Wow I uncovered this script parked in my archives since 2006 and hope to bring it alive along with my books already published.
My book is in hardcopy and e-book titled Cargelligowetlands. Lachlanriverlung The demise of the Lachlan Valley. (it can be found on the website LachlanRiverlung.com. Its a book of poems and prose built about my life on the Lachlan and watching what abuses and over uses have done.
I’ve examined 80 years of my path through life in the bush on the Lachlan River in central New South Wales. I find my path is along indigenous lines
With the help of genetics and a little family history. I find on checking my genetics I am 100% Irish. My ancestors were Indigenous Irish called Travellers. These Nomads that inhabited Ireland since the 13th century. Persecuted by the Overlords and invaders as our first peoples have been in their own land. And still being persecuted as our first peoples are today. I am sympathetic towards first people in Australia. It’s in my make up, influenced by generations past.
Travellers, I am a traveller. My Irish ancestors were travellers. Travellers were the first peoples of Ireland, my very life journey exposes my travelling genetics , hundred percent, Irish travelling through life, sometimes settled, but still travelling because that’s what my interior guide tells me to do.
My path to live to live the travelling life becomes easier. If you travel metaphorically light, you may not be a nomad, you’re very make up guide you to travel light, but you still travel light with minimum possessions enough, possess enough to live off.
To tread lightly on the delicate environment, you were put in. You have empathy for the dispossessed first peoples of this land because that is your make up, that is my make up. You have empathy for the flora and fauna and landscape of this great Southern land. That is why 15 years ago I wrote play called Native of Cargelligo, where ‘da hell he go. The script sits in limbo on a file. Because permission to use certain works were denied by relatives.
I now find the background to one person I have included in this play had an Irish father and aboriginal mother. And when you hear his story he was a Traveller of the Irish tradition of Travellers along with having an Aboriginal mother who definitely were travellers who trod lightly on the land and respected its environment. I don’t know the history of his Irish father but I am imagining he was a traveller too.Here is an extract from his obituary—Gilbert, Kevin John (1933–1993)
Kevin Gilbert, who died of emphysema in Canberra on Thursday at the age of 60, was one of Aboriginal Australia’s greatest poets and writers of prose — an exile from his own community who most effectively wrote of its demands for land rights, for sovereignty and a treaty.
Born in Condobolin, in central NSW, in 1933 of an Irish father and Aboriginal mother, he grew up as a fringe dweller. His parents died when he was seven. He and his sister spent their childhoods tossed initially between stern aunts, then snatched by the child welfare system where, like so many young Aborigines of that generation, he grew up in loveless institutions. He ran away with about five years of formal schooling, and, by his early teens was back within his extended family living an itinerant life fruit-picking, burr-cutting and rouseabouting in western NSW.
At the age of 23 he was married, with two children and living on the mallee at Wilcannia on the Darling River. He killed his wife while drunk. In 1957, he was sentenced to life imprisonment at Dubbo.
He served at Long Bay, at Morrisett Psychiatric Hospital, and later at the infamous Grafton Jail, then the “intractables” “prison where systematic brutality was used on difficult prisoners. In the late 1960s, he took up schooling again, became a voracious reader — of theology, anthropology and literature — and began producing art works, particularly linocuts, of great quality. He was particularly encouraged by the Robin Hood committee, a prison visitor system, and by Mrs Marion Baker, who recognised his talent and began promoting his release.
His first play, The Cherry Pickers, about seasonal workers, was performed in 1971. His material was simple, stark and powerful, with a strong sense of rhythm.
Paroled late in 1971, he became involved in Aboriginal issues and played a major role — limited by his parole keeping him in NSW — in the 1972 Aboriginal Embassy.
Literary Fund grants saw him complete a number of books, including Because a White Man’ll Never Do It, Living Black and works of verse. In Living Black, he said Aboriginal Australia “went through a rape of the soul so profound that the blight continues in the minds of most blacks today…. Our people, psychologically, are like kangaroos sitting on a bush road at night, unable to move when the spotlight hits them. They just sit there waiting for it.”
Here is the script to the play I have tucked away.
TITLE PAGE Title of Script.Written in the years 2006 and 2007.
Native of Cargelligo. Where ‘da hell’e go?
by
Edgar T Vagg
Address. River Road Lake Cargelligo NSW 2672 Phone Number 0428981287
Email. etvagg@gmail.com
Each setting is described by the Narrator at the beginning of each scene. The characters in each scene are given an introduction by the Narrator as they come into a scene.
Included is Song and Verse by John Warner Called Yarri of Wiradjuri. is a play in itself. The author is seeking permission to have it join his work but as yet this has not happened. I have included it to let the Judges see it’s potential as a powerful work for reconciliation and it complements my work.
Copyright is only needed for Kevin Gilberts work and I am in the process of gaining that from his family. There is a list of credits at the end of the script for out of copyright work used.
EXT. 1826: BLACKS MURRUMBIDGEE CAMP-DAY
Edgar.T.Vagg
Egga Bagg’s the name. Native of Cargelligo.
NARRATOR
Native of Cargelligo, where da hell he go? Struth!
We Want da truth bout dis .
Don’t dismiss (History Revisited)
( Where’s tha original aboriginal? Where’d tha hell he go?)
Sixty four years of thoughts and experiences moulded by life in this delicate land culminate in this play.
My agenda is community unity,
removing fences mental and material, healing the landscape, deploring the lands rape . .
My approach is to attack history since white settlement. Storm the battlement of deceit. Writing song and verse and dialogue to expose the British.
Their biased and prejudiced actions of the past.
A British past and present, smashing the spirit of this once Great Southern Land.
It all began when white men in tall ships circled around the great south land for a hundred years searching for conquest and glory for their motherland. At first it seemed inhospitable and was left alone. The British were desparate for a penal settlement for their bulging jails. Landings were made, making contact with the natives along the coast, insurgents push inland, invaders roll over the inhabitants in their search for fertile land.
The scene begins with a Blacks Camp. The year, 1826.
This is one camp yet to feel the impact of white settlement. The camp is a hive of industry, women making baskets, youth practicing spear throwing, children learning to throw returning boomerang, other children playing games with string on hands. Women digging, singing. Men practicing for corroboree. Out of the smoke of the camp fire appears Marbo the Shaman.
MARBO
Alien invaders are evil spirits.
They threaten the very soul of our Dreaming country.
I promise you.
I am your shaman,
I have the power of insight.
I promise you
If the white man continues to invade
our tribal lands he will not succeed. The spirit of Dreaming Country is never destroyed
it is in everything.
The bees will be back, but no sting.
I never make promises like these lightly. You’ll remember me when the South wind blows
and there is no fire fallowed woodland. You’ll remember me when the North wind blows
dust and heat and no tree stands in stands on this barren land.
You’ll remember my promise ,
the spirit will one day rise up and restore the land.
DODO
We will spear them all. Kill the white man. Drive them away
GOONDAH
No Dodo the shaman is right
we must maintain our lawful ways.
Live our tribal laws, written in the stars, punish lawbreakers in our tribal ways. No land is won or lost by wars,
for earth is spirit,
the invaders feet will tangle in nets there, his blood will be thinned by fears.
FADE TO BLACK.
INT. 1826. STANDING IN FRONT OF SHELVES OF BOOKS IN A VICTORIAN SCHOOL INSPECTORS RESIDENCE- – DAY
FADE IN:
NARRATOR
Explorers journals and articles by prominent students of the aboriginal way of life in the early 1800’s constitute material for this section of the play.
These journals and writings expose the attitude of the invaders.
The antagonists in the following dialogue James Bonwick and Charles Stewart have been created by me to show that not every colonialist had a bad attitude towards the owners of the land, the aborigines. James Bonwick’s dialogue is really his, and he has everything nice to say about the aborigines, but Charles Stewart whose dialogue is taken from Herman Melville writings in the North British Review of the early 1800’s. Melvilles attitude has a similarity to that of Charles Stewart journals of his travels around Australia.
The Scene: Standing in front of books an eminent Victorian Schools inspector James Bonwick is with noted explorer Charles Stewart as he selects marked passages from books. Stewart is milking Bonwick of his extensive knowledge of the Aborigines. He hopes this will aid him in his expeditions.
MR BONWICK
I once approached a blacks camp on
evening,
the travellers ear is saluted
with a monotonous tune of some forest ditty, now soft and slow,
and them rapid and vehement. Without the squall and frightful time
of a London Ballard singer,
it wants variety and cadence
and intelligibility of language
to suite our taste.
Yet the sound is not without musical power.
Simple as the notes are they have an influence
on an excitable people
CHARLES STEWART
Don’t get sentimental
We have to face reality.
They are savages.
They won’t survive.
Look at the Mexicans and the Peruvians, an elaborate and advanced, though a limited and inflexible civilization has been trodden out by a violence approaching extermination.
MR BONWICK
Though,
the Australian aborigines are not students of Euclid, Locke or Herchel
they do exhibit in their own way a practical sense of reasoning, and propriety in judgement,
I’ve marked some passages,—–
here is a passage from Sir Thomas Mitchell’s journal
” They are apt and intelligent as any race of man I am acquainted with”.—–
And another, we may at least believe, with Mr Guardian Thomas that “Providence has endowed them with sufficient intelligence for their present state”– —
or with the learned Archbishop Polding, of New South Wales when he told the Legislature
” I have not much reason to think them much lower than ourselves in many respects”.—–
Mr Ridley the Missionary, says:
In forethought and what phrenologists call ‘concentrativness’ they are very deficient;
in mental acumen and quickness of sight and hearing they surpass most white people.
