It was that special part of the evening, early but still. No breeze blew amongst the
green eucalypt trees nor whispered through the dry, yellowing speargrass.
Not burnt this year. No renewal by fire for this piece of country. Not its turn.
There was a hushed feeling pervading the landscape, occasionally broken by the
choked-off gargle of a blue-winged kookaburra in the distant trees, echoing in the silence.
He could smell the smoke from the communal fire as it drifted slowly uphill; there
was just a hint of conversation in it. Peace. A joining with this unspoilt country.
The Spirits were strong in it still.
In front of him the land fell away gradually, its sparse trees slowly thickening as the
slope descended, until they merged imperceptibly with the bush down below, in shadow
for many flat kilometres. Suddenly, in the distance, there was a blaze of red-orange light
from the walls of the escarpment opposite as the sun dipped lower in the sky. Lightning
Rocks, two prominences melding together in the reflected, setting sun, almost throbbing
with the changing colours, yellows, oranges and soon he knew, red.
His favourite.
Lightening Rocks, proudly standing higher than the rest of the escarpment, giving
the impression of strength and endurance. They were part of the story of this land. To the
north of him, opposite Lightning Rocks, rising from the wide, scrub covered valley, stood
Nouralangie Rock, a Mecca for tourists throughout the dry season. He had been around
the back of Nouralangie Rock early this morning at Nanguluwur Gallery, long before the
first tourists showed up. Jamie, his friend and mentor, introduced him to the galleries of
Aboriginal art painted on the walls of the rock shelters there. They spoke of long
occupation. Jamie had told him the stories of some of the pictures. There was Namandi,
drawn in outline, a spirit woman with two dilly bags. Enough room to carry away a victim’s
heart, liver, lungs and kidneys. There were other spirit women painted amongst the many
images, some Mimi’s and even a picture of a sailing ship, from the contact period, rendered
in white ochre.
The sun descended slowly and the black line of shadow gradually crawled up the
Lightening Rocks. Alan’s shoulders hurt where the three traditional cuts had been made
on each one during his initiation ceremony earlier in the day. Rubbing ash into the cuts
had stung. It was necessary to make them heal rigidly cicatrised. He had not shown pain at
the cutting and it took control to do that. He was proud of what he had learned in the last
two years and was now an accepted member of the Tribe.
Looking down, he was still a bit suprised to see his light colored legs. No amount of
suntan could cover the fact that he was white, it was just that he hadn’t seen white legs
much lately. All the new initiates, including him, were required to be sequestered before
the initiation ceremony and all bar him were the younger teenage boys of the tribe.
Hopefully, they were all about to become men. A few gave him a bit of a hard time initially
but not for long, it would be disrespectful towards an older person and besides, the
youngsters were too worried about the coming ceremony to keep it up.
In the last few days leading up to his initiation Alan found himself thinking more
and more about the life that brought him here; the twists and turns that led inexorably to
this point in time, standing here opposite Lightening Rocks with tribal initiation marks
