Wimmera Journeys

By Anne Brown

Born as settlers move into the Wimmera, this is an account of the struggles of an Aboriginal boy in the 1850s. Following the murder of his mother, young Warranook finds himself on a journey that will take him across the world.

His new life in Reading is at times bewildering. While those around him rejoice in what they see as his salvation, Warranook reaches his own conclusions on the meaning of life and his ultimate destination.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: May 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503504769

Anne Brown

Anne Brown has had a lifelong interest in early Australian history, particularly in the encounters between the traditional owners and those whose arrival so profoundly changed the indigenous people’s lives. Following a long teaching career, she worked in the field of Aboriginal cultural heritage. It was there that she learned the strange and compelling story of William Wimmera. She has a degree in archaeology and Aboriginal studies. She is now retired and living in Melbourne.

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Copyright © 2015 by Anne Brown.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Cover Image: The Aboriginal peoples of south-eastern Australia marked their possum skin rugs with designs significant to their particular clans. The patterns on this image are entirely fictional and are the work of the author.

Rev. date: 06/19/2015

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CONTENTS

PROLOGUE 1997

THE RIVER 1842 – 1850

MELBOURNE 1850 – 51

THE VOYAGE 1851

READING 1851-52

In memory of the boy they called William

and who I have come to know as Warranook

&

Uncle Jack Kennedy, Wotjobaluk Elder

and friend who showed me his Wimmera River.

We each have our own truth

And from our truths we make our history,

But it’s all a story in the end

A story to make sense of it all.

ACB

2012

WOTJOBALUK VOCABULARY

There are no speakers of the Wergaia dialects alive today. However many of these words are still used among the descendants of the people who were the traditional owners of the Wimmera country. They formed part of the everyday speech of Uncle Jack Kennedy as he walked his country and shared his knowledge.

Specimens of the Language Spoken by the Aboriginal Tribes of Lake Hindmarsh (By the Rev. F.W. Spieseke) in Smyth, R.B., 1878, The Aborigines of Victoria, pp. 54-6

PROLOGUE

1997

Reading,

England

Friday, Sep. 4th 1997

I went to the cemetery today. Iron gates, a high brick fence, paths fanning out into the past. The place has been closed for years and allowed to run wild. It was like finding my way through a maze and without a map I’d have been lost. As I went deeper, further back in time, the more tangled the garden became. Weedy forgotten graves with rampant roses smothering headstones, crosses leaning into lilacs. Romantic but depressing.

I had promised myself I’d leave this pilgrimage until last and I’m glad I did. The grass on his grave had been cut because they knew I was coming. It was a nice gesture. The headstone is worn, but I could still make out the inscription. I took photos and scattered the matchbox full of soil. The few flowers I picked somehow looked more like weeds lying there at his feet. A lump in my throat made crying too difficult. It had all been so utterly futile. In the great scheme of things he had been a mere blip on the screen for a few brief years.

Yet scattered, disjointed fragments of his life have survived a hundred and fifty years; a Wimmera settler’s papers crammed in an old biscuit tin, an evangelical vicar’s journal and Dr. Chase’s meticulous recordings of the boy’s own stories.

I like to think of the old scholar and Warranook together, and I wonder how he came to talk of that other life and how Dr. Chase came to write it down. It must have been over the winter, after Christmas and into the New Year of 1852. I see them sitting together comfortably in front of a warm fire, while outside the dank mist creeps through the streets, along the canal and down to the dark river. I see the Doctor leaning back in his chair, a notebook by his hand. Warranook sits on the rug at his feet, staring into the flames as he talks.

THE RIVER

1842 – 1850

WARRANOOK

The people along my river tell stories.

Walbaranga, songman for the Wotjobaluk, sings the stories from when the Old Ones walked across the dark land and made our country.

Grandmothers tell stories. Children sit close, listening to the old women for they need to know the things spoken of in these stories.

Old men tell secret stories only men-who-are-men can hear.

A good storyteller has seen and remembered many things others do not know. When a storyteller speaks, the people listen, nodding their heads, covering their mouths. Sometimes laughing, sometimes crying.

Young boys are not storytellers. They do not know enough to make their own stories. They still walk in other people’s tracks, hear only voices from their own campfires.

I am still a boy. But I can tell stories because I have walked by myself and heard many voices.

It was on the day that I was born that the meeart came to our country and everything began to change for the Wotjobaluk. I will tell you that story.