CHARLES STEWART
Very deficient, very deficient indeed. Agreed
Mr Bonwick remonstrating. Finger poking Mr Sturts chest
MR BONWICK
So much, too much concern exists as to the mental and physical position of the aborigines.
Are you worried? No!
You! You, you with your superior,
savages-they-are, attitude, rrrgh.
I feel like doing you an injury.
You are so,so arrogant,ignorant, impossibly narrow minded.
Charles Sturt backs away from the chest pounding finger and retreats to the open window. Staring into the distance.
CHARLES STEWART
Your too emotional, James.
I you would calm down please!
On the contrary I have a far broader knowledge of aboriginal affairs, having had considerable experience in all the British Colonies.
I’d like to remark broadly on the colonialists and the Native tribes
in whose country they have settled. History has few blacker or sadder pages which record the conduct of highly civilised Europeans,
whether acting as Governments or as individuals,
towards the alien races with which they have come in contact
in every quarter of the World,
whether these races have been savages, properly so called,
or merely the embodiments of a civilization
different and inferior to our own.
MR BONWICK
Inferior? Indeed Charles.
My observations of the Australian Aborigines is that this untutored savage shines with a lustre of his own,
which appears much superior, as in others it is manifestly inferior in civilised man. The skill they exhibit in hunting and tracking their way through the forest, excites the astonishment of the white men.
The development of their perceptive faculties corresponds with their extraordinary power of sight and touch, with mechanical ingenuity and dexterity.
CHARLES STEWART
Aboriginal tribes or peoples will die out by
mere inherent inferiority of physical vigor and mental capability before hardier and more instructed nations.
The North American Indians, their feeble analogues below the Isthmus, the Maories and the Australian Natives, are instances of this process of extinction.
MR BONWICK
It is unfair to gauge their intelligence by their
aptness for civilised life.
Because the traditions, habits, inclinations, and necessities do not dispose them to accept the so called blessings of civilizations, they have been styled brutish, human monkeys and irreclaimable savages.
It is a striking fact that the wild native often evidences a higher grade of intellect than is to be found among the dissipated associates of the Europeans.
Mr Bourke whom we had the pleasure of knowing at Mount Shadwell, bears this testimony before The Committee of Council upon the aborigines in 1820
” I believe,” says he, ” the intellect of the race has been much misunderstood. The introduction of civilization has not tendered to develop their character advantageously; but, on the contrary, they have suffered morally and physical degradation, which has reacted
upon their intellectual powers.”
CHARLES STEWART
I don’t care what you are saying.
Now, the first point which strikes the observer and historian in reference to this subject is this,
that, whatever clime, or under whatever circumstances barbarism and civilization come into collision or juxtaposition,
the former invariably, and apparently inevitably succumbs and dies out.
No variety of treatment,
no difference of principle or policy,
no peculiarity in the character of the stronger or the weaker race, seems materially to effect the result.
The process of extinction may be hastened or retarded,
the mode of extinction-
the causae causuantes-
may be indefinitely diversified,
but the end is always uniform; and,
so far as we can discover, not to be evaded.
Mr BONWICK
Charles haven’t you a conscience? No!
From listening to you, you haven’t.
You are full of self interest and pleasing the motherland. Like some others you denigrate these people for your own ends.
Here is an example of what is being said publicly,
Quoting from this journal on early contact with the aborigines.
“Respecting the character of our dark friends, opinions differ about their intellect. The disciples of Rousseau behold them faultless,
and spoke of them as gentle virtuous children of nature.
On the other hand some apply to them the foulest epithets. The English author of a work upon the colonies, published in 1822, Writes this disgraceful passage:-
“They have every bad quality that humanity should not possess,
and many of which their congener, the baboon, would be ashamed”.
It is satisfactory, at length to find that those that knew them best in their wild state, uncontaminated by contact with the whites, cherish a higher estimate of their worth. The most chivalrous advocate for the poor Australian might finally have their defence in the hands of such men as Sturt, Mitchell,Leichardt and Oxley
It was a noble testimony which the last named explorer bore to his old bush companions
“In their intercourse with each other I have generally found the natives speak the truth, and act with honesty’.
Could as much be said about all civilised communities.
In calling them savages,
we must not associate the appearance of rudeness with their character.
All travellers agree in describing them as having a natural sense of politeness, and greatly distinguishes them according to Sir Thomas Mitchell, above the peasant class of Britain.
They often exhibit great delicacy of feeling and sense of propriety.
We were once passing some native huts, when a lot of rude boys came up, looked impertinently within,
and made use of very unpleasant expressions.
Instead of a rough repulse,
which the young rascals well deserved, this was the reproof administered: “what for you do the like o’ that! No do that. When blackfellow sit down with whitefellow him say
‘Be off, be off;’
blackfellow do not do the like o’ that. Their good temper, according to Mr.Eyre, the courageous overlander,
is a remarkable feature.
Certainly their merriment in the evening is one continuous carnival.
Their camp is a thorough home of buffoonery and laughter. Without the conventional decorum and constraint of our civilised society,
without our jealousies and punctilious observances,
they gambol with the freedom of roistering children. Without bills to meet or position to sustain,
we cannot be surprised to learn that suicide is unknown among them.
Society does not tolerate the
“Happy Despatch” of the Chinese,
the Knot of the English,
or the charcoal fumes of the Parisians. The affections of our common nature are in lively exercise among them.
They will always generously divide with each other anything given them by the Europeans. The social relations are strictly observed. Respect to age is rigidly enforced.
The condition of the old men of the tribe is honourable, gratifying and flattering;
for their councels are treated with attention, they marry the young wives,
and they eat what they please.
Unbounded is the indulgence given to the little ones.
Even the poor lubras, in spite of the occasional hasty waddying,
lead no very miserable life,
if one may judge by their incessant fun and chatting.
The family bonds are cherished with much affection.
A man was seen tending his sick wife with great solicitude. He lifted her into his lap, and soothing her against his shoulder, as a mother would a child.
Yet there is a darker side to the native character.
The sons of a fallen race,
they are our brethren in natural depravity. The eye that beams with such tenderness at one time will kindle with fiercest rage at another.
Though not, according to Governor Grey, a bloodthirsty race,–
never even in their wars,
carrying national hatred to the extent, as among civilized people, of slaughtering innocent women and children,–
they are sometimes vindictively treacherous. Their transitions of feelings are rapid:
now tranquil and soft as an Australian eve, and again violent and destructive as the stormy typhoon. But there is one good feature in their anger,
that it is seldom lasting.
No fight takes place without a joyous corrobbory of its combatants at its close, and a profuse demonstration of sympathy for
the wounded foe.
CHARLES STEWART
I’m not listening to your sentimental rubbish,
John.
I would further point out to you their impossible position.
Whether the colonialist are left to contend unaided with the aborigines, whether the latter a managed and protected by the mother country,
whether the early settlers have been men sent to distant lands by the thirst of gold, or by the love of freedom; whether the policies adopted have been merely by the instincts of self defence
and been in the hands of buccaneers, convicts or refugees,
whether it has been dictated by genuine religious zeal,
and confided to the administration of virtuous and pious men,
whether it has been worked out by statesmen or philanthropists at home, whether no principles have been laid down or
whether the most just and sagacious principles have been overridden by local
cupidity and lawlessness-
the ultimate issues would appear to be identical.
If the native barbarian wages resolute war against the white invader,
he is inevitably worsted in the unequal strife: neither his bodily vigor,
nor his scientific means,
nor his mental resources,
are a match for those of his antagonists.
FADE OUT.
FADE IN:
BREAK FOR A CUP OF TEA AT THE VICTORIAN HOUSE OF SCHO0OLS INSPECTOR JAMES BONWICH WHO IS HAVING A VISIT FROM NOTED EXPLORER CHARLES STEWART .EPISODE
NARRATOR
After a length argument the antagonists decide to break for a cup of tea. And a chance for the narrator to remind you that this is the exact language of the time. This is early 1800’s and these two antagonists are expressing the diverse views the colonialists held on there first contact with aborigines in the lands they were conquering.
The conversation resumes on the subject of the invaded. James Bonwick puts a strong case for aboriginal law and morals being far superior to the invaders.
MR BONWICK
Your narrow mind has the blinkers on you
again Charles. Here is an example of the character of the first Australians you insist on denegrating
This Journal entry was made by this, kind hearted, scientific Polish noble Count Streslecki
on his contact with the Blacks twenty years ago.
I’ll read it to you, please listen: When descending from our alps into the country he called Gipps Land his party came across a large encampment of these wild natives. Having been for several days in short allowance for water, the Europeans rushed hastily toward a pool;
they were instantly withheld by their own aboriginal guide, who represented their conduct as indecorous, impolitic and dangerous:
they were on the land of strangers,
and had no legal right of fire or water,
at his directions they sat down quietly on the grass.
A quarter of an hour had elapsed, when one of the Gippslanders came across,
and politely handed them a piece of burning wood;
with this new fire was kindled,
and an opossum cooked for supper.
But it was the drink they were so anxious to obtain.
