We Come with This Place by Debra Dank

Author:Debra Dank
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: memoir, personal memoir, autobiography, Indigenous People, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous, Indigenous Australians, First Nations, Country, family, Australia, australia, first nations, Aboriginal Australians, australian aboriginal peoples, indigenous, indigenous australians, indigneous peoples, country, australian nonfiction, family generations, family life, marriage, parents, grandparents, racism, tribute, family tribute, generations, stories, family stories, spiritual stories, land, balance, spiritually, spiritual places, archie roach, anita heiss, tara june winch, tony birch
ISBN: 9781760687403
Publisher: Bonnier Publishing Fiction
Published: 2022-06-01T04:40:49+00:00

Crocodiles and bullocks

The small group who heard the metal ringing out was made up of Bungmaji and his six grown children. Bungmaji lived the stories passed down from the old people and knew about staying with country, about following the right paths. He knew, too, that things were changing, that his family had to travel to another country to be safe. This choice was not taken lightly; it was simply a matter of life or death. The fear was not the immediate ending of their life; rather, it was the possible end to his yet-to-come family and to their future that demanded such rapid movement across the earth, to leave Gudanji Country. Things were changing but things were changing around the irra – not with them, not for them.

On his back, Bungmaji carried one of his sons. He had been born crippled but Bungmaji had refused to put the baby to death, as was often the practice. He had taken responsibility for providing the livelihood by which his son had survived. The old man had carried him now for some eighteen years and the responsibility was shared throughout the family.

Just a handful of days ago Bungmaji had seen his sister tied to a tree. The flies that fed off her ripped and torn flesh had hung above her like a smoke haze and their buzzing hung there too. The day before the flogging, she had been dragged to that tree, wrists placed in a pair of iron cuffs and left with neither food nor water. She had refused to cry out and so had been flogged for a time longer. Those who took turns grasping the whip had laughed and used extra force to see who could make her scream the loudest. They had laughed as her bared breasts, now shining with sweat and spots of blood, jumped and shook with each of the blows from the whip. She had refused to give them the satisfaction of hearing her pain, so just as none of them heard her screams during the day neither did they hear her muffled moans of agony at night as her family tended the wounds.

Their family from over the other side, towards the sunup country, had told them already about the evil that lived there now, about the collection of ears this evil had pinned to the walls of his shelter. They had told them about the blood that soaked and dripped there now, where once there was only the fresh water of Boodjamulla.

It had frightened Bungmaji deeply to see the horrors of what they were doing. His nephew had been shot just recently too. Ngajimji had been down by the river when he saw a crocodile attack a bullock. The teeth of the crocodile latched onto the bullock and pulled and pulled. The soft nose of the bullock ensured the crocodile had an easy task of dragging the beast to the edge of the water. As the kicking and thrashing and half-drowned bellows of the

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