The women say it was early morning when my mother came to Mara’s wurley. Early, when the sky has no colour and goorunyung the kookaburra calls to the sun.

Grandmother, wake up. She shakes the old woman by the arm. Wake up, it is time for my baby to come.

I have heard this story many times and can see them walking away from the sleeping camp. One of the dogs wakes and wants to go with the women, but Mara hisses and tells it to go back. The air is cold, so they wrap their banya rugs tightly round their bodies. This is Marnii’s first baby but she is not afraid because Mara is with her. Mara is mihm, grandmother to our camp, she knows many things.

When the women tell this story they do not say where they went, this is women’s business.

And so they come to that secret place and wait for me to be born. While they wait Mara sings soft songs to my mother, telling her that soon she will have a beautiful baby boy. Gnowee the sun walks high in the sky, but the women stay in that place, waiting, waiting.

Then at last I come! The two women are very happy. My mother sees I am big and strong. She looks at my long legs. This boy will run fast. She looks at my straight arms. This boy will throw a spear far. Grandmother Mara says I will be a great songman. Never before has she heard a boy child cry so loud when he was born. They sit together in that secret place looking and touching the new baby. Now Marnii is thirsty and wishes to go to the river to drink, but Mara says a new mother must rest. She will bring the water. After the old woman has gone Marnii feels sleepy. Holding her new son on her belly she closes her eyes.

Suddenly she is awake. A noise, close by. It must be Mara bringing the water. But just as she is going to call to the grandmother, Marnii stops. The sound comes again. Just on the other side of the banksia bushes, very close. It is not Mara. Like nothing she has heard before, chinking… clinking… not loud. She lies still, still as gurnwil the black snake, listening, listening. But I wake up and start wriggling. I open my mouth, screw up my face and get ready to yell. Suddenly Marnii is very afraid, the baby must be quiet. Quick, quick she covers my small mouth with her hand and rolls onto her side covering me with her body.

Of course I remember nothing of this, but my mother says it seemed I knew of the danger and lay quite still.

Just then Mara comes, sliding in under the banksia. She crawls up beside my mother, puts her mouth to Marnii’s ear, Meeart.

Through the banksia Marnii can see them, hear them talking together. Pale as the undead, covered in bark and eating firesticks so smoke comes out of their mouths with their words. Some in the camps say these meeart are spirit men, dangerous. Marnii holds me close. Who knows what they would do if they found the women hiding low in the scrub. Such creatures might eat new babies! Mara speaks in my mother’s ear, They cannot see us, be still, make no sound. Soon they will go. The two women watch from under the scrub.

There are three of these meeart each sitting on one of their strange animals. Mara and Marnii have never seen horses and wonder at their long legs and great heads. But now the men climb down from the horses and begin to make a fire. It seems they are tired and are going to rest. Soon the smell of meat cooking comes to the women. My mother who is hungry, wishes for some of their food. Bye and bye, when they have finished eating, the meeart lie back talking quietly. The horses pull at the grass, grinding their big teeth. The sound can be heard even from the place under the banksias.

Gnowee keeps walking across the sky until she has nearly reached the sandhills and still the two women stay hidden. Twice I wake, ready to cry but my mother puts me to feed and I lie quiet again.

Mara is worried. When will these meeart go? Marnii should be moving and walking, not lying still with no food, no drink. My grandmother thinks perhaps she can trick them. She can creep away, keeping low in the scrub until she is far from the hiding place. Then she could show herself to the meeart. If she stays in the thick scrub they will not be able to follow with their horses, they will have to walk like other men. She thinks she can run and hide so they will not catch her. While the meeart follow her, Marnii will be able to run with her baby to the camp. But the old woman is afraid. Soon the sun will be gone so maybe the meeart mean to camp for the night. In the dark they could creep away.

But the meeart are not staying. One stands up and kicks out the fire. The others catch hold of the horses. Mara grips Marnii’s hand. Soon. Soon.

The men talk loudly as they climb onto their horses. They do not hear the noise coming from behind the banksia. I wake and start to cry. Marnii holds me tight, but I am tired of being silent. I open my mouth wide and yell. The men have reached the trees. I cry louder. One of the men stops and turns, listening. Mara grabs me from Marnii and throws the banya skin rug over me, holding it close.

Whenever I hear this story I feel hot and angry. How could I breathe? I might have died under that rug. But my grandmother always answers, "Better that than being eaten by the devil meearts.

