A Single Tree Read online

  Myths, like the people who inhabit them, also belonged to the environment or country from which they came. David Lewis describes how he became aware of this: ‘Travelling with Loritja (Luritja) in their own country . . . practically every place had its Dreaming, its story, its associated subsections and appropriate ceremonials. Most rock formations and waters were stations on long mythological tracks. With Wintinna Mick in the Simpson Desert the position differed only in that his people had migrated eastward comparatively recently into what was, properly speaking, Aranda and Arabana country. He was reluctant to tell me the myths, and I find his choice of words revealing: I am Antikarinya. The stories belong to the Aranda and Arabana country (Lewis’ emphasis). In other words, the myths were an integral part of the landscape itself.’

  Night Skies of Aboriginal Australia: A Noctuary,

  Oceania Monograph 47, University of Sydney, 1998

  Murray Johnson

  2002

  In February 1929 the Amiens soldier settler, D.T. Swan, tried a novel approach to farming when he managed to aquire and fence just over forty-eight hectares of land for the purpose of breeding possums. The marsupial fur trade was of some importance to the Queensland economy during the 1920s, and also had the advantage of alleviating rural unemployment. Notwithstanding that a four-week open season on koalas in August 1927 had seriously damaged the government’s credibility in the eyes of the general electorate, the trapping of possums continued intermittently. Swan’s venture was therefore a sensible alternative to indiscrimate slaughter, and he expected to earn in the vicinity of forty pounds per hectare annually from selective breeding and culling.

  Honour Denied: A Study of Soldier Settlement in Queensland,

  Ph.D thesis, University of Queensland, 2002

  Frederic Wood Jones

  1923

  (1) Toolach Wallaby, Grey’s Wallaby.

  WALLABIA GREYI (GRAY, WATERHOUSE, 1846)

  Probably the most beautiful and elegant of all the wallabies, and very markedly distinct from every other form. Distinguished at once by its bold face markings, its banded hinder dorsal region, and its general grey fawn colouration. In general build it is light and elegant; in general colour a fine pale grey admixed with fawn. The coat is thick and rather woolly, the fur, especially over the lower portion of the back, having a somewhat crimped appearance. The face is boldly marked, a dark stripe running as a whisker mark from the muzzle to the lower border of the eye and beyond as a narrow tongue towards the ear. The muzzle, dorsal to the dark cheek stripe, is grey, changing to fawn on the crown of the head and at the base of the ears. Below the dark cheek stripe the upper lip is pale, almost white, the pale area extending past the eye and towards the ear, and then curving dorsally to form an almost white patch above the eye. The crown of the head, neck, and shoulders are delicate fawn. The ears are large and fawn coloured, both within and without. The region of the shoulder and upper part of the fore limb grey. Fore arm pale-fawn, the digits themselves being dark, almost black, in colour. The hind limb grey, with a not very well defined paler hip bar. The lower part of the hind limb pale-fawn, the digits being dark. The dorsal surface of the body fawn as far as the shoulders, and from there caudad, becoming more distinctly grey. From a point somewhat in front of the costal margin to the root of the tail the back is distinctly banded (though the bands are not equally conspicuous in all lights) with alternate bars of lighter and darker grey. These bars are marked not only by their colour, but by the texture of the fur, and as a rule some ten or twelve bands may be detected. The ventral surface is pale fawn, this colour extending to the front of the hip, anterior to the pale hip bar. The tail is pale grey, and it becomes distinctly paler towards its tip.

  The skull cannot be confused with that of any other wallaby when regard is paid to its general form and its remarkably small second and third incisor teeth. The brain case is small, and relatively the nasal portion of the skull is excessively large. The nasal bones are broad and much expanded behind. The interorbital region is very broad, parallel sided, and with sharply angulated margins. All the teeth, with the exception of the first upper incisor, are extremely small; the second and third incisors are minute when comparison is made with the skull of any other wallaby which attains anything like the same general size.

