My Place (38 page)

‘This is a beautiful place,' Mum sighed. I nodded in agreement. ‘Why did she tell me it was an ugly place? She didn't want me to come. She just doesn't want to be Aboriginal.' We both sat in silence.

We stayed on Corunna until late in the afternoon, then reluctantly drove back to Marble Bar. We wanted to stay longer, but our time was so limited and we now had many other leads to follow.

We all felt very emotional when we left from Doris' house. She looked sad. She'd rung Aunty Elsie and told her we were coming to
see her before we returned to Perth. Doris had also suggested that we see Tommy Stream in Nullagine and Dolly and Billy in Yandeearra.

Just as we were leaving, Doris said, ‘You know, I've got a stone from the old days. It's a bit hollow in the middle, they used it for grinding seeds out in the bush. You think Daisy might like that? She'd know what it was for, it might mean something to her.'

‘I'd love it myself,' replied Mum.

‘Me too,' I chipped in.

Doris laughed. ‘Take it, then. It's from a time we don't see around here any more. You show it to Daisy, it's fitting she should have it.'

With a mighty heave, Paul picked it up and deposited it in the back of the van. It was very heavy.

‘Are you sure it'll be all right there, Paul?' Mum asked anxiously.

‘It's a rock, Mum,' Paul grinned. ‘There's not much you can do to damage a rock.'

Just to be sure, Mum wrapped an old kitchen towel around it to cushion it from any bumps in the road. She wanted to preserve it just the way it was. It was a precious thing.

We kissed everyone goodbye and headed off towards Nullagine. Mum and I were both a bit teary. Nothing was said, but I knew she felt like I did. Like we'd suddenly come home and now we were leaving again. But we had a sense of place now.

Tommy Stream was a lovely old man. After we introduced ourselves, we explained who we were and why we had come. He told us that he was Nanna's cousin and had been on Corunna Downs when she had been taken away.

‘I remember,' he said softly, ‘I was younger than her, so when she left, I was only a little fella, but all the people cried when she left. They knew she wasn't coming back. My kids would be related to you,' he told Mum, ‘they'd be like your cousins.'

Mum asked again about Maltese Sam. It was a ghost from the past she wanted very definitely settled.

‘That's not right,' replied Tommy after she suggested that Maltese might be Nan's father. ‘I knew Maltese, he wasn't her father. I don't know who her father was, but it wasn't him.'

We talked a little more about the old days, and when it began to grow dark, we decided to head back to the Nullagine caravan park. The children were tired and hungry. We thanked Tommy for talking to us. Like Doris, he suggested that we visit Billy and Dolly Swan at Yandeearra, we decided we would head that way the following morning.

Yandeearra was a long drive away, so we set out as early as we could. We telephoned ahead to let the people know we were coming and also to ask permission to come. We didn't want to intrude. Peter Coppin, the manager, was pleased for us to visit and welcomed us all on our arrival.

Before we had met anyone else, an older lady came striding towards us.

‘Who are you people?' she asked.

Mum explained who we were. The older lady suddenly broke into a big smile and hugged Mum.

‘You're my relations,' she cried. ‘Lily was my aunty, dear old thing. I knew you were my people. When I saw your car, I just knew. Something told me I was going to see some of my old people today. No one said anything to me, I just knew in my heart.' We were amazed. Dolly then pointed to Amber and Blaze and said, ‘You see those kids, they got the Corunna stamp on them. Even if you hadn't told me, I could tell just by looking at those kids that you lot belong to that old mob on Corunna.'

Dolly introduced us to Billy and we sat and talked about the early days and who was related to who. He was very pleased that we'd been to see Tommy Stream as well as the Marble Bar people. He explained that others had come through, trying to find out who they belonged to.

