Exton
Collins
Mundine
Anderson
McGrady
Donnelly

Williams:
Valerina
Cliff Williams

Ludu [Lindsay] -
Lyndell- Loretta Kyaray baby

Raelene- Lee

Rhonda- Rozanne-Francesca
Bloss Neville [Nifty] McGrady- Casey Bloss

Pamela Williams
Ray Walker- Boy {Raymond]

Percy Percy Junior Aaron
Shona

Rex
Young Cliff
Mervin Williams [Cliff’s brother]



Twins Shona [Percy] Shoanne

Kelvin
John Mercy

Della Walker
Ray Walker
Lewis Walker

Ernest Hickling
Patsy

Torrens
Blacky Patrick Torrens

Patrick Torrens
Kathy Donnelly

Don Torrens

Avery
Mannum Avery
Tom Avery

Walker
Eric Walker-
Una Walker RIP- Kevin [Frank] Steven [Sensible]
Trish Debbie

Ma Gert Donnelly-Exton RIP-
Pod Exton
Kraut Exton- Valmay
Bruno Exton

Dave Anderson

Lloyd Collins
Lance Walker

Blackus

The Mish and Rio
Jubullum Land Council
Bruce Walker and the Coop

TI [Gordon Walker] brother Bruce Walker both sons Bruce Walker
Chloe

Joan Bell- Robyn Roy

Bill McKnight
Frank the ‘Yank’

Ellis Cramp- Tonya
Jan-

Kids and future and past

[Blondie] Loretta- Bullfrog Mandell Aloma Violet Lyneve Rex
Dummie [Dubby]

Donnellys and Extons
Popeye RIP

Max and Judy RIP
Lindee and Russell
RANE and Mandell
Bloss McGrady
Rhonda Williams
Raelene Williams
Mandell Burton
Bullfrog Donnelly
Valerina Williams
Ludu Williams
Percy Williams


Rocky river
Baryulgil
Malabugilmah
Muli muli
Big blackfella
Little hairy man

Dirrangun
Axe women and the storms
Man on the mountain
Not pick up stones on mountain
Curse
Whirlpool
Ledge under water witch and young boy

Charles Harris
Uncle Albert

Viking boat in Black Creek-Lewis Walker
Lewis Walker, the eagle and Taro and the car

Gubbarigine-Ray Walker
Ray Walker and my totem

Turtle Divers

Namatjira Haven
Glen Innes
Grafton

Roo shooting
Drib
Rio dogs Wombat Polly

Blacky, Bloss, an empty Fairlane and Rhonda
The day Diana died and Raelene in pyjama pants
Taro’s birthday

Bullfrog
Blondie

Pauline and Linky Gordon

The meeting on the bridge
Frank Walker’s place
Drinks at the bridge

Old Man Mountian… the Face…

Casino
Lismore
Cabbage Tree Cabawe


Power stones and bora
History of upper Clarence Peter Pagan
Chauvel and the Light Horse

Mundines
Michael the flag bearer
The legend of Anthony Mundine
David Mundine and the activist within the family

Oliver’s theft the dog and the chicken bribe
Dave Anderson and the fire
Kids sleeping on the trampoline
Eight to a bed

Della Walker and the Walker kids

Parties and beer
Yarni
Police and the law and fines and all that
Houses roads cars
School dropouts and school successes
Relatives and the structures networks and relationships and obligations

Identity
Pride
Humour
Relationships with non-Aboriginal communities

Those at the bridge that day
Frank Walker
Lloyd Collins
Bruno Exton
Kraut Exton
Mandell Burton
Valerina Williams
Rhonda Williams
Bloss McGrady
Bullfrog Donnelly





Saturdays are laconic days of nothing to do. Sit around, poke the nose into this and that, lazy brain days. Above the clouds. High above the Clarence Valley where the Rocky [Timbarra] River washes into Big River, the days are numbingly peaceful and in summer there is no other sound but cicadas. A rich sound with a wet undertone pissing underneath branches full of them. Holes in shirts after a walk in the singing forest, acid rain, cicada sounds sibilant.
Beyond the eye is Mount Lindsay, over there, a long way away, old man mountain. There are other mountains there in the McPherson Ranges but old man Lindsay, he’s the boss. He sits there with all his secrets locked up inside the vaults of granite. He gets cranky lots of times. People stay away from old man Lindsay.
The people stay together in communities up and down the line, from Mount Lindsay all the way down to Grafton and along to Yamba. The Clarence River has been home to Bundjalung and Yuraygir peoples for thousands of years and the old witch Dirrangun … that’s for later. Let’s just say that she scares and she provides, and people don’t cross her.