  The Toolach has always been confined to the South-eastern portion of South Australia. Since the animal is such a very distinct one, and an inhabitant of open country, it has for very many years been particularly well known, and many people can remember the time when Toolaches swarmed in the neighbourhood of Kingston. Being by far the fleetest of all the wallabies, its chase was at one time a very popular form of sport, and its beautiful pelts have been marketed in very large numbers in the salerooms of Melbourne. Its mode of progression, as well as its distinctive face markings, rendered it easy to recognise, since it had the peculiarity of taking two short hops and one long one. It is not correct to say that this very fine and distinctly South Australian Wallaby is extinct, for at the present moment five or six individuals still exist. Any effort to preserve this remnant must be made immediately and with vigour if it is to be of any service whatever.

  The Mammals of South Australia, Govt Printer, Adelaide, 1923

  Paul Kane

  2008

  On the volcano

  The brown snake swished away from under

  the steps, startled by my tromping down.

  To be fearless here is foolish,

  so I watch my step in the stony paddock.

  That same day, when I drove up the drive,

  there was a conference of magpies

  by the deck – dozens in fact – no doubt

  discussing the brown snake’s arrival.

  If only I could have listened in, I’d have

  been the wiser for it. But they flew or hopped

  away and I was left to my own devices.

  Now, hawks ply the insinuating updrafts –

  I wouldn’t want to be a rodent on this

  mountain, or anything low on the food chain.

  We live among elements, any one of which

  could take us in a moment.

  A Slant of Light,

  Whitmore Press, Geelong, 2008

  Thomas Keneally

  1967

  ‘We are castaways,’ Halloran told Ann. ‘The law is made for us. They are then as truly married . . .’

  There was joy in seeing an older, craftier theology triumphing over Mrs Blythe’s blunt and callow one. Yet this was not the motive behind Halloran’s secret marriage. To penetrate his reasons, Ann’s reasons, it has to be explained that in this region were woods and hills and water, yet that they were somehow far too open to a bland, immense and oriental sky. Those who lived here felt that they lived in a desert. In civilized parts, people formed unions for subtle reasons; but in a desert, they united to ward off oblivion. The secret marriage of Ann Rush and Halloran was an attempt at warding off oblivion. It was a pledge by each other to each other’s survival. It was an attempt to earn pity or leniency from the providence, sultan-wise, sultan-cool, who watched them from the far side of the nightly lattice of stars.

  Bring Larks and Heroes (1967),

  Text Publishing, Melbourne, 2012

  A. S. Kenyon

  1929

  Yelta Station Vic., 1860

  The following list of articles supplied the Yelta Station in 1860 and 1861 shows a considerable amount of thought and attention to detail for aboriginal wants: 13/ 10/ 60; 90 pairs trousers, 500 yards print, 500 yards calico, 50 pairs blankets, 2 cross-cut saws, 2 cwt. assorted nails, 1 dozen spades, 3 assorted rakes, 2 pairs maul rings, 1 dozen assorted wedges, 2 hand-saws, 4 oz. Dover’s powders, 28 lbs. Epsom salts, 1 lb. senna, 4 bottles of liniment for rheumatism, 1-lb. pill in lump for coughs, 5 lbs. mustard, 2 lbs. linseed meal, 6 yards adhesive plaster, 1 lb. bluestone, 1 lb. tow, 15 yards linen for bandages, scales and weights for medicine and box for same, 3,000 lbs. flour, 1,000 lbs. sugar, 200 lbs. tea, 100 lbs.
soap, 200 lbs. tobacco. 26/11/61–2 tons of flour, 10 cwt. sugar, 1 chest tea, 56 lbs. tobacco. 16/3/61–2 tons fiour, 1 chest tea, ½ ton sugar, ½ ton rice, 3 cwt. soap, 2 cwt. oatmeal, 1 box pipes, 1 gross knives, 1 gross combs, 1 gross looking-glasses, 2 cwt. seine twine, 1 cwt. fishing lines, 500 fish hooks, 150 blankets. Men’s—8 dozen cotton shirts, 11 dozen woollen guernseys, 4 dozen red serge shirts, 2 dozen blue serge shirts, 2 dozen waistcoats, 2 dozen coats, 6 dozen felt hats, 12 dozen cotton handkercbiefs. Boys- 3 dozen cotton shirts, 2 dozen woollen guernseys, 2 dozen red serge shirts, 2 dozen moleskin trousers, 2 dozen jackets, 3 dozen men’s blucher boots, 2 dozen boys’ blucher boots, 3 dozen women’s and girls’ boots. Women—3 dozen red serge petticoats, 100 yards flannel for petticoats, 100 yards red serge ditto, 3 dozen woollen polka jackets, 3 lbs. assorted thread, 3 dozen white cotton thread, 4 dozen brown and black cotton thread, 1 gross assorted broad tape, 2 dozen assorted thimbles, 4 oz. sulphate zinc, 1 lb. washed flowers of sulphur, 16 ozs. tinct. arnica, 4 ozs. tinct. arnica, l oz. tinct. belladonna, 4 ozs. tincturis sulphuris, 3 American felling axes, 12 handles. The Aborigines Board, just recently appointed, viewed this collection with grave displeasure, and the inclusion in the succeeding six months of six cricket bats and three cricket balls proved the last straw. A stern ukase was issued that no more such frivolous things were to issue.

