The 100 Project

Question 1

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I suppose the last couple of years I've really, I've settled down. Frankly, the last couple of years? The man's a hundred years old, you know. Well, I'm Uncle Wes Marne. My name is Wesley Edward Marne. And my Aboriginal name is Muggaran. And I'm a Bigambul man and I come from southern Queensland. I was born there in 1922, or I believe I was born there in 1922. I was never, never registered and, well, we're here today and I'll talk a little bit about myself but I don't think we have enough time because when I start I can't stop. I was born in southern Queensland and we moved up to Stanthorpe, the other side of Stanthorpe. In the mountains up that way because my skin was fair and it was the time of the stolen generation. Fair skinned children were taken. There was about 50 of us. We all lived together... When we moved away, there was my grandfather, my grandma, my uncles and aunts and what we call our 'skin group' and totem groups of course, and we went back into the mountains and that's where I spent the first ten years. And what memories I have of those years are precious for me. Very precious. Many things I can't remember, but many things that I do remember. I remember I think the most important thing and that that's a blessing. My grandfather was a storyteller. My dad was a storyteller, too, but he wasn't the storyteller that my grandfather was. He was the greatest storyteller that I know of. And even though, in those days, when Aboriginal children were not allowed to be told stories and a lot of stories were lost, grandfather said "I am not... I'm a storyteller and that's my dreaming. I had to keep it up". And he kept it up to the time that he died. At night when we sat around the fire and we learnt the stories. He had his own little log that was embedded in the ground and nobody was allowed to sit on it or touch it. That was his. And he would sit on it and then the cooee would go out and all the children would turn up. We would sit around and we leant the Dreamtime stories, the Rainbow Serpent and the first animals that were ever made and how the birds got their colours and the birds got their voices and stories, stories running out of my ears they used to be. And then he would tell the stories. In the morning, my mother would query "Tell me the stories you heard last night". She might have heard these stories a hundred times, but she wanted us to learn them. At that time I did not know that I was going to be the next storyteller. And that was something that I learned later on. When I knew my grandfather, his name was Muckkawhee meaning White Water. I think that's what it means anyway. When I knew him he was an old man. How old? Well, I don't know. I don't think he knew how old he was himself. But I do know this. This is what he told me... that he danced. He was allowed to dance at the last great corroboree, the last time when the border tribes were allowed to come together for the last time. And that was in 1907, so I believe and he was allowed to dance there so he would not be allowed to dance there unless he with at least say 30 odd years of age. And he has the scars. He has six scars on his body. I used to sit on his lap, run my hands over his scars on his body. I remember it as if it was yesterday. And he had scars on his arm. Battle scars. Every time you go to battle, went to war, had a fight, scar your arm. That's like a record. But he was a master storyteller. And the thing that he taught me about the bush... Things that I know today. Survive in the bush. There's so much out there that can be used, not only to stop us from starving, but what we use for medicine. And I used to... I used to like watching them with the smoking ceremonies. And I was always getting into trouble because they were not for children. Certain stories, not for children. I think there was about over 20 odd different times that they would light the fires for the smoke. I used to think that they just liked lighting fires; that they were warm; they were cold. But anyway I learnt that there was a reason for everything. And even when I got older I thought if I was to just stand around and tell 25 different times why they had smoke, I'd be there all day, though I decided I would, I would work out the most precious of them all - which was newborn babies were always put through the smoke, baptised through the smoke, marriages and death, when we lost people. I think they were the most precious of all the things that I had. I still use the same things today. Alright. Will try that for luck. Just place it over there buddy. Please. And anybody who wants to can walk through the smoke, it's not necessary. Anyone who's been playing up lately go through there. I stole some apples when I was small and they took me out into the bush. The elders took me out into the bush and they put me through the smoke and they held me on this big flat rock, flat rock that's a big flat broke that comes out of the ground and they had the smoke and they held me in the smoke till I vomited. I vomited. And you want to know... all those years later I've never stolen. I've seen my grandfather, and he was an old man as I said before, I've seen him put a spear into a wallaby at about I reckon about 40 metres away and the spear hanging out the other side of a wallaby. He was a master at it and one day I was with him in the bush, I seemed to be always with him, and anyway we were walking and he grabbed me, pushed me back into the bush and the wallaby