*

The cedar drew the colonists north from Sydney in the 19th century
and they’re still here. They weren’t choirboys, these blokes, you know. We’ve learned from history books and newspapers that the scum of England were shipped out here so as to make old Pommieland a bit safer for the toffs. But it never worked. Instead all the ruffians got tossed into boats that sailed half way round the world, just to keep France out of the Pacific and away from the spice of the East Indies.
Anyway, they brought loads of sheep with them too and of course they wanted
all the land for grazing, so the blackfellas were in the way. And this set off decades of strife. In the end, the blackfellas came out of the conflict with their pride intact. The colonists paid a big price for the land they stole from the blackfellas. But so did the blackfellas.
These are a few lines jotted down to remind us that out at Rio, on the banks of the Rocky River, not far from the Big One, these blackfellas are still carrying on, just like they did hundreds and thousands of years ago. Only a few things have changed since then and despite the lingo and the clothing and the way they’ve adapted to contemporary ways, you’re going to get a an inside squiz at this Mob at Rio.

*

Firstly, they’re all shapes and sizes; some are very dark-skinned and others are a kind of light tan. But they’re all blackfellas. Just ask them and they’ll tell you. Say otherwise and they …well, who can predict what a bloke’ll do when he’s pissed off at you.
When the Protection Acts came to change things a bit back then, all the families were mucked up. There was a lot of pressure on the women to get things for their families as things became quite tough for them as the colonists moved in on their land. The survival terms had changed, you see. All the roos and tucker were suddenly unavailable, so the blackfellas had to do things that they weren’t used to.
So out of all this came these lighter skinned kids. Some were lighter than others and some looked like this and some looked like that. When the colonists began to see what they’d done, they got all conchy and that and started to feel that they had a responsibility to take the kids that bore some resemblance to themselves. It was a strange Christian charity thing that made them behave like this.
The long story cut down to size meant that the families were separated; some were sent to missions on the coast, some sent down the Big River to Grafton, others were gathered up from their traditional lands and lumped together in settlements so that the colonists could make sure they behaved themselves.
In the middle of all this were the churches. They wanted to save these poor buggers from the devil. So they baptised as many as they could get their hands on. This is where they got the expression ‘hands on’ management.

*

When he was a couple of weeks old they removed him from his mum and he grew up within another life in Sydney. He had lots of mates down there but he wasn’t himself most of the time. So when he grew up he made it all the way back here, thanks to some uncle who recognised him at Redfern Oval one simple fine day.
It’s through him, I suppose, that the story of Rio unfolds. And this will bring home to all of us that the scattered jigsaw of a couple of centuries …
They call themselves the Turtle Divers.
That’s because the Rocky River breeds lots of turtles and the Rio mob dive for their tucker. It’s also because some of them fly when they tackle. The Turtle Divers are the Rugby League heroes of Rio.
They don’t have their own field to practise on. They’ve got to handle it on the side of a hill or along the road. In the end they forgot about practice altogether and simply got together a few minutes before the match and slugged it out from there. Magic! That’s what they are, the Turtle Divers. Known throughout New South Wales for their brute strength and finesse.
They don’t win all their matches … there are Saturdays when you just want to forget they existed. But on their day, when that magic flows, the Divers are unstoppable. They’d flog the Broncos on their day. Aw yeah, you say, anyone can flog the Broncos … I just gotta smile at that, mate.
The point is that the Divers are heroes of a culture that has lived a long time in this spot.

*
Lived! Yes, it lived, lives, will live, him live yet longtime, …
Culture is not material. Culture is the bloke next door. They talk about Aboriginal culture as if it were some piece of carving they’re got down there in some Canberra art gallery. That’s not it. Culture is how they get along together, them blackfellas. Within that paradigm are the hundreds of little things that make life easier for the community. You’ll see! That’s what this book is all about.