  ‘The Story of the Mallee’,

  Victorian Historical Magazine, Melbourne, 1929

  A. S. Kenyon and R. V. Billis

  1930

  The washing-up process had commenced in earnest. Besides the usual initial difficulties always associated with pioneering enterprise, these colonists seemed to have their special trials and tribulations. No sooner had they overcome one problem than another crossed their path, and when numbers of sheep had increased, the embarrassing surplus caused the greatest anxiety of all. Then the experiments of Wentworth, and the actual practice of Henry O’Brien of Jugiong, pioneer squatter and harrier of bush-rangers in the Middle District, demonstrated that surplus sheep hitherto unsaleable could be boiled or melted down, yielding fat, wool and tallow worth on the average 7 /- a head. That was in 1843. Shortly afterwards Bolden and Ryrie at the Saltwater Creek at Port Fairy, Dr. Thomson at Geelong, the Learmonths at Buninyong, the Palmers to the west and many others had boiling-down establishments in full swing, until instead of selling up all the flocks and herds in the colony, it looked for a time as though they might be boiled up. The Learmonths, faced with the problem of disposing of the bouillon resulting from the process – a most objectionable form of soup – solved it by using the liquid to irrigate and fertilise at the same time the plain country adjacent.

  Some of the boiling-down works were capable of treating more than a thousand sheep a day. Old ewes were considered more valuable for treatment than wethers, and old cows than bullocks. The average live weight of an old ewe in those days was about 56 lbs., and the tallow yield averaged 23 lbs. The value per lb. of tallow of fair average quality was about 3d. at the works, so the yield would be roughly 5/9 for each animal. In addition the legs, which were not treated, were worth about 2/-; the wool, which was stripped off the skins, washed and bagged, would bring something like 1/6, and there was a trifle for bones. The result was that a sheep which was valueless before realised from 8/- to 9/6, less expense of treatment, which averaged about 1/3 an animal. Cattle also were treated. Ten head of fat cattle produced on the average a ton of tallow.

  Pastures New: An Account of the Pastoral Occupation of Port Phillip,

  Stockland Press, Melbourne, 1974

  Margaret Kiddle

  1961

  Scarcely any record of how the aborigines regarded the invasion and desecration of their country survives because they found their grief impossible to express in the English tongue. Yet, though they died their voices still sound in native place names: Condah, Konongwootong, the Wannon – the soft syllables are a memory of the people who loved the country and lived in harmony with it before the white men came. Even if far more forbearance and kindness had been shown them, the end would have been the same. The avowed purpose of the squatters was to establish themselves in the new country. Nothing could be allowed to stand in its way.