‘We try to work it out,' he told us kindly, ‘we tell them best we can, but some of them we just can't place. And that makes us feel bad, because we think they could belong to us, but we don't know
how. Now, I know exactly who you are so there's no trouble there, I can tell you straight. You belong to a lot of the people here. My children would be your relations. Tommy, he's close, and others, too, then there's some that you're related to but not close, if you get what I mean. You still related to them, though …'

We stayed the night at Yandeearra. The following morning, Billy and Dolly said, ‘We couldn't sleep. We tossed and turned all night, trying to work out which group you belong to. Tell us about where you from again.'

We went through all that we knew again, very slowly. Then Peter Coppin came over and joined in the discussion. They worked out that Dolly was aunty to Mum, so the groups could be worked out from there.

‘There are four groups,' explained Peter, ‘Panaka, Burungu, Carriema and Malinga. Now, these groups extend right through. I can go down as far as Wiluna and know who I am related to just by saying what group I'm from. We hear that further up north, they got eight groups. We don't know how they work it out, four is bad enough.' We all laughed.

Then Billy said, ‘I think we got it now. You,' he said as he pointed to me, ‘must be Burungu, your mother is Panaka, and Paul, we would make him Malinga. Now, this is very important, you don't want to go forgetting this, because we've been trying to work it out ever since you arrived.'

Dolly and Peter agreed that those groups were the ones we belonged to.

‘You got it straight?' Billy asked.

‘I think so,' I laughed, as I repeated the names.

‘Good!' he said, ‘because some of the ones that come up here get it all muddled up. We want you to have it straight, because it's very important. We don't want you to go getting tangled up in the wrong group.'

‘Well, I'm glad we got that sorted out,' added Peter, ‘now you can come here whenever you like. We know who you belong to now. If you ever come and I'm not here and they tell you to go
away, you hold your ground. You just tell them your group and who you're related to. You got a right to be here same as the others.'

‘That's right,' agreed Billy strongly. ‘You got your place now. We've worked it out. You come as often as you please. There's always a spot here for you all.'

We all felt very moved and honoured that we'd been given our groups. There was no worry about us forgetting, we kept repeating them over and over. It was one more precious thing that added to our sense of belonging.

We were all sad when we left Yandeearra the following day. We'd been very impressed with Yandeearra and the way Peter managed the community. It was a lovely place.

Our next stop was Aunty Elsie's place in Hedland. She had a lovely home overlooking the ocean.

I don't think she could take in who we were at first. She had had little contact with Arthur and Nan, though Albert had talked about them a lot, she told us. As we talked, things began to fall into place. We were surprised at the likeness of some of Aunty Elsie's grandchildren to our own family. We explained how we thought everyone we were related to must be dead and how we couldn't believe she was really Uncle Albert's wife. Aunty told us that she'd been many years younger than Albert when they'd married. There were four children, Brian, William, Claude and Margaret. Aunty was, in fact, roughly the same age as Mum, so they had a lot in common. We showed her photos of the family and laughed once again about all the tricks Uncle Albert played on everyone. Aunty also told us how Uncle Albert had owned his own truck and what a hard worker he'd been. It was a trait that seemed to run in the family.

By the time we finally left, we'd gotten to know her really well. Aunty gave us a big fish for our tea. We promised we would come to Hedland again and asked her to visit Perth so she could meet the rest of the family. We felt very full inside when we left. It was
like all the little pieces of a huge jigsaw were finally fitting together.

The following day, it was time to head back to Perth, but there was one last stop to make. Billy and Dolly had told us to call in and visit Billy Moses at Twelve-mile, just out of Hedland. We were all exhausted by this stage, but we didn't want to miss out on anything, so we gathered together the last remnants of our energy and drove out to Twelve-mile.

When we arrived, we were told that Billy and Alma had gone shopping and no one knew when they'd be back, but we could wait near his house if we wanted to. Only five minutes had passed, when a taxi pulled in, bearing Billy and Alma.

They eyed us curiously, obviously wondering who we were and why we were waiting near their house. I felt embarrassed, what if Billy didn't know us after all! I decided to take the bull by the horns. I walked forward and held out my hand.