was... and he put a spear into him, and the wallaby was on the move but he got him and I wanted to touch him. I wanted that much, I wanted to touch the animal and he grabbed hold of me and said "Give it away". He didn't like it. He said... and when I looked at him he was... And he always spoke when he killed something. He said, "Look, I'm sorry, I'm sorry that I killed you, but I didn't kill you because I didn't like you. I didn't kill you because you were in my way. I killed you because I needed your meat and you knew I needed your meat and you came by this morning and you offered yourself to me so thank you very much. I went home to mum. I was telling her. She said "Go and ask your uncles this" so I went up and the uncles said "Right back in the beginning of the Dreamtime, when men and animals were one, men could turn into animals. Animals could turn into men, and sometimes when men turned into animals, they liked it that much that they didn't want to change back and they've gone through all these thousands of years living as an animal. And that wallaby that the old fella killed today could be one of our relations. And that's why he was apologizing to it. In our culture, you don't kill for nothing. If you only need one kangaroo to feed the men, you kill one kangaroo. You didn't kill two. You didn't need two... Anything like that always... Even the women gathering. You gather enough. This was not too bad because they keep. Whatever the women gathered, just enough for today. And everything like this is how we survived here for 60,000 years by living this way. And that would take a bit of an effort. Sometimes they would bring animals in after they killed them and they would drain the blood and give it to the kids to drink and oh, I have that taste in me to today. I still drink... I think it was to basically make a man of you. 'Cause most of the meat that we ate in those days was always half raw anyway. And I used to love insides, the gut of the animal. They were given, put them on... They finished up by being a little ball. And I can eat that. I must be a ratbag or something, eh? The best meat in the bush though is the echidna. He's the best meat in the bush. I'll kill for him. And the bigabilla or the echidna... you can't touch him if he's walking along a track or along a road. That road leading somewhere. He might be on a journey. He could be on a journey, special journey, might be carrying special message. But if he's off the road just meandering through the bush, I got him for breakfast in the morning, you know. I remember once when I was young, small, my favorite fruit. I love fruit. Always bush fruit was beautiful. And I used to love napalm. Napalm is spelt exactly the same as the oil that they used in Vietnam. And it's like a large grape. It grows on the vine up into the tree then hangs down. I used to stuff myself. I could never get enough of them. One day in the bush with old Muckkawhee, I saw the napalm. It must have been late spring. So I raced over and I'm stuffing myself. He grabbed me by the munga, by the ear. He said, "Get away". I said, "It's napalm". He said, "I know what it is". I said, "I want some". He said "You've had some". I said, "No, there's plenty more". He said, "Yeah but not for you. If you eat all that, all the animals and the birds, they're not going to get anything. If they don't get any, they're going to die. They can live without us but we can't live without them". You know what? It must have been about 16 years later, I woke up one morning, golly, he's teaching me conservation. That's how stupid I was. It took me all those years to work out that he was teaching me conservation, the art that they had of teaching conservation. And well, the old man's gone now. I used to race down there first thing in the morning, get out of the gunyah and go straight down to his little fire. He had a little fire... I got there this morning and he'd passed on and I'd never seen anyone... I still remember running back to mum and she said go and tell the men. Go and tell your uncles so I went and told... and they came down and they said, "Well we're going to move...". They come down, they had a big talk and then they... The women came and said "All right all you kids, we're heading for the big river". Oh, pleasures of pleasures, the big river where we could swim, mudslides and play around, frump around and the women got ready and then they made Johnny cakes and anyway and we went to the river. Had a ball. When we came back, Muckkawhee was gone. I don't know where they put him. Maybe under the roots of a tree... the side of the river, the big creek, the big creek where we had our camp or into a hollow tree maybe, or they might have buried him, I don't know. But when I was a young man I went back to try and find him. I think he he used to... he might have left me a message. I thought, if I can come back and find where he was, he would know, he would know I was there. Anyway, I never found him. and, we went on, I was lost without him. I was lost. In Aboriginal culture, you can't eat your totem. You totem is something very... And you take your mother's totem. Your mum's totem. Dad's tribe. Mum's totem. They say your mother's meat, see? And even if she comes from another tribe a thousand miles away, you take her totem. I take my mum's which is a koala bear. You can't touch them. If I'm in the bush, if I'm in the bush and the koala bear is sitting on the track in front of me, I can't walk up and say, "Go on move, move, move it". I have to wait until he moves. Then I can