The Hard Light of Day by Rod Moss

Author:Rod Moss
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Art/General
ISBN: The Hard Light of Day
Publisher: University of Queensland Press
Published: 2009-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

DURING MAY, RONJA ACCOMPANIED the old man and me to Little Well. On the curving road we saw that recent rain had promoted the growth of the native grasses. Two months earlier, the absence of follow-up rain presented a forlorn feeding prospect for the horses that Kevin Pick grazed in this marginal, dust-hazed country. We sighted two flocks of bush turkey with their chicks. Only their heads were visible cruising the crest of the dry grasses. Though they presented easy targets, we had no gun. With the rain had come the flies, of course, and they bred on us, every aperture a wound into which they hived.

We travelled south-east of Phillipson’s Pound, a massive hybrid of russet bony sandstone mountains in the hub of Eastern Arrernte country. Arranye motioned me to stop whenever we came to topographies he wanted to talk about. This journey never failed to move me. But in Arranye’s company, his country was augmented with stories and, on privileged occasions, the travelling songs of the animals that populated it.

We lit fires when we sat to talk, merely to choke off the flies. He said the flies were like this after rain. More rain was imminent, but the breeze would have to turn from the north. Could I see the small green parrot, he asked, that ushered in the rain? I could hear only the cello-noted surprise of the rock pigeons. They fluttered and riffed above us, warning their fellows to scarper away to higher perches.

On the old Andado road, he sensed the lull in the fourth hour of our drive and wound into the native cat song. He had been speaking about the cat moving in the low sand ridge west of the road. Now he became the cat or quoll, clawing the air, scratching, sniffing, barely containable in the seatbelt. It was his acoustic calling card and so ruffled my nerves, the vehicle revved in response, accelerating on the sandy road. Ronja was deep in slumber, her head resting on my thigh. This was the kind of singing of the country he reckoned wasn’t done enough in places where I’d noted degeneration.

‘You love it too much?’

‘Yes.’

‘Some time I dance it you.’

The native cat Dreaming was crucial to sub-incision procedures. I thought of Ted Strehlow, Carl Strehlow’s son, who had recorded these cat stories while serving as a field officer and native protector in Central Australia. Arranye had met Ted Strehlow when they attended ceremonies along the Hale, Ross and Todd rivers in the 1930s and 1940s. Arranye inhabited these stories. The traditional stories of the country and the stories of his biography were indivisible. And, as Strehlow commanded respect as an authority on Arrernte culture, so Arranye had earned mine.

‘Arranye,’ I asked, ‘is there anything you need to ask an older person about this cat?’

‘No. I know it right through. Backwards and forwards. All of it for my country. And I know Luritja [south] and Kaytetye [north].’

The story bisected the continent from Port Augusta to Darwin.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.