HORATIO ELLERMAN

1840

14th June

Fredrick reckons it’s like a fever, wanting your own land. He’s right, I feel sick in the stomach just thinking about it. I wake up in a sweat dreaming it’s all gone, that we came too late. What if my nightmares are right and now there’s only dry waterholes and broken sandhills left. Now when I think of all those months spent working on other men’s runs I go cold. The others seem pretty calm so I haven’t let on how I feel. I guess it’s because they already have places closer in it doesn’t hit them quite the same way. After five weeks we’re getting on pretty well though I am still a bit wary of Broughton. I suspect he would still dump me off at some place along the way if I didn’t measure up. I hate the way he sneers and calls me a new chum even though I do more than my fair share of the chores. Anyway it will soon be too late to get rid of me even if the others agreed. Yesterday we passed the last of McGready’s blazed trees then once we pass through Richley Flats we will be into new territory. Anyone’s country. It won’t be long before we hit the Wimmera River and swing north. According to Carter, Mitchell’s notes and maps show reasonable sheep country for quite a long way north and even west of the river. I only hope Carter and the others don’t pick all the best ground for themselves. That’s the trouble with being the new chum.

18th June

This morning we met up with a scruffy looking blackfella by the name of Windbag. Apart from a pair of dirty trousers held up with a piece of rope and torn off just below the knee, he was quite naked and carried a spear and a rather fearsome club also known as a nulla nulla. I hope Clough and Carter know what they are doing. They seem quite pleased he has agreed to act as our guide at least until we reach Lake Hindmarsh. Windbag claims to know all about the blacks up that way, Wotjobaluk he calls them. I don’t know, he doesn’t strike me as too reliable.

I’m getting more and more impatient to reach this river they all keep talking about. So far the watercourses we have passed have not inspired me, nor has the countryside. Its so dry and worn looking even though Jock McGready says the rainfall has been reasonable. I keep thinking of Cousin Fredrick’s descriptions of roaring white rivers and green forests in Canada. There are certainly no Rocky Mountains here. Grey tired trees, thin yellow brown grass, low blue hills, surely the land God almost forgot. It is so monotonous with nothing to hold your attention. It is easy to see why people get lost in the bush. But I had better get used to it. If Henry and I are to contribute to the family fortune this is where it is going to be. All we need is a few thousand acres, good permanent water, good seasons and hard work. Well it’s up to me to find the right land and I know I can supply plenty of hard work. I just hope Henry is up to the same and then we only need the Lord to supply the good seasons.

23rd June

A rest day. I must say when Carter announced we would spell the horses I couldn’t have been more pleased, I’m feeling decidedly stiff after ten straight days in the saddle. More importantly we have reached the river at last, though I admit to being a bit disappointed. All along the track I’ve imagined what it would be like. I saw myself topping a rise and seeing before me a rich and fertile valley and through the trees the glint of a noble river. Commonsense and my own observations of most other watercourses in this part of the country should have told me better. There is no valley, only flat dry bush so that, if it weren’t for the redgums lining either bank, you could easily ride parallel to the stream for miles and never know it was there. It’s a pleasant enough stream, more than adequate for our requirements, but apart from the odd pool, a man with a good arm could easily toss a stone from one bank to another. The water appears dark and seems to slide rather than flow with little current to move it along. The most striking feature is the gums with roots larger than a man’s thigh, some splaying into the bank others reaching down into the water. These trees fascinate me. Twisted by flood and fire and wind, gnarled ancients that look as though they have been here since the land was formed. But they’re dangerous too. There seems almost a malevolence in the way that, completely without warning, massive limbs tear off and crash to the ground.

Unless we come to a suitable crossing place in the next day or two we are going to be forced to swim the horses. It is annoying not to be able to check out the country to the west, even if Carter is right and it is only sandy scrub.

If the bird life is any indication this is good country. We are constantly disturbing flocks of duck and other water birds. But it is the parrots and cockatoos that take one’s breath away. You could almost think the Creator deliberately made a dull landscape to show off the birds. Their colours are unbelievable. Flashes of rosellas, squabbling in the banksias, crimson, green, blue and yellow. Parrots, emerald green touched with ruby, grubbing in the dirt for seeds. Galahs sweeping through the trees, a soft grey cloud, turning rose pink then back to grey. I gave everyone a good laugh yesterday when I noticed a tree some distance from the track covered in what I took to be huge white flowers. I should have guessed something was up when Broughton told me to go and check them out, suggesting they might be a new species. I rode towards it only to have the ‘flowers’ take flight in a raucous cloud