walk past him. And my mother... you see my mother came from Flinders Island. That's where she came from. How she got up that way, I don't know. She never, we never spoke about it. But anyway, and she's Palawa, Tasmanian Aboriginal. And her dream was to walk on her own land back in Tasmania and one day we finally, we finally made it. And anyway, I spent a lot of time with the women, and the women, the gatherers, tell the stories. The women were teaching us culture. And my mum had two sisters. And two sisters makes me with three mothers. I had three mothers. I called them 'mum' and they called me 'son' and we were classed as mother and son. And they were the ones who taught me about Aboriginal culture and kept reminding me of the stories that we had. He is the ultimate hunter. He's a bushman without peer, But nothing is safe when he is hunting With his ancient woomera and spear. But what of the one of the one who goes with him And the one who walks in his tracks Usually with one child behind her And another one on her back? With a coolamon under her arm and a dilly bag around her waist. She wanders along gathering food in an everlasting chase. She wanders back and forth Gathering seeds for bread Looking and digging for yams To be cooked in the camp ahead. At night she will prepare the shelter And then the evening food Always busy moving around There's always something to do Next time we're looking at a picture Of a warrior of this land Let's look for the one behind him For the one who's always on hand. For she is the eternal companion The one we never see For she's the reason that life goes on Her and the children at her knee. Everybody had a position. You had a weapon maker. You had a shield maker. You had a knife maker. You had a coolamon maker. Everybody had a job. And we used a barter system. I'll trade you for this for this. Well it worked. You know, the other week, we had a parliamentarian come in. Just there it was. And I'm sitting there. I told you that, didn't I? And he said, "Yeah, you fellas are doing pretty good for yourselves now". And I said, "Are you in the same country as me?" And he said, "Look what yous got". I said, "You're talking to a black fella". And he just laughed. I said, "I'm going to tell you..." I said... He was talking and I said, "Just wait". I said, "We looked after this country for 60,000 years. Took you 200 years to muck it up". I didn't use the word 'muck it'. I said, "200 years and the mess you've made of this country". He said, "I'm going to take that back to Canberra with me when I go there". I said, "That's good, let them learn a little bit".

Question 2

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You see, my grandfather, when we lived up the other side of Stanthorpe, found two little girls in the bush. Two little girls. And they both had a tag on their chest. They were little, fair haired Aboriginal kids. And one was called Winsome. That's what it had on the card, and the other one had 'Joan'. My grandfather brought them home. Somebody had left them there because that was the time of the 'stolen generation'. And kids were being stolen. People panicked and they got scared, but they knew that we would never leave anyone and that's that's true. And those two girls were with me right up to just recently... when they went, they died. All mum did was put them in the foot of the girls. My sisters. Chuck another cup of water on the soup in the soup. Enough to go around. I think I was ten years of age when the government brought us out and brought us down to New South Wales. 1932 We come down under guard too. I'd never seen the white person. We walked every step of the way. But that wouldn't worry us because we walked anyway. This is long ever before motorcars. We never had any motorcars around up that way. They used to have cars that used to come for the kids. For the children. Very sad, sad, terrible times they were. And one of the old ladies, I used to call her 'aunty', but I don't know whether she was an aunty or not. But she turned, she run, and they brought her back. She didn't want to move out of her country. And anyway, we camped on the river at Bonshaw and the next morning she was gone. She'd run. Mum said she'll go back into the bush and that's where she'll be. She'll die there. But at least she never left. She wouldn't. We were very very strong about our country, our land, because it's ours. Anyway and I've never, ever forget that. When we came down to Bonshaw that's when they split us up. They sent some to Moree. Three or four to Moree. A couple of families to Glen Innes, Armidale, Inverell and my family was sent to Ashford. A little place called Ashford, 25 miles from Bonshaw and it was a mission. On Deadbird Mission. I was on Deadbird Mission. When we got to Deadbird Mission there were a couple of Murrawarri, Ngemba, Narwan, Gomeroi, Wiradjuri. We couldn't understand each other. We spoke different dialects and that's another thing too I learned later. There was a method in their madness. You take the culture, you take the language, you take the culture. That's what it was all about. They never done anything that they didn't have to do. And that's where I started to learn. Other things in this world besides Aboriginal culture. Living like, as an Aboriginal. The mission was no joke in those days. And they used to put a tag around our necks when we went to town to say that we had to be back on the mission by five o'clock and at four o'clock of an afternoon the police would walk through town and put all the Aboriginals out. But