Yet among those wild children of nature there were set conventional form
of as binding and exactive as those of refined circles,
and the infringement of
which periled the social position of the offender.
It was contrary to aboriginal to ask for water. The guide then began knoring at a stick, all the while casting side-long wistful glances at the pool;
the look was sufficiently suggestive,
and a calabash of water was generously brought to them. They now prepared for sleep. When the gentleman at home witnessed these final camping preparations, they sent an old man to confer with the party. The guide met him.
A long confer yabber ensued. Questions were asked about the white men,- –
why they came,
and where they were going.
The envoy returned to his tribe,
and was heard in shrill accents,
loudly repeating the nature of the conference.
Silence followed this conversation; after which the tribe came to a decision. The old man appeared with the ultimatum. The white men were instantly to depart. Knowing that appeal would be useless, they gathered up their knapsacks
and went on their way. Trespassers were not allowed,
but instead of steel traps and spring-guns, they were first tended the rights of hospitality, and suffered to recruit their physical system, before ordered to withdraw.
It has not quiet been in that courteous style that we have driven the owners of the soil
from our homesteads.
CHARLES STEWART
That’s just one noble Pole with a just soul.
What would have happened if they are challenged by a superior force? Massacre of course.
As they cannot acquiesce in defeat, constantly renewed hostilities leave them no possible fate but that of extermination.
If he receives the white man
as a superior and as a friend,
his feebler nature is insensible overpowered by the contact:
he is overshadowed,
if not enslaved;
new tastes,
new habits,
new foods,
new diseases,
undermine his stamina;
his prolificness, always inferior to Europeans, renders him unable to keep abreast of them in population, and he gradually sinks away from the altered scene.
If he is gifted with higher intelligence
and greater enterprise and vigor
and therefore attempts to imitate the civilization of his new neighbors,
and even if they encourage and instruct him in the effort, the result, is neither very different or much postponed:
he can no more contend in the arena of culture
than that of arms. Amen and good–day Mr
Bonwick
STURTS EXPEDITION TO THE MURRUMBIDGEE 1826. DAY
FADE TO BLACK.
FADE IN:
NARRATOR
Charles Sturt leaves Melbourne to prepare for his next Exploration down the Murrumbidgee. It’s the early 1800’s.
Sturt returns to Sydney to continue his god given duty to Queen and country. This time in the year of 1826 he leads an Expedition of men on horses. There is also spare horses, cattle, dray. Boat On top pulled by bullocks driven by bullocky walking with wip and yelling at the leading pair of 8 bullocks. They are heading for the Murrumbidgee and beyond westward. His offsideer George M’leay is feeling the stress of the journey.
GEORGE M’LEAY (on horseback)
What a night. Mr Sturt
Had to pick a mosquito infested billabong to camp near,
I long for the Motherland, and poor old mother dear.
None of this Australian bush is hospitable. The Water in the river is salty.
I didn’t sleep,
mosquito’s attacks are not repelled with wacks,
he’s as big as a humming bird constantly wines
then stings and dines on me.
Me, poor me, throwing up leaves on the fire most of the night,
and last nights food in the morning,
too much salt beef,oh!
oh! I’d love a shepherd’s pie and peas, smoking insects was useless,
bloody useless,
tree leaves with there strong smelling smoke did work a bit,
sclerophyl Botany Banks calls them, natives make a gum out of them.
Look at this! Arms and face pockmarked with welts,
raised welts. I react to their bites.
I couldn’t cover my face and arms it was to hot,
sweltering hot under the blanket anyway.
STURT
(on horse back)
(to horse) Steady!
I wrapped myself up in the boat cloak. Clothes were wet with sweat. Had to dry my atire by the fire .
GEORGE M’LEAY
Insects hovering tried covering,
too confining,try to avoid, too claustrophobic. Paranoid, nights, black,empty, silent, void.
And, Ambush imminent in the bush. Lets push,
forward anyway, anywhere,
on to the river,
starting to shiver. Mr Sturt Should be the river just over that grassy woodland.
FADE OUT.
EXT: 1828 AROUND MURRUMBIDGEE BLACKS CAMPFIRE
FADE IN:
Goondah’s tribe is camped on the Murrumbidgee and his scouts bring him the news that Sturts crew is nearby
GOONDAH
It seems the evil spirits of some of our
ancestors have come to our country. They are truly lost souls.
They have pale skins. They have no women. They themselves disregard the laws of hunting and gathering and the animals which they have are tethered and graze to extinction the grasses and scrub.
Our husbandry laws are strictly obeyed so that man and his fellow plants and animals will always find sustenance .
We have heard from our coastal brothers that they break the sacred laws of mother earth.
They and their animals have eaten all the animals and plants from the Port Jackson’s tribes hunting and gathering area.
They toil for months to bare the land and dig it up with strange digging sticks and throw seeds all over it.
Very little of the strange grasses grow, they don’t fire fallow,
the army worms thrive and eat the strange grasses.
Our fire fallowing always ensures native trees and grasses survive.
The grasses do better than in the dense woodlands.
The kangaroos are attracted to these pastures and supply us with meat.
I’ll will get Dodo to tell you a Dreamtime story to remind you of our laws on the consequence of not living as our ancestors have decreed,
that is; cooperation and sharing:
DODO
Mooregoo the Mopoke had been camped
away by himself for a long time.
While alone he had made a great number of boomerangs, nullah-nullahs,
spears, neilahmans, and opossum rugs. Well had he carved the weapons with the teeth of opossums, and brightly had he painted the inside of the rugs with coloured designs,
and strongly had he sewn them with the sinews of opossums, threaded in the needle made of the little bone taken from the leg of an emu.
As Mooregoo looked at his work he was proud of all he had done.
One night Bahloo the moon came to his camp, and said:
“Lend me one of your opossum rugs.” “No. I lend not my rugs.”
“Then give me one.”
“No. I give not my rugs.”
Looking round, Bahloo saw the beautifully carved weapons, so he said,
“Then give me, Mooregoo, some of your weapons.”
“No, I give, never, what I have made, to another.”
Again Bahloo said, “The night is cold. Lend me a rug.”
“I have spoken,” said Mooregoo. “I never lend my rugs.” Bahloo said no more, but went away,
cut some bark and made a dardurr for himself.
When it was finished and he safely housed in it,
down came the rain in torrents.
And it rained without ceasing until the whole country was flooded.
Mooregoo was drowned.
His weapons floated about and drifted apart, and his rugs rotted in the water.
FADE OUT.
EXT: 1828 AROUND EXPLORERS CAMPFIRE
FADE IN:
NARRATOR
The explorers enter Goondahs tribal territory which is already feeling the effects of Marauding Overlanders spreading disease and spoiling hunting and gathering grounds with their mobs of sheep. Goondah and three warriors enter sturts camp on a reconnaissance mission. They first offered peacful gestures and lay down their weapons. Sturt walks from the campfire to greet them.
CHARLES STURT
Your group seemed very nervous when we
came across you today.
When scouting ahead we surprised a family on the river bank They ran off in a panic yelling to another party further on.
Now you four have come to our campfire. We come with no intention to harm you. Here have a tomahawk and a blanket. This is your reward for your courage in approaching us. We are not wanting to cause trouble.
NARRATOR
The natives leave and Sturt writes in his journal. The following Journal entries are genuine articles from Sturts Journal.
CHARLES STURT
We found this part of the Morumbidgee much
more populous than its upper branches. When we halted, we had no fewer than forty- one natives with us, of whom the young men were the least numerous.
They allowed us to choose a place for ourselves before they formed their own camp,
and studiously avoided encroaching on our ground so as to appear trouble.
Their manners were those of a quiet and inoffensive people, and their appearance in some measure prepossessing.
The old men had lofty foreheads,
and stood exceedingly erect.
The young men were cleaner is their persons and were better featured than any we had seen,
some of them having smooth hair and an almost Asiatic cast of countenance.
On the other hand, the women and children were disgusting objects.
The latter were much subject to diseases, and were dreadfully emaciated.
It is evident that numbers of them die in their infancy for want of care and nourishment.
I am persuaded that disease and accidents consign many of them to a premature grave,
STURT’S CONSCIENCE
Mr Sturt your British upper class upbringing is coming to the fore.
You are skilled in lying to the lower class to get your own way.
Come on save your soul and admit that you are here on behalf of her majesty the queen of England.
You enjoy your status of assistant to the governor who has selected you to go forth and assess the land for colonizations. Surely you can’t be blind to the fact that you are already killing them
it’s your overlanders guns and European diseases that is killing them already. Accidents indeed.
You know that this invasion of British settlers will annihilate the so called savages.
It’s better that you think of them as useless savages
as it lessens the pain of destroying them.
The natives shadow the party of explorers and Goondah comes back to their camp
GOONDAH
You are considered by some of our mob to
be spirits.
I think you are from a strange misguided tribe from another land.
Your actions towards the land show this and make us nervous.
We cultivate our land but in a way different from the white man.
We endeavour to live with the land;
you seem to live off it.
I was taught to preserve, not to destroy. The main reason for our visit to you is most important.
We have had scouts shadow you to see if there are any signs of scars on you
in the same form as the sores what has been decimating our tribes .
We believe you brought this blight as a weapon to destroy us.
You are not effected by it.
You sorcerer, you protected by the evil spirits.