*

They appeared early with early faces not yet risen from the grave. Clutched grog bottles and breath to kill the dogs. Blacky and Bloss had run out of night and the mountain was the place to go.
Sitting with their laughter they drank and used their eyes to transfer those memories out there back into their skulls. Down there by the Rocky they’d fished for turtles and eels and catfish and cooked them for the gathering that afternoon. That was some time ago, years before time. Years before the grey days of adulthood, of growing up. Now they carried amazed faces as if they’d just come here and had sighted this scene for the first time.
They weren’t sure, these two, not for a second. An uncertainty had sneaked up on them and colloshed them both before they could regain their composure.
‘Hey! That’s where Frank and Ernie carved that big roo last year … isn’t it?’
The grunt of failed recognition fumbled and fell off the verandah.
The slugs got bigger and deeper. Their anxious eyes pained for grog. Questions mulled and answered vaguely, the summer morning grew and cicadas roared.
‘Hey! Old Feller! You got yani?’
The presence of local weed eased the pain and a smile grew on his face. His hands expanded across the space and landed in among the cushions of dope. Deftly he lifted a flower and inspected it with wonderment.
‘You grow good shit, Old Feller.’
When he sucked at the weed he closed his eyes and made a grunting sound with his chest.
Eagles cry above. There’s a nest somewhere near. They’ve stopped the game with the eagles. Long time now. The eagles are super humans and they got to respect that. So they don’t try to find the nest. They respect that private world of the eagles.
Again he grunted as he puffed at the weed. The smoke came out from his face and covered the sun. Blue haze across the mind. The eyes went blank for a moment as he recovered his senses. Then the smile of recognition as he leant across to touch.
‘Yeah, Old Feller … you got them eagles on side.’
Wallabies move in the grass, slowly in the heat, as morning begins to shimmer and the sun burns down upon the land. A mist of cicada piss below the forest canopy filters blue this shimmer of summer.
Blackie turned to Bloss and murmured: ‘You coming back home?’
Bloss soured suddenly. He rummaged inside his head for a while and came back with nothing. ‘I’m not going back to her.’
‘You always say that, Bloss.’
‘It’s always true.’
‘Ha ha! And you never learn?’
‘She won’t change!’ Bloss protested.
The eagle circled in its thermal and you could hear the call as its mate came soaring in from the west. They seemed to collide in greeting but you could see it was all stage managed for the mob down below on the verandah.
‘What you reckon, Old Feller?’ Blackie demanded suddenly as the eagles went from view.
Bloss stood and went through his pockets in a fluster.
‘Where’s my fuckin’ keys?’
The keys were lying on the small wooden table by his right leg.
‘The fuckin’ eagle came and took it with him to his missus.’ Blackie laughed drily.
‘Fuck you … cunt!’ Bloss stared hard at the sky.
“Where you think them keys are now, Bloss?’
Bloss lowered his eyes and stared in a waxen way at Blackie. There was nothing to say. He shrugged his shoulders and moved a randomly stroll about the verandah in a vague search for his keys. And Blackie let him go like that.
‘Here them keys!’ Bloss exclaimed in sweet allegory and guzzled the last of the grog. ‘Now we can go and get some more grog. You drive, Old Feller!’
He said that with a grin, a loutish grin that he knew was beguiling to gubbas. So there was no point in arguing with the bloke. Bloss was the sort that expected these things from people.
The car stood in abject misery in the driveway. You’d never seen a more pathetic looking car than this one. Bloss took a quirky pride in this wreck.
There was not a movement on the petrol gauge. The damned thing read empty. But it was on top of the range and all that was needed was a bit of a shove uphill for a little bit and then it was nearly downhill from then.
Bloss got in the driver’s seat and issued orders. Then he got out and looked high at the sky, looking for that eagle, perhaps unlocking a sore neck, but he got his shoulder behind the arse of his car and issued orders again.
Luckily rust had eaten much of the car and it was lighter than it should have been and with some hard work the thing was double-clutched into motion and Bloss and Blackie scrambled inside and ordered the engine off.
‘Typical fucking gubba, this Old Feller!’ Blackie roared with half-baked contempt. ‘He not used to spreadin’ the penny!’
‘Aboriginal way,’ Bloss chirped in, ‘avoid engine downhill.’
‘That not Aboriginal way, Bloss! You gammon.’ Blackie shouted for no apparent reason. ‘Avoid engine downhill. Bull fucking shit! That come from that sign back there on the road. Avoid engine downhill. You gammon man, you bullshit man, Bloss.’
Bloss smiled that smile he used to get out of a corner.