I didn't know any better because I'd never seen anything else. There was a school, but it was an area school and that meant everybody in the area went to the one school and it was laid out in a horseshoe fashion in shape. All the classes - the Aboriginal classroom was away - it was four posts put it in the ground, net and wire on top and leaves on the top. And we were not allowed... the women used to walk down from the mission every day to bring water because we were not allowed to drink the water out of the tanks in the school. We were not allowed to mix with the other children in the school and they only allowed 18 because it was like just a bower shed and there was no desk. It was a half a tree. And it had slates - didn't have pens or pencils - nothing like that. Had slates tied to the tree. Anyway... Allow 18. In those days when you were six year old, you started school when you were six year you started school, the oldest one had to leave. I think I was three months at school and I had to leave. I was out in the bush. I was working in a ringbarking camp. I was the water boy. You know, the hessian water bags? I was running from daylight to keep the water up to the men and wow, never knew what work was til then and big areas we were running over and then I knew this was going to be the rest of my life. I have to do it. In those days they didn't have Centrelink. The only money you had was what you earned. The government used to come and take so much of that too. Always said that we were going to get it back but I'm still waiting for mine. My mum said the stories will come. They'll come. And that's when I found out that I was going to be the storyteller. And I was that keen and she said, "No, the stories will come. You'll know" Anyway I never told stories on the mission. My mum wanted to go home to Tasmania and we ran away from the mission. And we got to Sydney and the timber boats from Tasmania were bringing up the famous Huon Pine, King Billy Pine. And we got a ride back to Tasmania The ship just tied up at the wharf and we got about a hundred yards away and they had us. They sent us back, train back to Launceston up that way and across in the boat. Then on the train back to Sydney and three times, three times we ran away, three times they brought us back. The fourth time they let us stay there. It must have been costing them too much. They let mum stay there. And she, she died there in the end. This whole life of mine.... I've seen a lot, done a lot, done a lot of things that I shouldn't have done too. I'm no angel, but but I've done things like this you know. I've jumped a fence, knocking off a sheep. Right next to the mission, jumped the fence, and you want to know... If I was going to knock off a sheep I'd go and grab, get one of the men, or two of the men... "This is on the quiet. We're going after sheep tonight, right?" They would sneak off, get a sheep, kill him, get him in the dark, bring him back. And everybody on the mission would be standing there waiting for you. They always knew! Seemed to know. When you're hungry, anything tastes good, you know? And that's when people are at their best - when they're hungry.... I got to get a feed, where do I get it from, you know? Do I jump the fence? Do I do this? That? And we had some elders there and they were old men and somehow or other they would get out of the mission of a night and they would run. I believe they run to Inverell, 35 miles away. Go through the offal at the meatworks and be back on the mission by dawn. But anyway, they caught them and they were chained leg to leg so they couldn't do it. Then one morning we woke up. The chains were there and they were gone. We never saw them again, but they'd done what they were supposed to do. And that's what elders do - look after, look after everybody come before you. The old elder there, a man by the name of Colin Brown. A good old, a wonderful man and he took me under his wing. Whenever I got into trouble on the mission I used to run away and hide. I had this little place where I could go. I could get in there. No one could find me, eh? And I was there and I found a stone. It was there in front of me. Like a glass stone. Glass. I picked it up and it was like it was moving. It was warm. Hot. So I took it up to the old man, and he said, "It's a power stone. It's for you or you wouldn't have found it. Carry it with you always. Do not let it go. He said when the time comes for you to let it go, you'll know, and then alright". So anyway I had this stone. I lost it four or five times, maybe more. It always seemed to turn up. And I carried it in my swag when I wandered around when I was a man. And I come to Sydney I still had it. And I met a man by the name of Barry Corr, and he's part Aboriginal, and he used to work for the Education Department. He was a history teacher at university at one time or other and we became great friends. And he was trying to get me into the schools to tell stories. Well they didn't want a bar of us but he kept at it and kept at it and then one day he rang me up, "Can you come down?" So I said, "Alright". So I got up and I'm ready to go and I picked up the stone. It was cold. Without thinking, I put it in my pocket.... Anyway, I get down there, and I'm in the office talking to Barry and I said, "Are you alright? You don't look well". He said, "Last night my daughter was born with her insides on the outside". He said, "And I don't know what to do". And without thinking I put my hand in my pocket and I pulled the stone out. I said, "Hold you hand out". He put his hand out I put the stone... He had, "That effing thing's alive!" I said, "Well that yours". He took it down I believe and hung it around his baby's neck and after, eight or nine or ten, I don't know how many operations, his girl is still there today. And... He and I, we sort of broke up because he got me into the schools. He's the man... and I said to him, only a couple of weeks ago I said, "I never said a thank you, did I? For getting me into the schools?" He said, "No, I never had the knowledge. I just pushed. I just pushed", he said. And one night I was up with the Holy Family and I was doing this thing called - what do you call it? 