The children of the tribes are dieing of hunger,
the hunters and gatherers are gone.
CHARLES STURT
Your situation is because of the way you live. You are malnourished and prone to ill health. We have been sent by Devine Providence to
save you from your wretched condition.
NARRATOR
Goondah goes away and Sturt continues his journal reading what he has written out loud.
CHARLES STURT
Our intercourse with the natives had now been constant.
We had found the interior more populous than we had any reason to expect;
yet as we advanced into it,
the population appeared to increase.
It was impossible for us to judge of the disposition of the natives
during the short interviews we generally had with them,
and our motions were so rapid that we did not give them time to form any concerted plan of attack,
had they been inclined to attack us. They did not, however, show any disposition to hostility, but,
considering all things,
were quiet and orderly,
nor did any instances of theft occur, or,
at least, none fell under my notice.
The most loathsome of diseases prevailed throughout the tribes,
nor were the youngest infants exempt from them.
Indeed, so young were some, whose condition was truly disgusting,
that I cannot but suppose they must have but I am uncertain whether it is fatal or not in its results,
though, most probably it hurries many to a premature grave. How these diseases originated it is impossible to say. Certainly not from the colony,
since the midland tribes alone were infected. Syphilis raged amongst them with fearful violence;
many had lost their noses,
and all the glandular parts were considerably affected.
I distributed some Turner’s cerate to the women,
but left Fraser to superintend its application. It could do no good, of course,
but it convinced the natives we intended well towards them, and,
on that account it was politic to give it, setting aside any humane feel
STURT’S CONSCIENCE
He’s not as ignorant as he looks.
Go on tell him you weak little man.
Tell him you know what has happened. Why there is more natives in this area. Your governor has ordered the slaughter of all the Wiradjuri natives in the Bathurst area because they got in the way of the settlers and his tribe will be next if they step out of line
He’s right you have spread the disease to annihilate them. Come on, tell him you have the vaccination to cure his people.
Mr Jenner. Mr Edward Jenner the physician, remember.
The milk maids and the cow pox Mr Sturt. Remember.
FADE OUT.
EXT. 1852 YARRI OF THE WARAJURI TRIBE. HERO OF RESCUE OF SETTLERS FROM FLOOD
FADE IN
NARRATOR
We move forward twenty four years from Sturts expedition down
the Murrumbidgee to the year 1852. Assimilation over this period was inevitable. It was live with the white force or perish. Here is a story in song and verse of a black man who rose above the humiliation of assimilation.
In 1852 the town of original Gundagai was destroyed in a great flood with massive loss of life. The Wiradjuri people with the knowledge of the land and all it’s moods saved the lives of many Europeans. This story tells of one such hero Yarri who was one of the first on the river in the deadliest conditions at the height of the flood in only a bark canoe As an epic hero we honour him. As a victim of the tragedy of his people we mourn for him and protest in these songs what he and his people have lost.
LANDPULSE SUNG
Walk the land easy, You can feel the pulse beat,
Loud as a cockatoo’s call,
In the soles of feet.
Rhythms of water,
Dance of growth and decay,
Walk the land easy in the heat of day. Then came an alien race,
Out of time and pattern, out of place, They did not feel the pulse, Imposing broken rhythm, fierce and false, Pale of face, a people out of place.
Walk the land easy, As Wiradjuri do, Learn the pace of Emu and Kangaroo. Pattern of season,
Daylight’s pulse in the sky,
By the land’s rhythm we live and die. Then came the pale of face,
Made of us a strange and alien race, Thrust us from our land,
Imposed their broken pulse with a heavy hand, No pattern and no grace,
They made of us a people out of place.
NARRATOR
PROLOGUE
Come gather round me one and all give silence as I speak
For I tell the ancient legends of a river and a creek.
Ride high above them with me like an eagle in the sky and gaze down on the country with imagination’s eye
below the ridge of Kimo see a floodplain long and wide, winding like its mother river two miles from side to side and from ancient Murrumbidgee the stream that made that plain
a small creek searches outward and returns to her again over ages flood and drought have shaped the land between fertile with abundant silt, life grows there rich and green.
In our tale these tracks of water are the spirits of the land Like a mother and her daughter see them walking hand in hand. Wiradjuri came wandering the land between the streams They hunted there and gathered, they knew her in their dreams Deep within their blood they held her, breathed her love with every breath
Till the country shaped their being and the loss of her was death
MURRUMBIDGEE WATER SUNG
Murrumbidgee flows Born in the highland snows,
Wild in her youth’s descending,
Swiftly she fills and grows
Out on her floodplains, winding and bending, Feeding the towering gums,
Bush in creek and gully,
Sharing her bounties wide,
Spreading soil in plain and valley. Murrumbidgee fair, Murrumbidgee fertile,
Nurturing at your breasts we who walk here for a little while. High on a ridge we stand, gazing in love and awe
Over the lands you made with your gentle hands: how rich the gifts you pour.
Over her years of floods,
Current twisting wild and strong
Children she made in the land,
Creek and anabranch, pond and billabong.
Bright on the wide floodplain
Glints the rippling water,
Proudly side by side,
Flow the mother and the daughter. Murrumbidgee fair, Murrumbidgee fertile,
Nurturing at your breasts we who walk here for a little while. High on a ridge we stand, gazing in love and awe
Over the lands you made with your gentle hands: how rich the gifts you pour.
We have known the drought, we have seen her anger, Hurling trees in her rage, we’ve known thirst and we’ve borne hunger.
Yet for those who seek, beauty waits in hiding,
In some shaded pools wait the fruits of her providing. Silver mist like hair, As the day is dawning,
Marks the river’s way
As we hunt on a winter’s morning,
Duck and cod from the stream,
Fruit and fungus, plant and seed,
Kangaroo on the plain,
See, she gives us all we need.
Murrumbidgee fair, Murrumbidgee fertile,
Nurturing at your breasts we who walk here for a little while. High on a ridge we stand, gazing in love and awe
Over the lands you made with your gentle hands: how rich the gifts you pour.
NARRATOR
INVASION
Those who wandered high on Kimo saw strange folk walk into
view
tall pale men with mobs of creatures, come to change the world they knew
Stuckey Brothers crossed the river later Hovell Sturt and Hume Spreading out to eat the flat lands filling up the hunting room
Strange sounds echo trees were falling, Strange knives cut them flat and thin
Gunyas of strange shape erected Wives and children enter in Old men go to white mens elders No good camping on the plain Make your camp on side of Kimo, big flood come if it should rail
WHITE MAN FOOL (BIG WATER COME DOWN) SUNG
White man fool to camp on the low
ground,
Big water come down.
White fulla* learn the ways of the land or drown. One white man crossed the Murrumbidgee, Soon there followed ten,
Soon there followed carts and cattle, Horses, women, children, men.
White man fool to camp on the low ground, Big water come down.
White fulla learn the ways of the land or drown. Water’s high down at the crossing, Travellers wait for days,
Smart man here has set up a sly-grog, Can’t you see how the business pays. White man fool to camp on the low ground, Big water come down.
White fulla learn the ways of the land or drown. Smart man here has set up a sly-grog,
A saddler’s put roots down, Blacksmith, tailor, butcher, baker,
Before you know it, there’s a town.
White man fool to camp on the low ground, Big water come down
White fulla learn the ways of the land or drown. And the floods they come and the floods they go, Wiradjuri people warn and plead,
But what’s two inches of mud in the shop
To the hopes of profit, the drive of need? Build an attic up in the rafters,
Done in a day or so,
We’ll be safe upstairs when the river rises, What do the primitive natives know?
White man fool to camp on the low ground, Big water come down.
White fulla learn the ways of the land or drown.
(* indigenous pronunciation of “fellow”)
NARRATOR CANOE
TREE
Somewhere down the Murrumbidgee is a redgum old and hard
Down one side is an eight foot oval where the massive trunk is scared
One of many as the travelling explorers would remark where the people cut the living tree for their canoes of bark Slowly dried and fire shaped, patiently remade
given profile with a flint in later days some iron blade
no draught they ride with equal ease the shallow or the deep for spearing fish that rise to feed or catching ducks asleep The sunken trees are little threat to such a shallow draught in skillful hands as agile as an eel these simple craft And one man of Wiradjuri before the white man came Hunted the stream in such a boat Yarri was his name
YARRI OF THE RIVER (QUESTIONS) SONG BY JOHN WARNER
Gang gangs chatter, break of day, Mists on Murrumbidgee lay,
Yarri’s hunting, out on his bark canoe,
Two skilled hands a moment take,
To snap the neck of a fat, black drake,
Yarri, what kind of man were you?
On Brungle’s hills where kestrels sweep
Above the white man’s sullen sheep,
Yarri keeps the roaming herd in view,
Patient watch, long day, long night,
When August spits her hail with spite,
Yarri, what kind of man were you?
Yarri of Wiradjuri, what kind of man were you?
What dreams turned in your spirit
When the strange white folk came through?
Did their wonders take you by surprise?
Did they bully, bible and baptise,
But never see the land through your clear eyes?
Yarri, what kind of man were you?
Strangers not of Wiradjuri blood
Fill the flats like a rising flood,
Setting camp where wise folk never do,
Are they fools to leave to their well-earned doom,
Or kindred, born of the Mother’s womb?
Yarri, what kind of man were you?
