MURRANGURK STOOD ON the shore of Beangala in the Dulur country. He scratched the sand with his spear, making marks. Het. He turned his head and looked at them and scratched again. Het. Beside him, his kal sat, watching. Murrangurk tasted dust and charred wood in his mouth.
He felt Nullamboin speak to him, and looked up. Nullamboin was sitting under a tree. What are you doing? I smell burnt food.
I smell nothing, uncle.
Nullamboin walked down to the shore. His kal followed him. He looked at the scratches.
“Why do you cut sand?”
“I am seeing.”
“But why cut sand?”
“I am seeing.”
“That does not make you cut sand.”
“It is a word,” said Murrangurk.
“I don’t hear it,” said Nullamboin.
“It is a word seen.” He scratched again. “Het.”
“That is not a word.”
“It is a name,” said Murrangurk.
“A name? What name?”
“A woman.”
“No woman is called ‘Het’! There is no Het among the Beingalite. It is not Wurunjerri-baluk, or Bunurong, or Kurung, or Gunung-Willam, or Jajaurung, or Wotjobaluk, or Gournditch-Mara. Who speaks Het? Where did you hear it?”
“I can’t see,” said Murrangurk. “It is from before.”
“When you are dead?”
Murrangurk looked at the water.
“I dreamed her: in Tharangalkbek.”
“What was her name and her People before she died?” said Nullamboin.
“She wasn’t dead,” said Murrangurk.
“She was mulla-mullung woman?”
“No. She did not come by the Rainbow or the Hard Darkness. It was her country.”
“No man, no woman, is called Het,” said Nullamboin. “It is not a name.”
“I dreamed her,” said Murrangurk.
“That is no need to cut sand,” said Nullamboin.
“It will make the word stay.”
Nullamboin breathed through his nose and looked at Murrangurk.
“If you cut sand?”
“Yes.”
“If you cut bark?”
“Yes.”
“Wood?”
“Yes.”
“Rock?”
“Yes.”
“Can it be drawn?”
“Yes.”
“Show me ‘Mami-ngata’.”
Murrangurk scratched the sand.
“That is ‘Mami-ngata’?” said Nullamboin.
“Show me his big name.”
Murrangurk scratched ‘Bunjil’.
“That is ‘Bunjil’?”
“Yes.”
Nullamboin shouted, and rubbed out the mark with his foot.
“Is it still there?”
“No,” said Murrangurk.
“But you could cut it, in another place, and it could stay? In wood or rock?”
“Yes. It is how to make words.”
“And it would be for those to see, if they came, or it could be carried far off and seen by strangers.”
“It could.”
“So any girl, or woman, or boy that has not been Smoked, or young man will be able to speak as elders and mulla-mullung?”
He took a crystal from his bag.
“What is this for those who do not Dream?”
Murrangurk scratched ‘wallung’.
“Wallung?”
Murrangurk nodded.
“Now the flesh name.”
Murrangurk scratched.
“Thundal?” said Nullamboin.
“Thundal, uncle.”
Nullamboin cried out and rubbed the sand. He turned, his kal at his heels, and strode away.
“Then all will see without knowledge, without teaching, without dying into life! Weak men will sing! Boys will have eagles! All shall be mad! Why have I danced this thing?”
“Uncle!”
Murrangurk hurried after him. His kal stayed by the marks.
A wave washed in from the sea, and Het was gone. The kal followed the men.
“Uncle! We must go to the fires! A wordholder is coming!”
“I don’t feel him,” said Nullamboin.
“You are angry,” said Murrangurk. “But my shoulder tells me.”
Nullamboin changed direction, and they ran.
The women and the young men were returning home, and Brairnumin was with them. He was helping to carry the body of a kowir. As Murrangurk and Nullamboin reached them, he called out to Murrangurk, “I heard him, uncle, and my wangim broke his leg, ki! Warrowil speared him, hai! Light the fire!” His filmed eyes were shining stones.
“A wordholder is coming. He has crossed the Barwin,” said Murrangurk.
The women and children went to their shelters. The young men stood with their weapons. And the elders sat facing towards the river, and waited.
The sun was going into its hole when a man appeared, walking. He carried a green branch of peace, one spear and a shield.
At a distance from the warriors, he sat, and made himself a small fire. Koronn, Nullamboin’s wife, came from her shelter and laid branches on the elders’ fire, and went back to her place. No one spoke. Then, when the waters had risen between them all, the man got up and entered.
The young men put down their weapons. The man who had come went with Nullamboin to the elders’ fire and talked quietly. The other elders sat apart.
“He is Tirrawal, of the Kurung,” said Derrimut.
“He is the Crow brother of the sister of the mother of Koronn,” said Murrangurk.
When the men had talked at the fire, Nullamboin called the People to him, and they sat and listened.
“In the Beginning,” said Nullamboin, “when the waters parted and the Ancestors Dreamed all that is, and woke the life that slept, the sky lay on the earth, and the sun could not move, until the Magpie lifted the sky with a stick.”
“A stick!” said the listeners.
“And when the Dreaming was done, and each Ancestor made of himself churinga, Mami-ngata had strong poles of bwal set around the sky; and he put the Old Man to look after them and keep them firm, so that the sky should not fall.”
“Not fall!”
“Then Mami-ngata trod upon the whirlwind and rode beyond the Bone of the Cloud, and he sits in Tharangalkbek to look upon the living and to guide the dead.”
“The dead!”
“Now Tirrawal, Crow brother of the sister of the mother of Koronn, brings dreams.”
“Brings dreams!”
“The mulla-mullung of the Mogullumbitch and of the Ballung-Karar say that the Old Man comes to them, and they dream that the poles of bwal beyond their country have rotted and must be made new.”
“Made new!”
“The Old Man says they must send wordholders through all the peoples of the world, even as far as the Kerinma and the Gournditch-Mara, to make axes, so that he may cut bwal and save the sky. If he does not have the axes, the sky will fall.”
“Will fall!”
The women began to wail and the men to shout.
“We have no axes to give,” said Derrimut. “How shall we build our fires without wood?”
“If the sky falls, there will be no fires,” said Nullamboin.
“Without axes, how shall we carve the trees of the dead?” said Murrangurk. “How shall they sing their Dreamings and make their spirit ways?”
“If the sky falls, there will be none to die,” said Nullamboin.
“Then where will be our Dreaming?” said Murrangurk.
“There will be no Dreaming,” said Nullamboin.
“The elders and mulla-mullung must talk of this,” said Murrangurk.
The young men and the boys stripped the kowir of its feathers and skin, and Nullamboin cut pieces of flesh from the front of the legs and from the back of the thighs and wrapped them in leaves, so that the flesh could be not touched. Brairnumin took the leaves to Murrangurk.
“Eat, uncle. Here is your kowir. It is time for the fire.”
Murrangurk blackened his face and sides with charcoal before touching the raw meat that the blind young man put onto the ground, then the bird was taken out to the new fire, so that the women should not see, and the body cut open and parted with flint. Each time a bone was broken, the men gave a shout, and when the flesh and guts were hot, they were brought back. The best piece and the fat were given in honour to Tirrawal. The men rubbed charcoal into their faces and sides before eating the sacred bird, but few spoke, and after, there was no sound but the sob of women and the murmur of the men.
The elders talked through the night of the dreams that Tirrawal had brought, until the sky awoke. The rug drums and the clapsticks were silent, and the People could not be lifted to song. Murrangurk alone, in the unburnt spirit of kowir, danced the Morning Star.