'Fire Bucket'. It was a thing that I'd done and I toured with it. It was very big in my life. And I got lost for words. Couldn't... And I remembered... I started talking about the stone, see? And what had happened, see? And I just finished, and there must have been a 100... 150 people there. More. And this one man stood up, said "I'm Barry Corr". Out of all the millions of people in Sydney, he was there and he come over and said, "Every world of that's true. I still have the stone". And I'm standing there and this... someone kissing the back of my neck. I look around it was a little girl about 20, 21 and she said, "I owe you. My dad told me that I owe you." Believe it or not... and I saw him the other day and he said "I've got four more girls now", he said. "And they've all had the stone around their neck". And he still carries the stone with him today. But he took me down to the Education Department He said, "Go in there". So I went in and there were a big mob of people in there and he said, "We've just voted to see whether we allow you into schools or not". And he said, "There's 42 teachers here" he said "and we've got 20 who didn't want it... So you win. 22." He said "We're going to let you into the schools to tell stories". Then they hit me with that three letter word... 'but' "But that's what you're here for. Dreamtime stories. You're not allowed to talk about the first fleet; not allowed to talk about the stolen generation; not allowed to talk about early settlers; not allowed to talk about killing, massacres, stolen land. Dreamtime stories. That's all. And if you can't and if you get off the mark, you're out". I went outside to Barry Corr. I said, "I'm not going to do this". He said, "You gotta do it". I said, "No I don't". He said, "Yes you do", he said, "There's thousands of kids waiting for you. Waiting for your story. And I told Dreamtime stories for 16 years. Too scared to make a mistake, you know because I was frightened I was going to be out. And I was down at Westmead. At a girls' Catholic school and I was having a cup of tea with the principal, the woman principal, and she said, "Do the girls have any questions?" And I said, "Yeah but I'm not allowed to answer". And she said "Well I say you are". I said "I don't know". She said, "This is my school and I'm telling you that they want to know something, you tell them". I said, "Well, we're going to get into a lot of trouble. You and I". And she said "Well you let me deal with that. They should never done this in the first place. I said, "All right". So I went back in, then done whatever she told me to do and anyway, no-one said nothing about it. And since then, we gradually got more and more. Now I can say anything I want... And I think there was a lesson that I learned... to control myself. I've never up to that time, I don't think I ever tried to control myself, you know.

Question 3

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But anyway, I'm here today because I'm a good boy now. I love to look at myself as a good boy now. Well everybody's telling me what a good bloke I am? Like I had last week, hey, everybody, "He's a good bloke this fella". I was looking behind me for a start. I thought they were talking to somebody else, you know? I learned the hard way. I learned the hard way. No matter what.. no matter what's said and what's done? I've done lots of things in my life. Things that I've been proud of. Things I haven't been very proud of, you know. Then I was locked up for nine months from being on the street after five o'clock. And then the young copper come and let me go. After nine months. I took off along the road, and it rained for a week. And there's something that you won't believe. Jerilderie, I'm booting it along the road there, you know, and a bloke came out of the bush. "Been waiting for you". "Alright". Never queried him. Went in. Eight or nine gunyahs [huts] there. Fires going. Cooking fires. I had a good feed there. I slept. Had a night's sleep. Next morning the bloke says to me, "Come on". Took me out on the road. Give me a few bob. Let me go. ... I get to Jerilderie. I run into a couple Kooris there and I said, "We haven't said anything..." And I said, "No, I don't think I would have made it. I got stopped. This bloke". "Where? No, no-one lives there". I said "They're there alright". He said, "There used to be. Used to be a big camp there. There's no-one there now". And I said, "Well, I've had a gutful of fresh air because they fed me". I remember when I was with Jimmy Sharman, the boxing tent, and that's why I got no teeth. Man by the name of Jack Hassen, one of the greatest fighters in the world. He knocked all those teeth out. What he didn't knock out, he kicked out. Up at Toowoomba. And he was with the tents too. But, that's part of living. That was the sort of work that we had to take on. You know, there was no Centrelink, or