This Golden Land (40 page)

     Hannah materialized before him, a transparent specter standing between himself and the red mountain. She was smiling, her hair hanging loose and free, her gloveless hands reaching for him. The desert was teasing him, playing tricks. And then he thought: No! There was a reason this spiritual place had brought Hannah to him, because it suddenly became clear to Neal that this was something that would make him worthy of Hannah. He could distinguish himself as a scientist by undergoing the secret initiation and then writing about it. A chronicle of his time with the Aborigines, as an anthropologist studying a clan untainted by contact with Europeans. It would be a sensation. His life with Jallara's clan would make news around the world, people would snap up his book, thirsty for descriptions of secret initiations. He could travel about and lecture. He would become famous.

     And then he would ask for Hannah's hand in marriage.

     As he broke the spell of the red-gold mountain and brought himself back to reality, Neal saw that the brothers Daku and Burnu had captured two echidnas and a gecko while he had stood staring off into the distance.

     Neal felt a stab of guilt. In his five months with the clan, as he had gained strength and learned skills from his new companions, he had done his best to contribute to the food supply. His efforts to introduce the bow and arrow had been fruitless, and he had given up once he saw the phenomenal hunting skills of Thumimburee's men, using only spears and boomerangs. Neal's own initial efforts at spear, woomera and boomerang had caused much laughter among the men, but determination to survive and to make his way back to Sir Reginald and revenge had turned him into a quick study.

     His initial plan, before he set eyes on the mountain, had been to part ways with the clan tomorrow. Jallara's people were headed toward a tribal gathering of all the clans, called a
jindalee.
It was where, she had explained, the hundreds of members of the tribe renewed friendships, exchanged news and stories, strengthened clan ties, the clever-men sat in judgment of wrong doers and meted out punishment, laws and taboos were reinforced, babies were named and given protective spirits, the ancestors were honored, and
girls found husbands. The
jindalee
was the reason, Neal knew now, why the clan had struck north after leaving the billabong, why they continued on the move instead of staying in one place.

     But he would not be saying good-bye tomorrow after all. Eager to get back to camp now and inform Thumimburee that he wished to undergo the secret initiation, Neal fell into step with Burnu and Daku, who made fun of him in a friendly way—their stringy bark baskets were full of game, Neal's was empty. He saw Jallara up ahead, with the other women, on the perimeter of the camp they had set up among a cluster of boulders where a lone mulga tree grew and a well provided artesian water. She was engaged in the eternal search for roots and tubers, nuts and berries, insects and grubs.

     Tall and long-limbed, her brown torso painted in white designs, her long wavy hair and grass skirt stirring in the wind, Jallara was like the taboo mountain. Exotic, mysterious, unexplored. And untouchable. Jallara was going to find a husband at the
jindalee
, join his clan and travel away from this territory into that of her new family. Neal would never see her again.

     He had been intrigued by her from the first moment he set eyes on her and she had said, "How do you do, sir?" For a long time Neal did not understand why he was so taken with her. It was more than mere curiosity, more than a healthy man's natural reaction to her supple body and seductive breasts. And then the answer had come to him one afternoon as he had watched her sitting in the shade of a mulga tree, weaving a stringy bark basket. Jallara had been chatting and laughing with the other girls, and when she tossed her head and Neal had glimpsed light brown highlights in her black hair, reminding him that she was part European, it had occurred to him to wonder how her Aboriginal mother or father had even
met
a white person, let alone be with them long enough to produce an offspring.

     In his early days with the clan, Jallara did not have enough English to tell him her story, but over the weeks, as they spent time together, more of the language came back to her, remembered from her childhood. From what Neal could gather, Jallara's mother had married into another clan, whose territory shared a boundary with this one and lay to the southeast. Somehow, her mother either left, or was taken by white men, and ended up working as a cook on an isolated cattle station. As near as Neal could determine,
Jallara was about ten years old when she and her mother were either let go or ran away. "We walk, we walk, we walk. Following the sun. We sleep at Echidna Dreaming. We walk. Follow Rainbow Songline. We kill wallaby. We eat wallaby. We walk, we walk. Sleep at Possum Dreaming. Eat wallaby. We walk, we walk. Mother sick. We stop at Cockatoo Billabong, Place of Four Trees. Mother die. Jiwarli find me, bring me to mother's clan."

     Here, then, was the root of his fascination with Jallara. Like himself, she was the product of parents from two worlds. While Jallara's case was racial and Neal's was that of social class, there was that strange bond. We are alike, she and I.

     Jallara smiled as Thulan drew near. She had watched him enjoying the exhilaration of throwing the boomerang and seeing how far it would go, savoring the new strength in his body, the new skills he had learned during his time with her people. He still wore a fur pelt for modesty, and the shoes because of tender feet, but his torso was smeared with white paint to ward of insects and evil spirits, hunting weapons were strapped to his back. He was bearded, and his hair grew long. He looked like a hunter.

     He made her think of her father, to wonder about him. Jallara had never given her father much thought, but this white man in their midst had made her start wondering. Who was he? How had her mother met the white man? Why did she not stay with
his
clan?

     And what about Thulan? What had made him leave his clan to go walkabout in land far from his people? He had used words like "explore" and "open the way." Concepts she struggled to understand. She also wondered what sickness of the soul had driven him to perfect skills with spear and boomerang.

     Jallara had watched him during his early lessons, and she had seen an obsession in Thulan's training. Long after the other hunters laid down their weapons, he kept practicing. He had driven himself to building his body. Jallara did not know why. When Thulan first woke from his deep sleep, the first days, he was cheerful and pleasant. And then he had changed. He had became serious and determined. He said he had remembered something. Jallara feared it was something bad because she sensed a sickness in Thulan's spirit.

