A Single Tree Page 19
The cedar dealers furnish them from time to time with salt provisions, flour, tea and sugar; and every three or four months the sawyers travel down to the cedar dealers, who live at the mouths of the rivers, for a settlement of their accounts. As these latter individuals are not remarkable for delicate scruples of conscience, they generally settle the balance due to the sawyers in a very summary way. They take care to have a good assortment of clothing, tobacco, etc. in their huts, with which they furnish the sawyers at an advance of about three hundred percent on the Sydney prices; this, with a cask or so of rum and wine, to enable the sawyers to have a fortnight’s drinking bout, generally balances their accounts. The scenes I have witnessed at the Macleay River, on these occasions surpass all description. Men and women, (for many of the sawyers have wives), lying day and night on the bare grass in a state of intoxication, and only recovering to renew their orgies; casks broken in, and the contents passed round in buckets; men fighting; native blacks, who have been supplied with liquor, yelling and screeching like demons, under the influence of alcohol.
‘Australia from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay’, T & W Boone, London, 1845, in John
McPhee (ed.), Red Cedar in Australia, Historic Houses Trust, Sydney, 2004
Keith C. Hofmaier
1976
I remember the happy times when the settlers and Beulah were both young and tough – when it was usual for boys in their early teens to be up at 5 a.m., to water, feed and groom a dozen or so horses, and have the plough on the move at sunrise. With seven horses abreast and a five-furrow plough, five acres was a fair day’s work; but for sustained misery nothing compared with tramping in a cloud of dust behind a set of harrows from sunrise to sunset.
Those were the days of the five-foot stripper drawn by three horses. When the teeth of the stripper comb got blocked with pulled-up stalks, it was a case of stopping to clear it, or to use a chokecutter. My chokecutter was a bit of saw blade fixed to the end of a long pole and it was whacko when it went into the beaters!
You picked a bit of hard ground in the stubble and emptied the stripper there, making a heap to be hand winnowed later. Old Nick himself must have invented the hand-winnower. After a few weeks turning the handle of this contraption from morning to night, often at temperatures of 100 deg. F. in the shade, you were only dry hide and bone. Whenever the wind changed you had to drag the winnower around the heap to a new position. It was backbreaking, prickly work and pure slavery.
Superphosphate was not used when sowing those days and the grain was broadcast by a small mechanical seedsower, used only on calm days. The broadcasted grain was then covered by harrowing before the galahs got too much of it.
Wages for a farmhand were 30/- and keep for a six-day week, and you slept in a stripper-box down at the stable. Cornsacks, four-bushel size, were 6d. each; hanks of sewing twine and balls of binder twine a bit more. A haircut or shave was 6d., a pair of boots 2/6, a pair of moleskin pants 2/6 – and you could treat your best girl to a night out for half a crown.
Mallee Memories: The Folk History of Beulah & District, Warracknebeal Herald, 1976
W. H. C. Holmes
1920
Perhaps the most anxious time of the year for the early pioneer lay between the finish of the scrub cutting, usually about Christmas time, and the time for “the burn”. For the first ten or fifteen years of South Gippsland’s history the yearly “burn” was the all-important event of the year to the selector. After months of incessant toil with the axe with anything from 20 to 100 acres of scrub awaiting a favourable day for burning, how eagerly and anxiously did he weigh the chances of each hot day after the middle of January. With a solid wall of timber from 60 to 300 feet high, the wind had not much chance to penetrate and lend a hand in drying up the sodden and rotten vegetation, which lay next to and mixed up with the surface soil, which was covered over by many feet deep of timber, and although the sun poured down in the hot Summer months with a fierce heat, still there were some years when there was not a sufficient number of consecutive dry days to ensure a good clean burn, and I have known several years when there was not one really good burning day during the whole of the Summer, and many settlers, rather than risk a bad burn, have kept putting off burning, in the hope of eventually getting a favourable day, and finally have had to postpone until the following Summer. This, of course, entailed serious loss, as there was the loss of the area cut for the whole season, and the carrying forward for another year also meant additional labour, as undergrowth, such as dogwood, wiregrass, swordgrass, musk and firewood made a prolific growth in the following Spring, and it was necessary to have this new growth slashed down several chains