*

Mandell had a different life from the mob at Rio. Something happened to his mum that made her give him up for adoption when he was two weeks old. When he began to take note of things he was already an important member of a unique family down in Sydney.
It was in the middle of the sixties. Even for those times what Max and Judy did for them kids, a chestful of medals wouldn’t compensate. Imagine a little girl from Hong Kong, Mandell from up here, and Russell, offshoot of Max and Judy; all together in some sort of … I don’t know what to call it.
Mandell was a strapping lad with long fair hair and large eyes with lashes that swept the world before him. All the sheilas wanted to have him as their boy friend, as it was fashionable and Mandell had a reputation as a moody and volatile kid and life around him was always exciting.
He’d run the legs off a greyhound, he was that fast. Quick as lightning. Won a few medals at state athletics meetings. He was getting a bit of a name for himself when his uncle saw him and immediately pinned him for who he was. At Redfern Oval, one arvo, when all the Koori kids were together for a sports carnival and Mandell stood out like dog’s balls as far as Uncle *** was concerned. Went straight up to him, began chatting away, a great yarn, and Mandell then knew who he was.
It’s a long story, this one about Mandell, and it goes through lots of stages, and it’s best if there’s little bits here and there, all in their place, all fitting the jigsaw into place.

*

Valerina is the queen of the mob. Not all the mob reckon this way, but it’s hard to see anyone else claiming the crown from her. Stumpy deserves a special place on a plaque of people who make up the Mob at Rio. She’s got kids everywhere and they’re all remarkable in their own way. They’re central to this yarn and it seems that most of the dynamic of Rio involves them in one way or another.
It’s that way at Rio.
Stump’s mum, Gert, was related to the last songman, old Uncle Dick Donnelly. Valerina was an Exton and a Donnelly and Mandell was a Donnelly and a Roberts. In this way Mandell is related to most of the Kooris of the Northern Rivers of New South Wales. And it was quite a big mob he left behind when he was taken away to Sydney just after he was born.
Valerina is Mandell’s mum’s sister. This makes her Mandell’s mum. Stump is mum to mobs of kids. Now she’s got cancer and you’d think she was mum of the world when you see all the mobs of visitors. Always someone around Aunty Stump.
Stump’s a Christian now. Doesn’t drink anymore. Given it up. It’s made her temperament easier, more relaxed, less anxious. But she was a wonderful friend to have at a gathering. And a fierce rival if it got physical. Even Cliff backed off from Valerina when she was mad as hell.
And you should see Cliff. Uncle Cliff is the size of a six-foot fridge and as tough.

*


This appeared in the Spetember edition of The Bridge, a community newspaper for the Tabulam district:

Valerina

Valerina Williams [nee Donnelly] died while sleeping on the 5th July 2002. Val had been recovering from cancer when the damned disease got all rampant and struck her down in what I reckon was the prime of her life.

Valerina was still a young woman despite that mob of grown-ups who were her kids and her eternal joy. She had that verve that separated her from ordinary women and made her the attractive human being that everyone loved so much.

My family and I were accorded special warmth from Valerina and whenever we visited Rio we made Val’s home first call if not the only call. There was always something happening at the Williams home and Val was always the centre of action. Her laughter and those merry eyes of hers instantly bade you welcome and you just didn’t want to leave, even if you were competing for her warmth with just about everyone from the Mish.

My daughter Rowena loved going to stay with Valerina and hopping into that large comfy bed with tons of others and they’d giggle and laugh and have such a great time.

Valerina was Stump to many, and it’s a different world now when I get puzzled [stumped] or I watch the cricket till stumps ended the day’s play or I might try to uproot a tree stump … I can’t do these things now without seeing Valerina’s smile in my mind.

There’s a great big empty space down there at Rio and it’s going to take some time before the magic of Valerina Williams diminishes. Until then, we all can still feel the presence of that wonderful lady who is looking after her kin and friends just as she did until death ended her earthly life.

Vale Valerina Williams. Rest in Peace.


Valerina Williams was the most open person when it came to almost anything. She’d confide in you, like you had her respect, as if she valued what you had to offer her. She loved music and she told how Da Lance Walker’s guitar used to ‘sing … Oh, but it could sing … ‘ and she loved Manly! Toovey she adored and she smiled a long week when Manly came up a winner. But her passion was her team and everyone’s team, the Tabulam Turtle Divers.
She came into our lives on a most distinct Saturday arvo that’ll live in memory for its strange fate.
When we are home on top of the world with the Rocky River a long way down the steep slope of our property near Tabulam we are removed from all impulses that even s small society such as Rio creates. We’d been living as next-door neighbours to Tabulam [Jubullum Land Council] Kooris for over a year without making any contact. And my research into The Stolen Generations carried my mind deep into Koori space every day as I learned more about our past.