anything like that. And we had to be fed and I was working with one boxing promoter by the name of Harry Johns He said one day, "You fellas want meat to eat?". "Yep". "There's a rifle out there, there's kangaroos running through the bush". He said, "Go out, get yourselves a kangaroo". Yeah, hard days. But good days. Good days. And what I'd done lots of things like... I was with a young man one time. He come out from England and he was that - I can't tell you his name - I know his name was Bobby and he belonged to one of those orphanages, the English orphanage. And he could hardly see. He had glasses that thick. And he and I went within Victoria, and we decided we were going to take off. So we got to Brisbane. We'd done our money in Brisbane. Then we walked to Rockhampton. Walked to Rockhampton. Almost, almost to Rockhampton to a place called Marmor, just out of Rockhampton. And we walked every step of the way. Bobby Farmer, that was his name. And we got a job on the railway. I went there and something said... I got up there, I said, said to Bob, "I don't know what you're going to do, but I'm going to go down to the police station. I'm going to hand myself in. I'm going to vag myself". Do you know what 'vagrancy' is? We had no food, no nothing. And he said... So I went down... He said, "Come on then". So we go down to the police station. And there was a Sergeant Taylor. Asked... I told him. He said, "You want me to vag you? I said, Yeah". He said, "What about if I get you a job?" I said, "Yeah, that'd do me". He said, "Alright". He took us down, got us a job on the railway. But he took us home. And his wife fed us. We slept on the veranda, his veranda, that night. Next morning we're going out on the job. We had to catch a train to go out to a little place called Cooladdi... Anyway, going out toward Quilpie. Anyway.... Then he took us down to the shop, the store, gave us an order. Paid for it. We went out... Bob only stayed a couple of weeks but I stayed there for about three months I suppose, and I came back and I never moved. I never came to town. So then I thought well I'll go, I'll go to see him and when I go to see him I'll collect my pay. I had my money, I'm going to go and pay this policeman back. So I went down, I went back to Charleville and I got there, went down to his house. I went to the police station first and they didn't say anything. So I went to his house and his wife was there and I said, "I'd come to pay him back". She said, "No". She said, "He's not around anymore". She said, "He was on his way to Cunnamulla and he picked up two Aboriginal boys on the way and they cut his throat". "They cut his throat", she said. And I thought, well a man like that, you know, that's... And, they killed him. They done him in. And I never, ever forgot that. Never ever. He was... Well I suppose he dealt with other people the same way and I'd been in towns where they said like, "Move on. Police have walked you to the edge of town, "Right there's work up the road, go and find it, for you fellas". And, well, you gotta get out, you know they didn't want you there. I was working down the Myall River, just out of Tenterfield. I was working on tobacco, and tobacco is a 24/7 job, and the only time you give up is when it rains. Anyway, it rained, and I came home from work and I'm looking for my wife. She under the bed? I thought she was mucking around, So I said, "Come on, get out of there". And she said, "No!" She said, "Can't you hear him over there?" And I said, "Hear what?" She said, "The Ullalla". The deathbird. I said, "What?" She said... At that time I was very dubious about some of these things, you know, about animals being messengers and all that, you know. She said, "He's here, I can hear him, he's singing, he's calling me". She said, "He's here for me. And I said, "What am I looking for?" She said, "He's a little brown tit bird and you'll find him over there in one of them hollow fence posts". She said, "Go over and rouse on him". She said "If he goes away I'm all right". But she said, "I'm not... But I can hear him". So I get a stick banging on the fence... Anyway I got home, had supper or dinner that night. Went to bed and a knock come at the window. So I went over. "Yeah?" It was the lady from the property next door and she said "Can I talk to you outside, Mr. Marne?" I said, "Yes". Emma started screaming. That's right. I said, "Yes". Anyway, I go outside and she said "The police just rang to say that your little boy got drowned in the pool at Walgett today." And she knew - believe it or not. True. And I was always a little bit dubious, I've never been dubious since, you know. Aboriginal stuff sometimes don't believe in it, you know, but it's there like the stone I told you about... Some people use the Willie Wagtail. If he points his tail at you, if he dances around, if he points his tail at you, look out. He's pointing trouble because they say he's a 'trouble bird'. He go to you and say, "That woman over there talking about you" and then he go over to you and he's say, "That bloke over there talking about you" and when you start arguing that's when he starts dancing. Point his tail... And then possums, possums. You see them running in the day. The owl, bok bok, he come, if you see him in the day - there's trouble. People don't believe these things. I believe in these things because I've seen it, you know. I don't know much either. I thought I did. In the Northern Territory I was. Me and Uncle Allan and I'm talking to the elders... and I got my mouth shut because I made