     She was curious about him, and fascinated by him. Even, in a way, attracted to him. But she knew he would not be with them for much longer, and that a new husband awaited her at the
jindalee.
But she was worried about Thulan and wished she could do something to heal the sickness in his soul. The sickness had a name:
yowu-yaraa.
Thulan would call it "anger."

     She had slept with him at first, and then he had sent her away. This puzzled her. The nights were bitterly cold. In her family, husbands and wives slept together, children slept together, people even slept with the dingoes. It was necessary to keep warm, but also so that one was not alone when one walked in the dreams of sleep. But Thulan slept alone. Was this also part of his spirit-sickness?

     "Jallara," Thulan said as he drew near. "Please tell Thumimburee that I have decided to be initiated into the clan."

T
HE SECRET INITIATION CONSISTED OF THREE PHASES
. N
EAL
was familiar with the first two: tattooing and walkabout. The third remained a mystery as no one would talk about it. Yet another taboo in a world filled with taboos.

     The ordeal began the night before the ritual, with Neal being separated from the main body of the camp to a place among the boulders where a pit had been dug and mulga leaves smoldered. He was told he must crouch over the smoky pit from dusk until dawn, without food or water, without falling sleep, while the men sat with him, chanting. With his knees bent, bracing himself between rocks, Neal held himself over the smoking pit until his knees screamed with pain and his spine felt as if it would crack. He had never known such agony, but he stayed there, determined to endure the torture for the sake of science.

     At dawn the men led him half a day's walk from the camp, away from the eyes and ears of the women and uninitiated boys. When they came to a cluster of dry boulders and clumps of spinifex, Daku collected the long
grass blades which, when burned, gave off a pungent black smoke. The men chanted as they waited for nightfall.

     After the sun had gone down, Thumimburee untied his kangaroo-fur bundle and brought out two curious carved sticks, called
wirra.
Neal thought they were boomerangs, but they were not symmetrical, each having one long wing and one short one. The back side of the flat
wirra
were carved in symbols, and when Neal saw their undersides studded with rows of sharp thorns, he knew their purpose.

     While one of the elders produced a didgeridoo and took his place on the ground, the others stood in a circle holding sticks. Neal was told to stand by the fire where Thumimburee gestured for him to remove the kangaroo loincloth. After Neal laid it in the sand, the clever-man then pointed to the small leather pouch that hung around Neal's neck. When Neal hesitated to removed the hidden emerald-glass tear catcher, Thumimburee made it understood that he only had to hang it down his back. The tattooing, Neal realized, was to be on his chest. And it was to be done while he was on his feet.

     As Thumimburee commenced the sacred task, chanting as he did, and the hypnotic twang of the ancient didgeridoo filled the night, Neal tried to remain detached and objective, noting the steps of the ritual, the objects used, memorizing every detail of the rite for the scientific paper he was going to present to the prestigious Association of American Geologists and Naturalists. The paper was then going to be a chapter in his book.

     Thumimburee placed the first of the long
wirra
on Neal's torso, to the right of the breastbone, its longest arm reaching Neal's waist while the short arm curved up and over his right pectoral muscle, ending at the shoulder. Applying an even and gentle pressure, so that the thorns were imbedded in Neal's skin, Thumimburee took a rock and began tapping the back of the
wirra.
At first, Neal felt only a pricking sensation, but as the thorns were driven into his flesh, he felt pain. The pain blossomed and spread as Thumimburee tapped the entire length of the
wirra
, from waist, up the chest to the shoulder. The men chanted and banged their sticks together, while the didgeridoo sent out a song older than time, and sparks shot from the campfire to the stars.

     Neal broke out in a sweat. He had not expected it to be this painful.

     Why couldn't he lie on his back while they did this? He was shocked to feel blood trickle down his bare thigh. Was he bleeding that much? He thought of hungry dingoes prowling in the night. As he clenched his fist and tried not to cry out, Thumimburee stopped the tapping and Neal relaxed an inch. But then the
wirra
was withdrawn and Neal could not help a groan of pain.

     He was afraid to look down at himself, afraid that the sight of so much of his own blood might make him faint. Before he could chance even a glance, Thumimburee had the second
wirra
up against the left side of Neal's torso, and the piercing was repeated.

     Despite the night time drop in temperature, Neal sweated profusely. He felt light headed. The pain more than doubled. And blood now trickled down his other leg.

     And yet, through the red haze of incredible pain, Neal was suddenly filled with manly pride. Was this what it felt like to be a noble savage? He couldn't wait to record his experience on paper. He tried to imagine how he looked in the glow of the campfire, surrounded by primitive men banging sticks together. He pictured himself—the tall white man bravely submitting to a savage ritual, holding his head high, allowing no cries of pain to escape his throat. He wished he had his camera equipment, that young Fintan was there with the box and the tripod capturing the shocking scene. What a photograph it would make! It would go wonderfully as the frontispiece of his book—a taste for the reader of the sensational things to come.

     When the left side was finished, he started to speak, but Thumimburee silenced him. Neal watched the clever-man drink from a possum-skin pouch, and was startled when he sprayed it on Neal's chest. Neal choked back a strangled cry. The liquid burned worse than fire. Gasping in pain, he looked down at himself and saw pale green water trickle over his raw wounds. It had a grassy smell. Three more times the clever-man took a mouthful of the plant juice and sprayed it on Neal's punctured flesh, and the burning intensified.