There are surly characters at Rio. These blokes don’t give a damn about anything except their own agenda. All societies have got them, sure enough, but these blokes are about the pick of the bunch as far as surliness goes. They look at you as though you just emerged from a cesspit. You say hello to them and you might get a flick of the eye, just enough for them to register your place in their hierarchy.
But the Mob at Rio is not going to include these blokes. This sentence is the last you’ll see of them. Bye!

*

If getting rid of problems were as easy as that, no doubt the world would be a happier place to live in. But even ants build their nests away from each other, out of reach of the enemy, so to speak. The mob drifts a bit, you know. It’s never still like a statue down there at the park under all that birdshit and muck. Nup! One day a bloke’ll be here and then next week he’s down the river at Grafton or Maclean visiting relatives or getting to know someone better. It’s like that.
As soon as you get to know one bloke you get to know them all because they’re all related. It’s impossible for them all not to be related. It’s like that. You’ll see. It’s what this book is all about.
There’s a bloke who comes from the Torres Strait Islands who’s got all the skills of a top cordon bleu chef. He makes the most delicious spice food of rice and chicken and all that food that you see on the telly.
Then there’s another bloke who can skin a roo in a few seconds just slice here and there and it’s done. Just for a few seconds he’d be slicing up and won, in and out, and in the flick of an eye he’d have the skin hanging from a branch. His name is Raymond and he belongs to a big family of blokes who are clever and artistic and all that. Anyhow, you wouldn’t believe it until you saw it. And everyone gets to share the meat and the bones are used for soup and it’s stretched to buggery so that the roo didn’t die for nix.
You know that Mandell one night turned into a snake? You wouldn’t want to know about it, something silly about the idea but it happened and it’s no joke. You see, old mate Mandell was stretching his legs, getting away a bit from the mob on Valerina’s back step, a big celebration, you see, always a big celebration when there’s a few bucks to spare. Then, all of a sudden, there’s old mate slithering along the ground, hissing through his silly grin, and they all thought he was taking the piss a bit hard like.
But old mate Mandell was deadly serious. He couldn’t remember a thing after it all quietened down. The mob knew all about it though. The old woman had come ashore. Dirrangun! The witch.
She had all the little hairy men, you know, her soldiers … , and their job was like somehow they had to scare the Big River mobs. Mischief. That’s all.
When he first made it back to the mob at Rio he just sat back and watched. He’s a quiet bugger, old mate Mandell, and he took it upon himself to travel down the river to Malabugilmah where his mum lived back then. When old mate went to sleep that night he woke up and saw the little hairy man at the end of the bed. The little bloke just sat there and laughed at old mate Mandell.
They reckon these little hairy men do what the old witch wants them to do and that’s to keep the Kooris in line, to make them aware of their special place in this country, to give them their special place of belonging by letting them see what the gubbas can never see. It frightens the shit out of them but they’re never hurt by old Dirrangun and her little hairy men.
Some times at night the mob at the top of Rio won’t venture down to the lower mish because the hairy men are waiting on the road. If they try to go round the back track they won’t fool the hairy men. They wait there too. They wait everywhere sometimes and it’s best to hang round your own mob when these times are happening.
So old mate Mandell got sort of thrown into the deep end when he came back to live with his Aboriginal family. To wake up and see this hairy bloke grinning at him at the end of the bed and then to be turned into a snake by the old witch Dirrangun would be a bit hard on the old mind but old mate Mandell took it in his stride. I think he was sort of glad it happened to him. It gave him an identity as a blackfella. Only blackfellas get visited by these hairy blokes.
There’s also a Big Black Man that waits along the road from the top mish to the bottom mish and he seems to focus on the young blokes. Suppose that’s because only the youngsters are out and about at night, on foot, with a bit of energy and mischief to spur them along. Nothing keeps the young bloke in line better than a visit from the Big Black Man!