a fool... I felt stupid. I didn't know... Anyway this young kid, about ten when we finished, you know. He said, "You like bananas?" I said "Yeah". He said "I know where they are, a lot of bananas. Bush bananas". "Alright." "You want to come with me and we'll go and get some?" "Yeah, alright." "A little way", he said. "A little way" must have been 20 bloody miles, you know! Anyway, we go out and we have a big pile. and we're coming back and it's stinking hot and I'm thinking, I'm not going to make it if they don't give us a drink, you know. Nevermind. And only stop, he was about 10 year old. He said "You want a drink of water?" I said "Yeah!" He just went over this... broke this root off a tree, come back give it to me. Ice cold water. See... survival, trial and error and I could have kissed him... but I wasn't going to let on that I didn't know, you know. I used to work out in the bush, I was fencing. I had my little hut out in the bush. It was about... 15, 20 mile from the homestead. And the boss used to bring me out books of a night. Books for me to read. I read his whole library... and then I think the good book, The Bible, was one of them. When you've got nothing else to read, well, I'll get into that, you know, because there's a lot of stories in there. There's a lot of stories. I told you today, didn't I? That... God made man in the image of Himself. He must have been an ugly bastard! I blame him for everything that's going wrong in the world today because if they'd let us into the garden, we would have ate the snake before it tempted Eve. It was a snake wasn't it, that tempted her? We would've eat that, wouldn't have got to her. I'll tell you something now. Come down from Victoria River Downs. You heard of Victoria River Downs? Lord Vestey's place. Come down with a mob of cattle. Quilpie. You know where Quilpie is? That's west of Charleville. And that's the cattle place. That's where they bring the cattle and they shove them on a train and send them away to the knackery. Come down, man, I've been out for a month on the road. Righto, what'll I do? I'm going to go the pub and I'm going to get drunk. This is true. But first of all I'm going to buy myself.. All my clothes were falling to pieces, falling off me. No boots. Boots is all done. I go and buy myself a new wardrobe. So I go down and I buy all these new clothes. Right, get dressed, go back to the pub. "Righto, I'm shouting for the pub!" Next morning I wake up in the cattle pen, in a pair of underpants. No money, no boots, no nothing!... That's the worst... That's the thing. All that work, time, and it went in one night. I don't know what it was, but Quilpie was always said to be the roughest town in Australia. But... I learnt. I leant. Leave me here by the river. Let me stay and dream a while. Let me sit here by the river and watch my dreams go floating by. Tonight I am so lonely, tonight I'm feeling blue, it's the first time that I met you that I come here without you. It was here that we first wandered when we vowed we'd never part. Hand in hand together, it was here I won your heart and we vowed to be together, forever and a day, but time waits for no-one and God took you away. The times we spent together they are times of happiness, times when we were happy, now they're just regrets. But now when I am lonely and I'm all alone it seems, I can always have company here at my river of dreams That's my missus, my wife... but that's just a song. Just a song.

Question 4

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Answer

The best song? That song? What is it? "I am, we are, you are Australians". I think that's about the best song ever written. When I was on the mission, I think I talked about old Colin Brown, the old elder. He couldn't read or write. Not really. and he knew all these poems. Sit around the fire of a night and he'd recite the poems. I remember some of them like "The Highway Man". You know "The Highway Man? The wind with a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees. The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas. And the road like a gypsy's ribbon and over the purple moor, The highway man came riding And he kissed her lips in the moonlight. And he galloped away to the west. He didn't come in the morning. He wasn't there at noon. King George's men come riding - riding, up to the old inn-door. And who should be waiting there but Bess, the landlord's daughter waiting for her love in the moonlight. I thought I was doing a great thing till we hit Brisbane. We were rallying for rights. And they rode over us with horses. I got my knees broken. Legs broken there and... the police picked us up, put us in... and one of them put his baton behind my knee and bent me back over it and stood on my thigh and my kneecap turned over. Come away, but then I suppose we earned it, we deserved it, because we were against the law. Against the law to rally. I don't know... I liked Paul Keating. Because of what he said, "Whatever happened to you people, we done it. All we got to do is admit it". Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing. We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the diseases and the alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practiced discrimination and exclusion. It was our ignorance and our prejudice. And I sat there and I wrote while I was sitting I wrote. And that was The Year of the Indigenous. 