What made you bold, how did you learn,
To ride the tide at its wildest turn,
As it flowed between two peoples, old and new? Reconciliation’s spark,
You balanced tall on your boat of bark,
Yarri, what kind of man were you?
Yarri of Wiradjuri, what kind of man were you?
What dreams turned in your spirit
When the strange white folk came through?
Did their wonders take you by surprise?
Did they bully, bible and baptise,
But never see the land through your clear eyes?
Yarri, what kind of man were you? Yarri, what kind of man were you?
NARRATOR FLOOD
The craft and trade of Gundagai might turn the other ear
Wiradjuri are pleading now with any who will hear
See mate, when we dig tucker underneath this river gum, always there are ants here, now no ants come
Ground soft and black here, not yet mud Tell Wiradjuri soon come big mother flood
How high ya recon mate look up and see Big green flood mark up there in that tree
Some heed the warning and write away in hope
to trade their land for property on Parnassus slope
But Sir George Gips the Governor won’t consider twice “good lands not Gratis these days You’ll pay the proper price” Then comes another drought, the crossing almost dry, grass on the flats harsh yellow and a blue and empty sky But in fifty one the blazing news the word of gold arrives Now crowds are at the crossing and see how business thrives
JOHN SPENCER’S PUNT SONG BY JOHN WARNER
I’m a smart man of business, John Spencer’s my name,
I’ve dabbled me fingers in many a game,
At brewing and pharmacy I’m way out front,
But the best profits come from my old red gum punt
My old red gum punt, my old red gum punt,
To cross the Murrumbidgee is no easy stunt,
Yours truly, John Spencer, is well out in front,
With his pretty investment, his old red gum punt.
If you’re feeling dyspeptic,
I’ll roll you a pill,
You can sample a drop from my wee backroom still,
But if you’d cross the ‘Bidgee there’s no need to hunt, Right here at the bank is my old red gum punt.
My old red gum punt, my old red gum punt etc
You can swim your team over, casks lashed to the dray, While I take the ladies the elegant way,
But don’t ask for credit, for that’s an affront,
It’s cash on the nail for my old red gum punt.
My old red gum punt, my old red gum punt etc
Those black fellows warn not to build on the flat,
But Gundagai business won’t put up with that,
It’s bad for the growth, if I might be so blunt,
It’ll be a big flood stops my old red gum punt
My old red gum punt, my old red gum punt – etc I’ve a stout iron cash box, a solid brass lock,
A good can of grease, and lots more in my stock,
I can swim a good mile, though I puff and I grunt, But there’s naught that I fear with my old red gum punt. My old red gum punt, my old red gum punt – etc
NARRATOR MENS AND WOMENS WISDOM
So the wisdom of the settler and the business man prevails Over years of past experience past down in old mens tales For enterprise and effort look contemptuous on the law
for the primitives who have lived here for ten thousand years or more
But the women and the children walk out early in the day Sharing an older wisdom, while the children shout and play And who knows some settler wife will not close ears and mind
to another mother warning of the danger to her kind
BLACK SALLY SONG SUNG BY TWO WOMEN BY JOHN WARNER
SALLY
Children chase frogs there at the
creek,
Sally and white lady speak.
Black Sally’s hand, pale Sarah’s skin,
Yet same red blood flow within.
Your man have woman, your man have child, Why he not fear when the river runs wild? Beautiful lady, pale as the snow,
Take up your children and go.
SARAH
I’ve mending and baking and
washing to do,
And Richard would not have me talking to you,
But perhaps there’s a moment to listen and stay, And give Emmy and John chance to play.
SALLY
Since Sally was child she wandered
free,
Why put down roots like a tree?
Yarri, my man, tender and strong,
He never stay one place long,
In every season, all that we need,
In caves where we gather, Bogong moth breed, Beautiful lady, pale as the snow,
Take up your children and go.
SARAH
I’ve no time for this, it’s not good to
hear,
We’ve come too far and we must settle here, These little ones need a safe place to grow, Come Emily, John, time to go.
SALLY
Till your folk came, along the bush
track,
I never knew I was black.
What colour hands? what colour hair? You, me have children to care. When Murrumbidgee angry and high, Mothers with young children die. Beautiful lady, pale as the snow, Take up your children and go.
SARAH
There’s fear in my spirit, I cannot
deny
Dread of that river where young children die I want to be strong but you trouble me so Oh should I stay? Should I go?
(Sarah repeats her verse concurrent with Sally repeating her last verse)
SALLY
When Murrumbidgee angry and high, There’s fear in my spirit, I cannot deny
Mothers with young children die. Dread of that river where young children die
Beautiful lady, pale as the snow, I want to be strong but you trouble me so
Take up your children and go. Oh should I stay? Should I go?
Take up your children and go.
NARRATOR
WARNING
You thick skinned fools of business just how much does it take
how much depth of water in the house to stir your souls awake This is not some weeks discomfort as you wade through mud and cold
It’s the futures of your children that you trade for passing gold Look! Wiradjuri go walkabout, they leave the open plain, they look up at the flood marked tree, shake their heads at rain, Lift up your eyes from budgets from your cashbooks and your schemes,
if you cannot heed the people will you heed your love ones dreams
RICHARD AND SARAH SONG BY JOHN WARNER SARAH
Richard, my love, let’s move up to
the high ground,
I’m sick of the drudgery after each flood.
Richard Sarah, we need to stay here for the business, We can’t lose the trade for six inches of mud.
SARAH
Richard, my dearest, old Black Sally
warned me,
The river can rise higher up than we know.
RICHARD
Sarah, stop heeding the tales of the
natives,
The attic’s quite safe, be the stream high or low.
Some of our dreams are of homes we are making, Children and laughter and joy for the taking,
But older dreams warn us of dread and heart breaking, As the land’s ancient spirits go hunting.
SARAH
Richard, let’s trade this old place for
a new one, Build on the high ground to comfort my fears.
RICHARD
Sarah, the Governor says we must
buy land,
And paying off such a loan might take us years.
SARAH
Richard, I dreamed of two tall, native
women
Who netted our children like blacks do their fish.
RICHARD
Sarah, I’ve debts for my leather and
harness,
But I’ll ask around town, love, if that’s what you wish.
Some of our dreams are of homes we are making etc
SARAH
Richard, I beg of you, move for the
children, Emily, Caroline, Richard and John.
RICHARD
Woman, desist from your fears and
your nagging,
There’s work at the crossing, I have to be gone.
Black Sally reprise: SALLY
When Murrumbidgee angry and high Mothers with young children die
Beautiful lady, pale as the snow Take up your children and go
RICHARD
Sarah, I’ve spoken to Ryan this
morning,
We’ll move up the range to his place in July.
SARAH
Richard, my love, hold me close for
a moment,
I fear for this good news, though I don’t know why.
Some of our dreams are of homes we are making etc
NARRATOR THE
GREAT FLOOD
In fifty one, the year of gold the land was bare and dry And
gasping dust whirled down the streets of new grown Gundagai A mill a school, a court house rose, prosperity on show
No talk of floods when the creek to the North and the River to the south were low
But then came June of fifty two with endless days of rain Clouds as dark as a Judges brow Dragged low on the wide flood plain The watch on the rivers height becomes one more of the farmers cares
See folks shift goods to the higher ground And look to their rooms upstairs
The ‘Bidgees run a banker now a dirty yellow stew
Knee deep in barn and stable yard and the houses it runs through
No worse today then many a flood these hardy folk have seen But the mother and daughter spread their nets and the town is caught between
Yes the river spirit spread their net and wild the currant roars Rising through the ground floor planks to overtop the doors And now the men tear shingles out as children in their dread watch water spurt through ceiling cracks and lap the ladder head What refuge is a sloping roof to folks who try to grip
the wet and slimy shingles when it’s lingering death to slip What used to raise the eyes in hope You look upon defeat The net is spread from range to range and cuts off all retreat The currants hurling logs and trees with force no wall can bear A tumbled roof goes heaving by White faces shriek despair John Spencer’s hired punt is lost Already six are drowned and bitter roaring night blots out all view of higher ground
RICHARD AND SARAH LAMENT SONG BY JOHN WARNER
Grieve for the memory of Richard
and Sarah,
Emily, Caroline, Richard and John,
For great Murrumbidgee took them in her raging,
In the net of that cold, ancient mother — they are gone
NARRATOR THE
GREAT FLOOD 2
As rooftop perches reached the trees the boldest make a leap Some gain a hold but some are lost Twirled off in the foaming
deep
These trees have shouldered years of flood Their roots tight in the land
A refuge strong and certain for the strong and certain hand But strength is ebbed away by shock Warm clothing and torn The searching wind a bitter cold along whole night till dawn.
The daughter thrusts her fishing spears among the waters brown Great logs tear victims from the trees the mother drags them down
YARRI’S BARK CANOE SONG BY JOHN WARNER
High in the trees through the current
swirling,
Yarri comes on his bark canoe,
Where raging streams huge trunks are hurling, Yarri comes on his bark canoe,
Little more than an eight foot plank
Cut from a red gum along the bank, Riding easy where other boats sank, Yarri comes on his bark canoe.
To gum tree branches or rooftops beaching, Yarri comes on his bark canoe,
To the frightened, stranded, crying, reaching, Yarri comes on his bark canoe,
They lie down flat on the sheet of bark,
To be sped ashore on this scant Noah’s Ark, Then out for more in the heaving dark,
Yarri comes on his bark canoe.