*

These stories about the Mob at Rio are the culture of contemporary Indigenous communities along the northeastern part of New South Wales. You see, the border between New South Wales and Queensland runs along the McPherson Ranges and is a convenient way for the white fellas to create just another rock on the road. You want to have a decent laugh, then settle back and listen to a few yarns about them whitefellas and how they cope with things that crop up now and then. But I am getting off the point. You see, the ranges are supposed to be home to the famous Yowie, a blessed creature that whitefellas have taken to in their adoption of real Aussie culture.
But they’ve reckoned without the full story. And here it is.

DIRRANGUN

Put your head low enough and you’re looking at a world of water. In flood it’s an awesome sight. It covers the world. It’s an angry water sometimes.
Where Queensland and New South Wales meet in the ranges all the water from the rains flows south and eventually leaks out into the Tasman Sea to the east. The Big River is that one farthest to the west and as such has to travel the most to reach the sea. During that long journey it collects a massive amount of water and when it reaches the plains near Grafton it spreads out and that’s why they call it the Big River.
For thousands of years the people were prosperous and for them the Big River provided all their needs. And more. Trade connected the communities and cemented relationships in ritual and private ways. A code of practice existed and was imbued with the authority of law. There was no distinction between activities that derived from economic or cultural necessity. Culture and economy were infinitely entwined and interdependent.
But the Big River was a different kettle of fish.
Along the Big River things weren’t always how they seemed. The Uncertainty Factor of Life beneath the ambiguous surface is manifest in the witch Dirrangun. Within the disparate communal cosmologies a special place was reserved for Dirrangun. She was outside the normal behavioural expectations that ritual and religion sought to codify from generation to generation.
Dirrangun was the absolute that made all those rituals and religions necessary. They were necessary to explain the odd and unexpected happenings along the Big River. The ambivalence of life itself at least had its odd and strange events that could be translated into rational and logical terms. But Dirrangun was outside of logic and served a different rationale.
There were those who tested the patience of Dirrangun. And they suffered for it, suffered for their impetuousness and for their loss of faith. Dirrangun was an instrument of faith and the cosmological effect of the witch’s various interventions along the Big River were to reinforce the stories that served as personal passages to the Dreaming.
The local government body somewhere along the Big River once reacted to a push by interested mariners to have a fairly large rock blasted from mid stream. Apparently economic imperatives made the effort worthwhile.
So, rigs were taken to the rock and experts set about drilling holes and placing explosives. The Big River was closed for the day and a bit of excitement filled the air.
The local government had ignored Aboriginal protests against the proposed destruction of what they claimed to be the witch Dirrangun, or at least, her home. It was a massive rock and stories involving the rock were too numerous to mention. To destroy the rock would remove the essence of so much history, culture and literature itself.
Some even went as far as to warning the local government that no good would result from destroying the rock. But they heeded not this prophecy.
Everything went wrong from then. Instead of blowing up the rock, the explosives failed to do anything and the barge carrying the explosives outfit sank for no apparent reason. It just simply sank!
The rock remains as it has always remained and Dirrangun has her home to herself.

*

There is a story about Dirrangun when she was seen near Tabulam a few years ago. Some young blokes were skylarking in the Big River one arvo and one of them went for dive to see if he could grab a turtle or two. After he was down there for some time the others got a bit concerned and began staring hard down at the water.
They reckon that after five or six minutes these young blokes chucked off their clobber and went in after their mate. There he was, sitting on a rock shelf about six feet under the surface. Next to him was the old woman with her long grey hair swimming in the tide. The two of them were apparently talking away, as if they were on the bank of the river.
What happened after that is a bit unclear, but all the blokes reckon the old women just smiled briefly at the others who’d come down to see her and she was off just like that.

Sometimes at night when there’s a bit of a wind up and the river’s running strangely, the sounds of the old woman appear in the head, like they come up from the stomach rather than in through the ears. It’s a weird noise and if you try to locate it, you can’t.
They say that whenever the Big Black Man roams the communities there’s always the sound of the old woman, like some background music to the movie that’s going on around.
A lot of the stories about Dirrangun and all the other beings that live with Aboriginal communities have been taken to the earth by those with the knowledge. But there’s also a lot that’s known and the idea that the old woman was somehow made to disappear just because the whitefellas took over the place is just a lot of nonsense.
Some of the stories sound like fantasy to whitefellas but blackfellas know what’s true and what’s gammon. The story doesn’t have to go to court and be sworn to be true for it to be true. And what’s true to one bloke is not necessarily true to another. Truth is … who gives a dead mullet for the truth when a good story is to be told.