wide all round the fringe of the scrub to ensure getting the fire to travel, as most of the leaves and paper-bark, which existed the first year, and which was such an important factor in carrying the fire, would have disappeared, and unless there is a good strong hot wind, it is difficult to fire a burn the second year. Under normal conditions, however, a week or ten days of dry weather in the middle of January would be ample reason for the settler becoming restless, at dinner-time particularly. He knew that, soon after one o’clock, if any of his neighbours were lighting, the smoke would be seen as evidence; and, even should the wind carry the smoke in a direction that precluded the possibility of seeing it, the roar of the fire would proclaim the fact that “So-and-so’s burn” is alight. Upon the question of “burning day”, there was an unwritten law that was rarely transgressed, during the pioneering days at any rate, and it was that when a settler made up his mind to burn he hastened to his immediate neighbours and informed them of the fact. The necessity for this arose from the fact that for many years each settler would have a burn, small or large as the case might be, each year. Sometimes the areas would be adjoining, in which case the owners would consult together; or, if a little distance apart, there might be some risk, if one only wanted to burn, that the other would have to take steps to light his also, should a change of wind or other circumstances arise, causing his burn to be in danger of being lit accidentally. Having been notified, he would stay handy, and if there was much risk of ignition, would proceed to fire his own burn before it got too late in the day, it being generally recognised that to ensure a good burn of any considerable area of scrub it should be lighted not later than 3 p.m., and generally between 1 and 2 p.m. was the usual time. Occasionally a good burn has been secured in hazel country when burnt accidentally at night time, but such a circumstance would be very exceptional.
Lighting a “burn” is quite an exciting operation, and if a large area had to be fired the neighbours would be requisitioned to help. They would be told off, either singly or in pairs, to the various corners or angles, and each, at a signal – generally the first smoke – would start to light; and by using leaves, paper-bark or other such material, start fires, say every half-chain, until the line was completed, and the point reached where the next man had started lighting; and by this means a complete circle of fire made around the “burn”. Paper-bark from the blackbutt and blue gum trees was generally used for torches, and as it was very plentiful, light, and in long lengths, could be doubled up into four or five thicknesses, and one torch would last long enough to make perhaps a dozen different lights. It presumably got its name from the fact that it was very thin, and nearly always curled around like a roll of paper, and this roll was the natural home of the numberless big, sprawling, hairy-legged tarantulas so common to the bush. Naturally, when one held the end of the bundle of bark in the fire to light it, these tarantulas would skurry along through the pipe and up the bare arm of the person holding the bark – not in a spirit of resentment or retaliation, but anywhere to get away from the smoke and fire. These spiders were my pet aversion; yet I have known and seen men pick up a tarantula with a body as large as a small teaspoon, and long hairy legs that would easily spread over the palm of a good sized hand, and allow it to crawl up his arms, around his neck, and over his face. Ugh! the horror of it makes me feel creepy while I
write, even in my old age, and, plentiful as they were, particularly at burning time, I could never get used to them.
Although nearly 40 years have elapsed since my first experience of scrub lighting, yet some of the incidents were so burned in upon my memory and my fingers, that they are almost as vivid today as they were upon that occasion.
Once the fire had encircled the “burn”, nothing more could be done to assist the operation, and no one thought of starting any other job while the result was in the balance, and all hands settled down to watch, drink tea and speculate on the possibilities – and the progress of a scrub-fire in South Gippsland is a spectacle that for awful grandeur beggars description. I have seen many pyrotechnical displays by world famous men, and I have also around the coasts of Australia and New Zealand experienced tempests of wind and water, such as I hope never to experience again, but I have never yet seen anything to equal the warring of the elements of fire and wind as has so often been seen by the pioneers of South Gippsland during the progress of a scrub-fire or “burn”. What an endless variety of colour is there in the rolling, tumbling, surging and seething masses of smoke; and what a diversity of sound, with the roar of the wind developed by the fire!
