Carpentaria by Alexis Wright

Author:Alexis Wright
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Indigenous politics, story, landscape
ISBN: 9781920882723
Publisher: Giramondo Publishing
Published: 2011-01-12T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Bala, the child of hope

Oh! Magic big time. A land full of tricks. The sea full of spirits. Poor land woman devil Gardajala. The sea woman, whose name must not be mentioned because she might be listening, far out at sea, was spinning herself into a jealous rage. She was almost cyclonic, if you could believe in the power of her magic. She canvassed and corralled her armies. Her movement was slow. The low cloud band radiated out a sea of mist that had already touched her old enemy Gardajala by the time Norm woke from his sleep. And all the while, all poor old Gardajala could do was to raise herself up into a wirriwidji whirly wind to throw her spiteful hand full of dirt at the sea.

Everyone in the Pricklebush knew of the poisonous countries out at sea, places where it was too dangerous for a man to go, where the spirits dwelt, like the Gundugundu men who were even more dangerous than Kadajala, the white-man devil, and those of the unhappy warring spirit warriors of the old wars. Gundugundu spirits, if riled up enough, could kill a man straight out in the middle of their stormy wars – not just leave him halfway crashing into the ocean like what happened to Norm Phantom. The movement of Gundugundu was always swift. Faster than a fish or bird. No living person would be capable of seeing them with their eyes.

Only the old people blind in the eye watched them flying through the air inside of cyclones. Those old people used to tell stories to their families when the cyclones were about. Perhaps their stories were an invention of their imagination whenever they got a funny feeling under their skin, but whatever it was, it was uncanny how they always knew when someone was going to die in mysterious circumstances by a bolt of lightning. One would never know if it was the will of God, or whatever was out there in those waters of the oceans, but everyone in the Pricklebush expected to hear the news before someone died of mysterious circumstances during a cyclone. So say: Oh! No! They never walked to pick up souls. They got legs alright, and feet too, but funny thing that, because they do not use them, maybe they can’t but just fly about instead. Once a child asked if they had any shoes. Some did. Some wore something on their feet. Sometimes these spirits had to travel over land, travelling many hundreds of kilometres to carry out their ghastly business, but still, they never used their legs and feet to walk. Whenever they came to kill, it all happened in a split second. Afterwards, utter calm was restored.

The boat was stuck fast in the sand where the ocean had dumped it on the previous day. Now, as another king tide built deepening trenches over the sand, Norm failed to notice the water encroaching around the sides of the boat and those watery arms cunningly drawing back enough sand to steal it.

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