A Story In Black And White

The New South Wales city of Kempsey is a place most travelers merely pass through on their way to somewhere else, for initially it seems to offer little of interest. But there is an ancient story here waiting to be told, and there can be no one more qualified to tell that story than Wilay Bijarr, a member of the Dunghutti aboriginal tribe who had once populated the region.

I joined a tour led by Wilay to learn what aboriginal culture was about - other than boomerangs and dot paintings. It was winter and tourists were as rare as hens' teeth, so, as I was the sole participant in the tour, Wilay invited a teenage aboriginal friend, Kelly, to accompany us.

In the early 1900s, the Dunghutti people, together with tribes from other regions, had been moved from their traditional lands to a reservation - where Wilay spent his childhood - on the outskirts of Kempsey. All signs of the reservation have been obliterated by passing years, but there, Wilay pointed out, was where he had lived, there had been his grandparents' simple home, a rough shack built, like all the others, of corrugated iron, and there had been the school. And he related tales of happy days blended, with no hint of bitterness, with stories of life that had also been harsh and unjust.

Wilay paints Kelly's face with ochre as a symol of her connection with the earth.

The Macleay River, the forests of the hinterland ranges, and the ocean some 80 kilometres away had, for millennia provided all that was required to sustain life - food, medicine, and materials for shelters and canoes. But although reservation life encouraged a dependence on handouts of food and clothing, traditional foods continued to supplement a European diet based on flour and sugar.

On the outskirts of Kempsey, Wilay pointed out the swamp that had been their supermarket and where he and other aborigines had gathered ducks' eggs from among the reeds, and turtles' eggs that had been buried in the damp sawdust deposited by a sawmill that had operated nearby. The turtles themselves, with a flavor comparable to chicken, had provided a good meal too. And here, using an axe, they would search for the meter-long cobbera worm that burrows into logs softened by water. Not only are they delicious to eat either raw or cooked, but they also promote an appetite following illness.

Witchetty grubs (a large white beetle larvae), rich in vitamins and protein, were the indigenous equivalent of a few prawns on the barbie - yet equally as delicious eaten raw. Swans, kangaroos and wallabies, koala bears - with a flavor similar to that of turtles, and echidnas (spiny ant-eaters) were all the prey of tribal hunters, with many still on the menu of aboriginal people. While I winced conspicuously at the thought of eating a meter of raw worm and a handful of grubs, both Kelly and Wilay drooled at the mention of these gourmet delights.

We explored the forests that stream down through the valley, where Wilay showed with pride an 800-year-old tree with its prominent scar a visible reminder of bark stripped for the construction of a canoe some 250 years ago. Nets and dilly bags had been made from strands of bark of the giant stinging nettle tree. The wet bark of tea trees (melaleucas) had been used to wrap fish that was then steamed in the hot coals of a fire, and grass trees had yielded resin that was used for fixing stone spearheads to the shafts of spears.

Tea tree leaves, combined with other ingredients, created an effective cough mixture. A concoction of berries and leaves relieved headaches, and the bracken that coats the forest floor provided relief from insect bites and stings. When I brushed my hand too close to a native wasps' nest, the remedy was soon put to the test, with the sap of the bracken's stalk rubbed on my skin rapidly alleviated the pain and proving the remedy to be an effective one.

At Crescent Head, aborigines had constructed fish traps among coastal rocks, and had camped where the golf course now lies. But the arrival of Europeans impacted dramatically on the simplistic lives of aboriginal people, with more than 200 victims of smallpox and other European diseases interred at an ancient burial ground - their remains resting beneath the beachfront trailer park built on the site.

Chatter was replaced with a reverent silence at nearby Richardson's Crossing, for all who enter this sacred place, Wilay insisted, should show respect for the spirits that reside there. At the ancient bora ring among the forest, people had danced, held ceremonies dedicated to the creator, Baiame, and prepared young boys and girls for their initiation into the tribe. Wilay lit a fire to create the smoke that aboriginal people believe purifies the spirit of man, and daubed our faces with a touch of white ochre in a symbolic ceremony that would rekindle our connection to the land and earn us the blessing of Mother Earth.

We left as silently as we had arrived, and drove along a sandy trail towards the beach at Hat Head National Park. "This place is like a mini Kakadu" Wilay said, breaking the silence, and he was right, for to tribal people this had been a place to harvest food. Shoots of water lilies that congest freshwater lagoons provided a popular vegetable. Waterbirds, including ibis, reptiles, fish, and shellfish, were all here for the taking. The succulent "pigface" with its edible pink fruit had provided dessert, and the leaves of plants scrambling across the dunes, with a flavor vaguely reminiscent of celery, were beneficial in relieving arthritis and to quench a thirst.

Continually shifting sands have revealed evidence of ancient feasts, for here vast middens - remnants of shellfish eaten raw or cooked at a beachside barbecue - stretch from dune to dune for more than 17 kilometres in mounds 1.5 meters deep and 9 meters wide.

Evidence of the past has been exposed too at Point Plomer, where shifting sands have revealed a site where stone tools were made - axes, knives, spear heads, and tools used to carve message sticks.

Here the forest envelopes a hidden bay where a large rock, its grey face dominated by weathered grooves that appear as eyes, had, for millennia, watched the comings and goings of all who visited this pristine beach. Wilay hesitated, for this inanimate sentinel is the ancient guardian spirit that forbids men, unless accompanied by women, to proceed any further.

So, with Kelly and I guaranteeing his safety, we made our way to one of the area's most sacred sites.

An incoming tide lapped at a high stone arch that represents the womb of Mother Earth, and through which aboriginal "newlyweds" passed to symbolize their rebirth as a couple before retiring to a nearby cave to spend the night together in a primitive honeymoon suite with a view of paradise. With no hint of the modern world, and no sound other than the murmur of the ocean, the spirits of ancient peoples who had been kings of their world did indeed seem to haunt this silent place. We left with Wilay thankful for his female company, for, had he passed the stone guardian alone, the spirits, he was adamant, would pursue him. "They'd do terrible things to me", he insisted.

Strong winter winds had denied me the opportunity to try my hand at boomerang throwing. And Wilay had been so busy talking that he'd forgotten to demonstrate his expertise with the didgeridoo. "Would you like to hear it?" he asked as, back at Kempsey, we pulled into McDonald's car park where my husband was due to meet me.

And there, beside the temple of modern man, two cultures merged as the mesmerizing music of this ancient instrument blended with pop music and the mumble of congested traffic.

Wilay is adamant that neither legislation nor bureaucratic debate can heal the wounds of the past, for reconciliation between black and white races, he says, comes from the heart and will only be achieved when each race understands the life and culture of the other

Spend a day in the company of Wilay Bijarr, and, as negative stereotypes of aboriginal people are rapidly dispelled, reconciliation will be nudged another step closer to reality.

Stephanie Jackson is a freelance journalist, travel writer and photographer whose work has been published in numerous newspapers and magazines in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA, and on the Internet. www.photographsofaustralia.com