The roar of the fire itself, the incessant crackling of the wire and swordgrass, the fizz and splutter of the gas in the green twigs, the occasional loud report of a bursting sandstone boulder, the prolonged crashing of a big green falling tree, the heavy thud of a huge dry stump, the belching roar of a great hollow dry tree that is pumping volumes of flame and smoke from a dozen or more portholes between its root and the topmost limit – and over all and everything, as far as the eye can reach, that weird, eerie, livid, yellowish-green hue, giving all around a most unearthly appearance, the face of the sun appearing like a great dull copper disc – would suggest to the uninitiated that the last days were at hand.
The Land of the Lyre Bird: A Story of Early Settlement in the Great Forest of South
Gippsland, published by Gordon and Gotch for the Committee of the
South Gippsland Pioneers Association, 1920
Ion Idriess
1932
The Lurking Terror
It was just at sundown. My bank of the river was lined with dark green scrub, while opposite, the water mirrored the graceful palms. Behind me the hills rose steeply right from the water’s edge. From the black falls up-river a murmurous volume of sound rolled down. I carried no rifle, for Charlie had taken it pig-shooting with the natives, and the Pierce brothers had taken theirs into the bush seeking a beast. Norman was miles away down the river.
I pushed out from the shrubbery on to a jutting ledge of rock where the water looked dark and deep, an ideal fishing-pool. At a sharp hoof-click against a stone I looked across the water and saw the little roan filly coming down through the solitary scrub-patch opposite. Cattle had broken a pad through the undergrowth there to the one shallow waterhole, and along this came the filly, her steps hesitant, ears twitching nervously, nostrils distended. She edged down the sloping bank but stood well back from the water’s edge, peering in big-eyed anxiety. It looked an innocent pool and was a favourite drinking place of cattle. But the filly was timid: perhaps she had received a fright there. She advanced a step with lowered head, peering into the water. Though the water was shallow the bank appeared just a little undermined.
At last the filly ventured, evidently thirsty. Standing well back she stretched her muzzle to the water. Even then she did not drink; fearfully she stared, her nostrils quivering, ready to bound away. Finally she drank, slowly at first, then deeply, at last in gulping confidence. The long snout of Big-nose thrust up, and, gripping her nose, almost dragged her straight in with that first wrenching pull; An awful, struggle followed as she wrenched back against the weight of the alligator, her eyes bulging, her body arched as she strove to lever herself backwards. Her hooves crunched the bark from the roots, her tail wedged between her legs, and her mane ruffled stiffly in terror. Those fangs buried in her nose choked every whimper. Her muscles tautened violently, her ribs stood out as she wrenched in frantic straining. With convulsive strength she almost lifted the brute from the water. His massive grey back and chest was a hideous weight as his claws sank into her shoulders ripping the flesh to ribbons; then his bulk thumped back with a splashing whouff! whouff! as he used his weight while wrenching his head as a dog does when dragging a wallaby to the ground. Back-paddling, tugging with his snout, swirling his tail for leverage he twisted her head to the very roots while both made coughing, gasping, wheezing sounds. Under that awful strain she grew appreciably smaller, shrank within herself. As inch by straining inch she began to give way, her struggles grew all the more terrible, her slipping hooves wedged deeper between the roots.
Foiled in that swift pull, he tried to drag her muzzle under. He could breathe with his mouth full of muddy water; hers was crushed in his snout. He thrust her back upon her haunches as his chest heaved upwards only to surge back, then heave up and wrench down again. I hurled stones in a shouting helplessness as bitter as that terrible fight opposite. As the filly weakened her body nearly overbalanced, her straining legs appeared ready to snap. Then he swirled his bulk almost side on and tugged as his gorilla-like forepaws snatched at the bank for leverage while his great tail whipped up over the bank. The hammer-like blow echoed as the broken-legged filly came tumbling into the river. Even then she struggled in choking agony against being dragged under, while his submerged body clawed and tailed its way backwards along the bottom. Presently only the hind-quarters of the filly were visible, wobbling in feeble tremblings. In deep water his weight dragged her down to the depths.