  Niel Black is an example of a settler who sometimes questioned the standards of his time. But, determined to succeed, he conformed to colonial practice. Though he might doubt, in time he convinced himself of his own righteousness. These Presbyterians honestly believed themselves God’s chosen and that unshakeable belief was one of the factors making for their success. It was not long before worldly prosperity, the symbol of virtue, became of over-mastering importance. Black illustrates how Calvinist doctrines could be accommodated to capitalist practice. In one of his letters he told his much-instructed nephew:

  The extent of your usefulness will be the exact measure of friendship bestowed upon you. If your success surpasses that of others in the same proportion will the friendship of those benefiting by it be increased towards you. This will ultimately be the test by which you will be tried and I hope you will obtain a good price for the fat Cattle this year . . .

  These instructions are reminiscent of those given by John Hull, greatest Boston merchant of the mid-seventeenth century, to his ship captains:

  ‘Leave no debts behind you wherever you goe . . . but indeed it is hard to forsee what will be and therefore it is best to be willing to submit to the great governing hand of the great Governor of all the greater and lesser revolutions that wee the poor sons of men are involved in by the invoyce you see the whole amounteth to £405-16-3.’

  But there is a difference. John Hull, a son of his century, was still much concerned with ‘the great Governor’. Niel Black, a son of his, was concerned with the world’s judgment.

  Nevertheless there were a very few who cared much less for worldly success and maintained their first integrity in this raw world. John Robertson was a man of outstanding honesty and humanity. He had no compelling desire to reap rich profits or control a squatting empire. From the beginning he intended simply to make a home for himself. Though the records are incomplete, the indications are that Samuel Winter also was not less considerate of his fellow colonists than he was of the Wannon blacks. And there are others, Lauchlan MacKinnon amongst them, who set principle clearly above profit. But the exceptions serve only to underline the prevailing mode of behaviour.

  The standard of conduct of this time was established by both masters and men, and it was to be faithfully followed throughout the lifetimes of the first settlers. Lacking capital and usually lacking the strength to succeed, the station hands were not concerned with the pursuit of profit. Their corporate spirit developed partly because they were alone in the bush, partly because of the lack of women, but probably even more as a defence against their masters. It was fostered by the jealous dislike and suspicion of those not of their class which was felt by nearly all who lived in the small colonial world. Yet the spirit of mateship being created at this time had in it nobility as well as class intolerance. And though many of the men were cowardly there were a few as courageous as some of their masters. The bullock drivers, the sawyers and splitters, the ruffianly shearers of independent spirit had the courage rightly regarded as the chief pioneer virtue.

  It is this dogged courage which often transfigures the story of these years; the stubborn fortitude of those who led the way in settlement, deliberately choosing a life of hardship in hope of future fortune. They were men of their time and of their environment. To-day we may judge their purpose selfish but, right or wrong, those who succeeded pursued it with a tenacity which commands admiration. Their success was never accidental. Luck sometimes favoured them but the men of capital who established themselves had the intelligence, many of them the ruthlessness, all the courage, which were the basic qualities necessary for the frontier environment.

  Men of Yesterday, A Social History of the Western District of Victoria, 1834–1890,

  Melbourne University Press, 1961

&nb
sp; John Kinsella

  2003

  Chainsaw

  The seared flesh of wood, cut

  to a polish, deceives: the rip and tear

  of the chain, its rapid cycling

  a covering up of raw savagery.

  It is not just machine. In the blur

  of its action, its guttural roar,

  it hides the malice of organics.

  Cybernetic, empirical, absolutist.

  The separation of Church and state,

  conspiracies against the environmental

  lobby, enforcement of fear, are at the core

  of its modus operandi. The cut of softwood

  is deceptive, hardwood dramatic: just

  before dark on a chill evening

  the sparks rain out – dirty wood,

  hollowed by termites, their digested

  sand deposits, capillaried highways

  imploded: the chainsaw effect.

  It is not subtle. It is not ambient.

  It is trans nothing. A clogged airfilter

  has it sucking up more juice –

  it gargles, floods, chokes

  into silence. Sawdust dresses boots,

  jeans, the field. Gradually

  the paddock is cleared, the wood

  stacked in cords along the lounge-room wall.