After introducing myself, I explained slowly who we were and why we had come. His listened seriously, trying to take in everything I said. Suddenly, his face lit up with a heart-warming smile and he said, ‘You my relations! Yes, you've come to the right place. You my people. I am your Nanna's cousin.' There were tears in his eyes. I held his hand warmly. Alma smiled and said, ‘You must be his relations.'

We walked back to his house and sat down for a chat. Billy said, ‘I can't believe it. Some of my people coming all the way from Perth just to visit me. You always come here. You can come and live here, I'm the boss. This is your place too, remember that.' We began to talk about the old times and Billy explained how he, too, was taken away at a young age.

‘I was very lucky,' he told us, ‘I came back. I made it my business to come back and find out who I belonged to. It was funny, you know, when I first came back, no one round here would talk to me. You see, they weren't sure who I was. They were trying to work it out. I'd walk down the street and they'd just stare at me. Then one day, an old fella came into town, he
saw me and recognised me. He spoke up for me and said, “That fella belong to us, I know who he is. I know his mother.” After that, I never had any trouble. They all talk to me now. I belong here. It's good to be with my people. I'm glad you've come back.'

We were glad, too. And overwhelmed at the thought that we nearly hadn't come. How deprived we would have been if we had been willing to let things stay as they were. We would have survived, but not as whole people. We would never have known our place.

That afternoon, we reluctantly left for Perth. None of us wanted to go, Paul included. He'd been raised in the North and loved it. We were reluctant to return and pick up the threads of our old lives. We were different people now. What had begun as a tentative search for knowledge had grown into a spiritual and emotional pilgrimage. We had an Aboriginal consciousness now, and were proud of it.

Mum, in particular, had been very deeply affected by the whole trip.

‘To think I nearly missed all this. All my life, I've only been half a person. I don't think I really realised how much of me was missing until I came North. Thank God you're stubborn, Sally.'

We all laughed and then, settling back, retreated into our own thoughts. There was much to think about. Much to come to terms with. I knew Mum, like me, was thinking about Nan. We viewed her differently now. We had more insight into her bitterness. And more than anything, we wanted her to change, to be proud of what she was. We'd seen so much of her and ourselves in the people we'd met. We belonged, now. We wanted her to belong too.

_____________

*
nuba —
a person who is in the correct tribal relationship to another person for the purpose of marriage.

**
Mulbas —
the Aboriginal people of the Port Hedland/Marble Bar area of Western Australia. (Derived from man or person.)

*
Warbos
— Name used by Aboriginal people of the Port Hedland/Marble Bar area of Western Australia for the Aboriginal people of the Warburton Ranges area.

*
yandy
— a process of separating a mineral from alluvium by rocking in a shallow dish.

When we arrived back in Perth, Nan was really pleased to see us, and so was Beryl. Nan had gone through all the money Mum had left her and had had Beryl on the go nonstop, running up to the shop for chocolate biscuits and putting bets on the TAB.

‘I knew you'd all be safe,' Nan said when she saw us. ‘I been praying the cyclones wouldn't get you.'

We rounded up the rest of the family the following day and insisted on showing the video we had made of our trip. Much to our dismay, the film turned out to be pretty mediocre. It suffered from the faults common to most home movies. Lack of focus, zooming too quickly and panning too slowly.

Throughout the filming of Corunna, I watched Nan. She was taking a keen interest in the old buildings.

‘There's the old date palm,' she said. ‘That used to be the garden down there. That's the old homestead, that part over there, that's where they had the kitchen.'

When it was all over, Nan said, ‘Fancy, all those old buildings still being there, I didn't think there'd be anything left. What about the tank machine, Sally?'

‘Yep! But the manager had tied it up so it couldn't be used. He was worried one of his kids might stick their fingers in it.'

‘Ooh yes, it'd be dangerous.'

Mum told Nan what all the old boys had said about Lily. Nan laughed and laughed. ‘Ooh yes,' she chuckled, ‘that was Lily, all
right. She was the sort of person you couldn't help liking, she had a good heart, did Lily.' I was amazed, Nan had never talked about Lily like that before.