93. And when thousands of Indigenous people came to this country and I wrote this, I wrote: Indigenous people of this earth's lands Now's the time for us all to join hands To let the world know that we're still here Let's do it now - for this is our year. Let the world know that our culture's alive Let them all know that we have survived Let them all know that we're still strong And we'll let them all know that we are not wrong. And while there's one to tell stories and there's one to hear While we still do our dances they'll know we're still here While we still sing our songs and still hunt our land. No one can take that culture from our hand Let the old ones tell their stories Let the young ones hear and learn Tell them of our days of glory so that for more they will yearn And they will teach their young ones and teach them what we were told And we will be here forever and our culture will never grow old. And at the end of the year, I wrote: The year of the Indigenous has now come to an end Is the road ahead now straight Or do we still have bumps and bends? Have we finally been accepted? Does our future look more sound? Do we move on to greener pastures? Or are we still on stony ground? What brings me joy in life? Children. Children do. I can't get enough of children. Not only my own children, just children. I've worked with them for so long and so much in the schools and ground and took them camping, didn't we? We've camped with them. I never have any trouble with children. I don't think I have any trouble with children at all, you know. they're the future of this country. Racism. Discrimination - comes from home. You don't come, you're not born with it. Kids are not born... to thieve. They're not born to do these things. It's something that you've learned along the way and whoever has taught you, well they are to blame. But you know... if you were to put, say 500 kids, all colours and creeds, all out there in the one paddock by themselves, they'd play together for ever. It's only when they go home and come back, they start looking at it differently. Go to sleep my babies Lie there and be quiet For the Bunyip is out hunting And he only hunts at night He's looking for his supper So don't you make a noise He's looking for something nice to eat He love girls and boys You've heard of the thing that what he does To children who won't go to sleep So lie there and be quiet. I will lie here at your feet He'll be gone in the morning when you awake For he doesn't like the light He goes and hides in the deepest scrub Just waiting for the night So go to sleep my baby Lie there and be quiet. I used to visit Cobham. That's a boys' juvenile place. I spent 15 years, once a week I went there. They're not nice places but they are a learning place because from there you're either into the 'big house' or you wake up to yourself. No matter what we do in life, we have to pay. Some time or other we have to pay. They say when we reach, when we stand before our Maker we're either going to be admitted or he's going to hand us a shovel, eh, and we're going down to shovel coal for the fire down below. Well I had a grandson. Oh mate. And I had him with me... "Oh pop, grandpa pop, pop, no what?" And I said, "have you been out stealing?... because you're going to finish up in Cobham". "Cobham don't worry me, pop. Hah, do it easy." They got him. He give me a ring. He rings me up. "Grandpa can you come and get me out. I don't like it in here". "Well son, you put yourself there and I have no intentions of getting you out" Anyway he hasn't been in since. He hasn't been in since and I don't know whether he learned his lesson or something else. But it's up to you. It's up to us. It's up to your child himself. Every child's got an idea of what he wants in life. Let him dream. And if we don't dream, there's not much to life. Start dreaming of what you want to do. If you want to dream you want to be a millionaire. But there's only one way to become a millionaire. Save it. Put it away. You mightn't become a millionaire, but you might become a quarter of a millionaire or a half of a millionaire, which would take you as far as you want to go. You can go on a trip around the world for half of a millionaire, I think... It's up to you yourself. Start thinking what's good. What would you like? And then start thinking the proper way to go about getting it. You don't have to get a pick and shovel and go out and work. There are places now where you can have an education. Without an education, I believe that we're nothing. And you can be whatever you want. There's nothing to say that you can't do this or you can't do that. And I haven't even seen an Aboriginal kid who didn't have the ability to do something. You know, if you can do... play football. You can run. Now I had a grandson who was chosen for the state 100 metres final running, and he wouldn't go. He said, "No I beat them once. Why go again?" He didn't go. And you try and tell them, "You've got this ability. Use it! Use it for whatever you can get because there's a future in most anything that you want to do, there's a future". You know? Being an elder is no joke... is good here... but it's a 24/7 job. 24/7. And people talk to you. Kids talk to you. They want to know something. I had a little girl come up with me by the arm. She said, "Uncle Wes, I want you to come over here and meet my mum". "Oh all right". So I went over. "Mum, this is Uncle Wes. He comes to school and he tells us the best stories". Mum said "Yes, I know. He told me the same stories". This is a pleasure. That's pleasure, that people can remember you. And I'll tell you what it's a, it's a great thing to be needed. What do you reckon?