ROOF TOP SHANTY SONG BY JOHN WARNER
Slide down shingles, clinging tight, Hold on, hold on
Steady with the feet, don’t slip, don’t fight,
Hold on, hold on,
Ease down flat, give the pilot room,
Hold on, hold on
Trust through the battering, shaking gloom,
Hold on, hold on.
Tree limb knives thrust out of the race,
Hold on, hold on
The bark heaves round and you hide your face,
Hold on, hold on, Crossing the creek she bucks like a horse, Hold on, hold on
Yarri fights her with all his force,
Hold on, hold on, hold on.
YARRI’S BARK CANOE REPRISE SONG BY JOHN WARNER
Safe to the rescued along the banks, Yarri comes on his bark canoe,
Then away before you can speak your thanks, Yarri goes on his bark canoe.
For out on the waters voices cry,
Some may not live, but none shall die,
As long as he has the strength to try, Yarri comes on his bark canoe. Corpses looming against the sky Frozen or drowned in the tree tops high Told of the cost, yet still to buy.
Yarri came on his bark canoe.
Yarri came on his bark canoe
Yarri came on his bark canoe
WHAT KIND OF MAN (YARRI OF THE RIVER 2) SONG BY JOHN WARNER
Through the savage gusts of hail Until the black of night turned pale,
Each time you ventured out the risks were new. Did you pay the cost alone
In aching muscle, nerve and bone?
Yarri, what kind of man were you? Whatever motive drove you back
To face the river’s fierce attack,
As strength began to ebb and dangers grew? It’s an awesome act of mind and will
That welded body, soul and skill,
Yarri, what kind of man were you?
Yarri of Wiradjuri, what kind of man were you? What dreams turned in your spirit
When the strange white folk came through? Did their wonders take you by surprise?
Did they bully, bible and baptise,
But never see the land through your clear eyes? Yarri, what kind of man were you?
Yarri, what kind of man were you?
NARRATOR
DESPARATION
No doubt, the men were out there with whatever was to hand
Wiradjuri and whiteman trying desperately to land
the helpless from the treetops
The shouting whirled away to be swiftly drowned in silence And smothered under clay
And miles away from all of this High ranges in between were countless friends and relatives unwary of the scene being played out to a hopeless end upon the heaving stream Were they indeed unwary or did these also dream
TOM LINDLEY’S DREAM
Music as that used for Richard and Sarah
I dreamed I lay by Murrumbidgee, The silt-strand stank of mud and decay,
I saw two female forms a-talking , And here record what I heard them say.
MOTHER AND DAUGHTER
Music as that used for Richard and Sarah
MOTHER
Daughter, look here, what are these
we have taken?,
What are these small spirits cowering here?
DAUGHTER
These ones are not of the land’s
ancient people, Who go in silence and never in fear.
MOTHER
Did they not know of our seasons of
hunting?
Why should they winter so long on our range?
DAUGHTER
Well were they warned by Wiradjuri
old men,
These are not ours and their ways are strange.
MOTHER
Surely we sent their young women
our dreaming?
Surely they fear for their children and kin?
DAUGHTER
They do not feel how the land’s life
is pulsing,
Nor see a heart under darker skin.
MOTHER
Daughter, I see them camp here in
their thousands, Swarming like termites on our fruitful plains.
DAUGHTER
Mother I hear the land’s people
lamenting,
As these bleed their living from out of our veins.
Duo You fearful children, the fruit of our hunting, Return to suckle the great mother’s breast, Be like our own, let fall fear and anger, Drink deep oblivion – and rest.
NARRATOR JACKY
A mother and a Daughter have crushed out old Gundagai
in A single night of horror. Now a light is in the sky
A light that’s scarcely brilliant just a sullen shade of gray
The rumor of the coming of a grim and dismal day
From Kimo to Parnassus to the range at edge of sight
Is a vale of writhing water in this cruel and growing light Roof and tanks, dead sheep and cattle Men and women young and old are tumbled rolled and broken in this sea of heartless cold Yet some live, they swam to safety or supported by a plank, they brought themselves to high ground Yarri brought some to the bank
Though they stand there safe and living with their feet on solid rock,
they have no hold on life, their spirits numbed with dread and shock
There are strangers on the high ground now, they have brought a usefull boat,
and with a creak of rollicks they are putting it afloat Better than a bark canoe to carry three or four
They pull out to the nearest roof to bring those trapped ashore Four men they bring triumphantly and set them on dry soil Then thrust her out again to where the water heave and boil Another two aboard the rowers drive her to the banks
When with a thud a branch is driven in between the planks Water pouring through a split a quarter of her length
Some are set to bailing rest to rowing with all their strength Loose wreckage swirls around them
But a slow and fearful pace
And with water to the bench tops they win the deadly race They drain her out drag her ashore One look and all is plain she’ll being doing no more rescues till the planks are whole again Joe Morley there with nails and tin to put the boat to right
but it could be more than an hour or more until she’s fit to fight
NARRATOR JACKY
2
Now while the borrowed hammers clink and salvaged billies
steam Yarri sets a man ashore and turns back to the stream And Yarri sets a women safe while the shivering are fed Then glides out to the trees again among the wreck and dead His trusty bark canoe brings out the helpless one by one
No planks to split it yields to blows and quietly goes on But now the damaged boat is patched she drives out from the land And at the oar loom Jacky with his steady Kori hand
FLOODPULSE
[Tune of Landpulse]
Ride the stream easy, Jackey, Work it with care,
Watch for the broken timbers hiding there, Stand in the bow where you can
Feel the pulse beat,
Judging the current through the soles of feet, With his single oar,
Rowing out to bring the trapped ashore,
The fearful pale of face
Clinging high above the surging race,
At his careful pace,
Jackie brings them safely to their place.
Ride Murrumbidgee, Jackey,
Drive out again,
Stretch bone and muscle through the freezing rain. Set them numb white fullas to bailing that leak, Fight the wild eddies as you cross the creek.
In the bow he stands,
Listening to the water and the land,
Lifting out of fear
The living, left of those who would not hear. With others of his race,
Jackie stands, the right man in his place.
NARRATOR JACKY
3
Each one ashore is gathered in, weeping with relief
To the crowd around the fires sharing warmth, and tea, and grief Two days before the waters down and when more help arrives Who will dare to count the folk who owe Wiradjuri their lives
LONG TOM LINDLEY SUNG
Set to Star Of The County Down (traditional tune)
My name is Thomas Lindley, as
“Long Tom” I’m renowned,
My inn’s the best in Gundagai, on the hills my sheep abound.
In early June of ’52, with two stout drays well full,
I set out for the town of Yass to sell the season’s wool.
For wool and ale and food and drink
Are but the means of life,
And what are these without the love
Of children, friends and wife.
When I returned to Gundagai, my heart with grief was sore, To see the river’s dreadful work, for the town stood there no more.
Sad men were laying bodies out and my spirit turned to lead,
To hear my wife and children all being numbered with the dead. For wool and ale and food and drink
Are but the means of life,
And what are these without the love
Of children, friends and wife.
The Rose Inn’s standing where it stood, a weary sight to view, Mocking my beloved lost, and all the joys I knew,
But Long Tom Lindley does not bow beneath his load of pain, Oh I shall grieve, but I shall strive, and win new life again. No chorus
For here,
where my lost children lie, and where good friends have drowned,
My aching soul declines to leave, for this is sacred ground. And so Tom Lindley’s hands must work with patience, strength and skill,
And we will build new Gundagai upon Parnassus hill. Last chorus unaccompanied
For wool and ale and food and drink
Are but the means of life,
And what are these without the love
Of children, friends and wife.
NARRATOR
AFTERMATH
The land that once was sacred to the proud Wiradjuri clan Is
sacred now to business, victim to a wider plan
But Yarri broke down barriers, risking all he had to give For folk who would not listen and many such still live
The lands not easy take with a hero on the scene
There are consciences need salving, for who would dare look mean
But in the land’s a future it’s a loss none would afford Maybe we could stake our claim in trade for some reward.
Reward Song by John Warner
CHORUS
What reward do we give the hero, Who won back lives from the river’s hand?
Name the prize for his worth and valour.
SOLO
Give him cattle, give him land.
YARRI
How is the land a gift you can give
me,
Land I’ve walked since my father’s day?
Fish and birds, wombat, kangaroo, These are the cattle along my way.
CHORUS
What reward do we give the hero, For strength, endurance, courage, skill?
SOLO
Axes, rifles, pots and billies, To ease his living on plain and hill.
YARRI
Two good hands are my axe and
rifle,
Shaping the spears that fell my prey, Clay and pebbles my pots and billy, The ants have what I can’t bear away.
CHORUS
What reward do we give the hero, Money, property, tools or food?
SOLO
How dare one of your race be Ungrateful for our gratitude?
YARRI
What I have done, I do for the
people,
Bone of my bone, blood of my blood,
Would you not have done this for me, Were I the prey of the Mother’s flood?
CHORUS
What reward do we give the hero, What reward for the lives he saved?