Men of the Jungle (1932) in Gems from Ion Idriess,
Angus & Roberston, Sydney, 1949
Yallum Jackey
1898
The Fram was always used with the Bombomert for snaring different kinds of Birds. It consisted of a long Slender Stick about 15 feet long with a noose made from the nangrow, or grass. Some times sinues obtainable on the end of this Stick, a werat, a native name for noose.
I have seen a blackfellow climb up a gum tree with the Bombomert in his teeth and with the Fram with a noose on the end of it. As soon as he got to a certain distance of the Parrot, He would put the noose over the Parrot head, and very often the P would bite it in two. [sic] That would necessitate him getting down and making a Second attempt.
I also saw him catch a Shag. I said to him, ‘You can not catch that Bird.’
He then went to work and began to pull a lot of grass or bush or whatever was near or just large enough to cover him from been seen by the Shag.
He then laid the stick across and left 2 holes for his eyes, and a piece to catch in his mouth. He then would crawl along dragging the Fram. Should the Bird seem suspicious and look up, he would stop then waiting for the Bird attention to be taken up feeding, he would make two or three strides, then he would halt, waiting very patiently for the next chance. He continued so until he got within reach of the Bird. He looked around at me and made one blow and killed him.
The usual way they used to catch Ducks was to go in the water half way up their body and then stand with the Fram with the noose on it. Slip it over the Duck head, twist it round and round, then pull him along and twist his neck in his teeth, then proceed the same way.
This is the way they would catch the Black Magpie, native name Gillen. The Black fellow would watch where these Birds had a habit of alighting on the trees. Then he would make a Mimia, or covering at the foot of this particular tree, and wait patiently until a bird would come. He would quietly reach up the Fram with the noose on it, slip it over his neck. He would then begin to scream, which would attract other Birds, they meeting with the same Fate.
This another way the natives used to kill the Wild Turkeys. First of all they would make a fire in the Bush where the Wild Turkey used to frequent – not exactly a fire. But a Smook. This always attracts the Birds as it has some think to do in bringing about the Insects.
The blackfellow would plant himself behind a bush and then he would make a Mock Moth with a bit of Grass, and put it on the end of long stick. The Turkeys are very inquisitive Birds and they would gradually come nearer and nearer, almost close up the Smook. He would then throw this Moth which the Turkey would try and catch. The blackfellow would hit him on the head, or perhaps catch him and kill him.
‘Werrieutinna – Chief of the Pinejunga Tribe and Yallum Kitty – his Wife’
(as told to Mrs Jessie Davidson in 1898) in Margaret Muller, Penola Historical
Selections, Volume VI, Penola Branch National Trust, Penola, SA, 2003
Dianne Johnson
1998
The night sky was not an unusual topic in narratives or myth cycles. It was an extension or specific elaboration of the landscape, deemed especially significant in places because many of the creative ancestral beings, having performed or enacted their dramas on earth, had withdrawn to the sky and were believed to be eternally represented there. However, sky-residing ancestral beings were intrinsically linked to earthly forms and vice versa.
Many of the narratives recorded actual events or activities, large and small, routine and extraordinary. Each area, clan and language group had its own, albeit interconnected, sets or cycles of narratives, each with its own songs, dances, rituals, art and decoration. So the stories that have survived and made their way into modern literary forms are but a few, not unlike fragmentary parchment papers long dispersed from ancient texts. They are parts of larger narrative cycles that sought not only to describe and record, but also to inspire, torment and comfort. They gave meaning, passion and significance to each and every life and life-form. They acted as analogy, parable and metaphor, their symbolic meanings changing, re-charging and re-forming with different contexts and settings. According to American cosmologist Harrison, ‘myths come to us as a legacy of priceless gems prized from their cosmic settings. Usually a myth has been recut and remounted more than once in the course of time. A full understanding of myth requires the reconstruction of the universe in which it originated, even of the intermediate universes that modified and transmitted it, and an accurate interpretation is rarely if ever possible.’