SOLO
Words in the mouth of a council speaker,
A plate of brass with his deeds engraved. YARRI
No reward have I ever asked you, All I need is here to my hand,
Love and honour among my people,
The river’s bounty, the endless land. On my walkabout, now there are fences, Sheep graze lands that my people knew, This reward you give with one hand, Taking all that I loved with two.
Chorus
Take the honour we give you hero, Wear its token as long as you live,
Land we take from a dying people,
What you ask we shall never give,
Solo The land we take, though you never forgive.
BUILDING BRIDGES (YARRI OF THE RIVER 3) SONG BY JOHN WARNER
There are bridges on the plain for
the bullock cart and train,
In the years that passed we’ve made the land anew,
But we still don’t understand how you were of the land, Yarri, what kind of man were you?
Ah what kind of folk are we with our cold prosperity,
Seizing all that comes within our view,
How the bitter memory galls, you built bridges, we built walls, Yarri, what kind of man were you?
Yarri of Wiradjuri, what kind of man were you?
What dreams turned in your spirit
When the strange white folk came through?
Did their wonders take you by surprise,
Did they bully, bible and baptise,
But never see the land through your clear eyes?
Yarri, what kind of man were you?
Can we let go what we hold?
Can a thief let go of gold?
Can law and business let go of the land?
For as long as we insist in keeping greed clutched in our fist, What chance is there to take another’s hand?
Yarri of Wiradjuri, what kind of folk are we?
Is there reconciliation? What hope we can agree?
Your voice cries out from the wounded land,
Your bark wheels round at your command,
And now you’re reaching out your hand,
Yarri, if only we could see,
Yarri, if only we could see.
YARRI’S REQUIEM
[music as for Murrumbidgee Water]
Now have the songs been sung, Now is the story ended,
Told is the hero’s tale,
Bold was his heart and his deeds were splendid,
Sing his spirit home,
Back to his people’s dreaming,
Under the river gums,
Out on the plains by the waters gleaming; Murrumbidgee fair, Murrumbidgee fertile, Nurturing at your breasts we who walk here for a little while, High on a ridge we stand, gazing in love and awe, Over the lands you made with your gentle hands,
How rich the gifts you pour.
EXT. 1950 BUSH PLAYGROUND CAMPFIRE – NIGHT
FADE IN:
We’ve come forward in time with our action and view the scene in the year 1950 in a western nsw town. Where are the Wiradjuri. Where is their hunting and gathering territory. Some of it is occupied by young white boys from nearby town playing in the bush roasting sparrows on fencing wire they had shot with a catapult earlier. The rough bark of the cypress and it’s bunches on branches of needle leaves mystify in the flickering firelight.
DONELLO
Let’s go up to the trig site tomorrow.
Grab a stick there might be a rabbit in those roley-poley. We’ll try and dig some out of that warren too.
Smelt kittens in that pop hole there today.
JACK0
It’s a bit scary out here at night, what that noise?
DONELLO
That’s a mopoke! here him?
He says more pork, more pork. Can’t be Jewish.
JACK0
The stars are bright tonight. Look there’s the Saucepan.
Next day, running through the rocky hill towards the trig site, rabbits scamper in front of the two youngsters, avoiding the flying waddies and dive for cover down burrows on warrens. Digging is hard and rocky, so no success. The hungry boys wander back to town for a feed.
DONELLO
Need a bigger mob to catch anything.
Member down in Regan’s swamp last year got enough rabbits to sell to the freezing works.
Got enough to go to the pictures.
We had bobby, johnny, billy and peter. We should get some of those kids from the mission, they quick.
I saw em once when I went with the priest to serve as an alter boy out at the mission. They don’t behave like us, wild little buggers yeh,
run up and down the hall playing had the knives forks and spoons for toys.
Grown ups don’t look real happy.
Mum said they were poor unfortunates. They keep to themselves.
Put their horses and sulkies in the berry bushes behind the school, and walk down the street to get their things.
I seen empty wine bottles. Some come in in a truck driven by a man with a British accent dressed in a Safari suit and a pith helmet. Look like a mob of cattle standing up in the crate there, they did. Bouncing along in the dust, Kids always got runny noses. They are not allowed in the pubs. They buy metho from the shop and drink it in the berry bushes.
FADE OUT. EXT. 1975 MISSION BLACKS CAMP DAY
FADE IN:
We move forward again in time. The year is 1975. In Central New South Wales a lot of the tribes from nearby had been moved from their land and settled in a Mission Station. This one we are focusing on was set up by the Government in the Late 40’s early 50’s.
The scene is a Mission mob around camp fire . There is a white builder contracted to build houses for the mission nearby having lunch. He is approached by a young black boy.
JONNY BOY
Can I ab a samich.
White man remostrates at beggar to piss off.
JIM
Piss of ya little fucker.
Ya all the time bight’n me for money or somethin’.
go’n tell ya oldies to get ya some tucker? No need, I can see your mob over there, Pearly the bastard,
10 oclock and already plastered.
Drunk blackfellow, overhears throwing his hands in the air and jumping around
KEB CARBODY
You bastards drive anyone to drink. Ya white mongrel
ya pushed us off our tribal land at cowarie tank, dat really stank
and put us in this fuck’n prison of a mission with the blacks from all ober da place,
.
If that isn’t put’n us in a cage. Stirin us up so we want’n ta fight at the drop of a hat.
I don’t know what is.
Ya bloody stock ate all our bush tucker, and if we go and get a sheep to stop us from dying of hunger,
ya call the cops and were really are in a prison,
on the inside, look’n out.
Ya call us nohope’n drunks. Yah! You are the nohope’n theives
You stole our land
FADE OUT.
EXT: 1975 OUTSIDE PUB IN SMALL TOWN MAIN STREET NIGHT
FADE IN:
A small town near the mission is a watering hole for both black and white. In 75 at weekends the pubs hummed like a behive. Two mates have a scuffel outside the pub.
UNSTEADY EDDIE
Give it back ha ha.
It belongs to us,you say, then give it back, hah!
Charlie, hah,(wrestling his friend, playfully) . This land is fucked man.
You couldn’t handle it if ya did get it back, you’ve lost all your attachment to mother earth,
the ones that matter anyway. Gambling booze and bludgin
take place of the old challenges and choices, hunting, gathering and protecting gin and picaninny
and corrobery with kin.
I am your Shaman.
I’m White but I’m native.
My very being vibrates to the tune of the yellow belly,
and the Murray Cod,
and the red gum and the universal god. Mother earth.
The’re yelling “save me, save me,
but do you hear?
Perhaps you do,
hey, you and I can hear it in the digerodoo. Yes! I am your sharman Charlie,
like the Shaman of old reborn into the 20th century.
Your ancestors thought the British were Shamans, reincarnated spirits. They didn’t know,
they were hoodwinked,
by gifts and deceit of a greedy nation and bullied out of their coexistence with this once beautiful southern land.
Some old wise natives foretold of the disaster to face an invasion by these strangers,
they knew that no land is won or lost by wars,
for earth is spirit and that the invaders feet would tangle in nets there
and their blood be thinned by fear. Come on Charlie!
The time has come to make a stand. Mother earth has got them on their knees. Bushfires sweep the land.
No more ancient fire fallows
with black fellows swiftly sweeping flames into submission. Fields of yams flowing in spring
as The Virgins,Plaides rises in the North East.
Growing higher for the Summer Feast. Mitchell Grass aplenty for the roos,
for you to cull as you choose. Instead, the dread of rampant fires in overgrown woodlands, where no roos graze You wouldn’t run down a Kangaroo now, anyway?
Would you Charlie?
Roadkill’s your only chance.
Putrid anyway in the blistering, searing, dusty winds on the denuded summer plains within hours.
You wouldn’t have the guts for that know? Would you Charlie?
The grog ulcers wouldn’t like it any way. Would they Charlie?
CHARLIE
Your full of crap, Eddie (punching his mate
on the jaw,to serious for jest).
You bastard. Your opening up a wound of raw truth,
and I don’t like it but your right.
We ab ta get the boys off da grog up at the mission.
They built it to get us off our tribal land. We come from all over Western New South Wales;
It was worse than a zoo.
The lion and the tiger have separate cells, so they don’t kill each other.
We had our own territory where we come from with strict laws on other tribes coming in to hunt.
They had to ask.
No tribal laws only white mans law at the mission.
There was only trouble ahead when mixed tribes are forced to live in an small area with no hunting grounds.
Unsteady Eddie Bursts into rap recital.
UNSTEADY EDDIE
Holy Moses! Here come the dozers. Ten or twelve days of dozers, delve
with rakes of havoc unselve,
a rural scene, a rural scene, a sweet especial rural scene. Reconciliation, silly notion.
Might as well walk back into the ocean. Reconcile with nature first or be cursed. What have we done to these lands. Where no rivers run. Redgum has to succumb.
No more stands.
No more stands.
Searing winds and shifting sands.
No more stands.
No more stands.
Black look back.
Back along the track.
White take fright.
Or are you blind to the sight.
What have you done?. Landscape rape.
Invaders ape.
From what are you trying to escape? Black box , Grey Box, White Box, Yellow Box. Stand alone. No succession only regression. Dust storms and Depression. No more stands.
Earth laid bare.
No spirit there.
Do you care?
Do you care?
Do you care? Reconciliation, silly notion. Reconcile with nature first or fear the worst.
Charlie raps on CHARLIE
What ah we gunnah do,
we can’t get out a dis stew, got black mans skills,
got white mans ills,
I’m comfortable constable
in your cells,
We hooked by the gills, given money for thrills.
We can’t go it alone
how we gunnah pay for a stone.
UNSTEADY EDDIE
Why follow a hollow headed hunter, carrying a spear of despair,
offering bribe,
you have joined the wrong tribe, Whitemans fucked man,
material possessions in decline, no fruit on the vine,
no more wine.
FADE OUT.
The drought has taken hold tension is high and moral is low.
INT. PUB NIGHT IN THE EARLY NAUGHTIES
FADE IN:
watch out nigger
I going to blow my brains out of this skull, terror anull,
There is a black hole,
death the only goal, crops fail,
debt then jail
can’t open the debt ridden mail. Here creep,
no money in sheep,
you can take all our jumbucks,
they only offer grief,
won’t call you a thief, Thousand curses to terra anullius , gave us pain, no rain, just pain, again and again and again.
FADE OUT. INT. FARMER BROWN HOUSE NIGHT
A Man going berserk in pub
FARMER BROWN
Finger on the trigger,
FADE IN:
NARRATOR
His mates take him home. He sobs continually. That night in bed the sleepless,writhing Mr Brown is consoled by his wife
MRS BROWN
Think of the children, Peter, Peter?
Farmer Brown shouting deliriously
FARMER BROWN
No! I’ll not, carrion comfort,
Despair,not feast on thee;
Not untwist- slack they may be- these last strands of man in me or,
most weary,cry I can no more,
I can;
Can something,
hope, wish day come,
not choose not to be.(In a rage he pleads with his god)
But ah, but O thou terrible,
why wouldst thou rude on me thy wring world right foot rock?
Lay a lion limb against me?
Scan with darksome devouring eyes my bruised bones?
And fan, O in turns of tempest, me heaped there;
me frantic to avoid thee and flee? Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear. Nay in all that toil, that coil,
since (seems) I kissed the rod, hand rather, my heart lo! Lapped strength,
stole joy,
would laugh, cheer.
Cheer whom though?
The hero whose heaven handling flung me, foot trod.
Me? Or me that fought him?
Oh which one? Is it each one?
That night, that year of now done darkness, I wretch lay wrestling with (my God) my God.
MRS BROWN
Are you alright now dear.
Brown continues his mad ravings
FARMER BROWN
No worst, there is none.
Pitched past pitch of grief,
more pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring. Comforter where is your comforting?
Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?
My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main,
a chief woe, world-sorrow;
on an age-old anvil wince and sing- then lull, then leave off.
Fury had shrieked ‘No lingering!
Let me be fell:
force I must be brief.’
O the mind has mountains; cliffs of fall, frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed.
Hold them cheap, may who ne’er hung there. Nor does long our small durance deal with that steep or deep.
Here! Creep, wretch, under a comfort serves in a willy willy:
all life death does end and each day dies with sleep.
MRS BROWNE
I think I’d better call the Doctor, Dear,
Dear, can you hear. Browne writhes and moans
FARMER BROWN
I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hours we have spent this night! What sights you , heart, saw; ways you went!
And more must in yet longer light’s delay. With witness I speak this.
But where I say hours I mean years, mean life.
And my lament is cries countless,
cries like dead letters sent to dearest him that live alas! Away.
I am gall, I am heartburn. God’s most deep decree bitter would have me taste:
my taste was me;
bones build in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse. Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours.
I see the lost are like this,
and their scourge to be as I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.
Doctor is summoned by wife.
MRS BROWN
What are we going to do with him, doctor.
meaningless ranting, what next.
The whole biblical text.
DOCTOR SMITH
Meaningless upwelling,
as your telling, Catholic alcoholic.
It’s the depression, triggered by the recession, next childish regression.
I think this goose is going to have to do a Gandhi.
Live a simple life,children, wife,
in touch with nature.
The capitalists will hate ya’.
But you will be ok ,
let them go on their way.
STILL IN THE NAUGHTIES UNSTEADY EDDIE IS HOME ON THE FARM WRITING TO EASE THE PRESSURES OF THE DROUGHT.
UNSTEADY EDDIE
Work’n in my cyber shed, folks drop in now
and then
I send them a note with my cyber pen, Kebin Giblet came to the shed,
the poor old bastard is already dead. Kebin’s in hebin
Too late bud, covered in dust not mud, The Condo man I would have like to have met.
In retrospect,I do regret.
We were nourished by the same river you and me,
but I’m no aborigine,
but we are of the same destiny, native from
Cargelligo where’rd tha hell he go,
I know this land like the back of my hand. The old spirits call me in my dreams urging me to chant their schemes.I see them in my waking day, There is old black Joe he’s come back as a crow, he’s found a way this time, to beat white mans gun, still warily feeds on sheep from the settlers run. There is three cornered jack with his devilish grin, scrape the land bare and he’ll pierce your bare skin, .
I see shame
where both play the game.
Apeing invaders not the way to go, keeping up with the Jones’s not the way ya know.
Keep it simple there will always be an arse with a pimple, a babies cheek with a dimple, Love and hate mate,
don’t shut the gate mate,
we don’t want division
driven by derision
NARRATOR
Kebin Giblets work spirits out of the cyber world. Exposed via Barney Google with the goo goo googalie eyes, here it is, powerful and relevent, even in the naughties.
KEBIN GIBLET
And some say “Shame” when we’re talkin’ up
And “Shame” for the way we are
And “Shame” cause we ain’t got a big flash house
Or a steady job and a car.
Some call it “Shame” when our kids they die From colds or from sheer neglect “Shame” when we live on the river banks While collectin’ our welfare cheques “Shame” when we’re blind from trachoma “Shame” when we’re crippled from blights But I reckon the worstest shame is yours You deny us human rights.
NARRATOR
Kebin goes on to explain the oneness of the universe.
KEBIN GIBLET
I am the tree
the lean hard hungry land
the crow and eagle sun and moon and sea I am the sacred clay which forms the base the grasses vines and man
I am all things created
I am you and you are nothing
but through me the tree
you are
and nothing comes to me except through that one living gateway
to be free and you are nothing yet for all creation
earth and God and man is nothing until they fuse and become a total sum of something together fuse to consciousness of all and every sacred part aware alive in true affinity
Unsteady Eddie goes on
UNSTEADY EDDIE
I agree
But we are not yet free reconcile before we further defile, this ancient land on which we stand, Wouldn’t it be grand.
KEBIN GIBLET THE SHAMEN CONTINUES
I know you’re wrong when you claim you’re right
and your truth is black when you claim it white
Still, you believe and I know, I know
that we all must tend the land we hoe and live to the dreams we dream
And we must all rise to the beck’ning sun That guides us all on the race we run And you believe, I know I know
That your truth is true, yet a coal-black snow Is as white as the truth you claim.
Yet you believe and you hold the right
To believe a lie is truth, is light
Is a Beckoning Star in Abysmal night And as true as a man is true.
I know you’re right when you claim I’m wrong That I’m out of tune with your own sad song For you believe and to me it seems That your feet of clay keep your heart from dreams
And away from a Nobler truth.
I know, I know that the plant you grow
Is a bitter tree that the wise men know Bears a fruit that is bitter-sweet
And I believe — as I see you grieve That the light was dimm’d since Adam, Eve Sprang from the basest clay I know That your feet are clay and we all must sow The crop that we each must reap
Yet you believe and you can’t be wrong For each man’s truth is another’s wrong And we each must walk that path alone To reach the deepest depths, a throne
Of truth till a truer comes.
NARRATOR
Unsteady Eddie reconciles
UNSTEADY EDDIE
The time has come to beat the drum to the
pulse of this ancient land.
Shed the uniforms of difference and indifference,
walk naked in a dusty band,
lighten the load to lend earth’s healing, use your heads to husband her with feeling, remove the fences mental and material, replenish the wild seed of ancient cereal, Listen to her droughty seasons, give her a rest as you see reason.
NARRATOR
I acknowledgement the following .. These are people involved in Sources for material used in this project. John Warner, Margaret Walters, John Derum, Don Brian, Jennifer Lees, Robin Connaughton, Tom Hanson together with their Ensembles.They Performed in Yarri of Waradjuri. James Bonwick victorian schools inspector who wrote Around 1857 the wild white man and the Blacks of Victoria from which word for word in most cases was extracted to compose James Bonwicks character. Literary liscence was taken to link James bonwicks observances with Charles Stewart. There was no such meeting. The North British Review of 1865 was the source of most of Charles Sturt’s narrative in his meeting with James Bonwick. This included a lecture by Herman Merivale extracts of which were attributed to Charles Stewart but were really Heman Melviles but was an example of people in authority’s opinions at that time which was when England was Colonizing the World. Again Literary Liscence was taken by the
Playwright to colour the story. The rest of Charles Sturts narrative were from his Expedition Journals. Except those created by the Playwright to embellish the story. Gerard Manly Hopkins terrible sonnets were used to symbolise depression in the Character Farmer Brown. Keb Giblet made up name of a deceased Aboriginal. We acknowledge his poetry legacy. K.Langloh Parker in 1895 collected the Story of Morrego the Mopoke from Folklore of the Noongaburrahs as told to the piccinninies of the tribe.
Edgar T Vagg playwright and Narrator.
CargelligoWetlands 