Towradgi *Australia Aboriginal Story*

Towradgi was old. She was so old, no one remembered that there was once a time when she had been young. Her hair was the colour of the clouds; her skin, stretched tightly over ageing bones and criss-crossed with lines, was dark like the bark of a tree seared by fire. But, just as these ancient gum trees sprout new leaves because the devastation of the fire cannot destroy their spirit, and the life deep within, so there was under Towradgi's gnarled and time-toughened surface a great strength, and the resilience of youth. Across her upper arms and above her body cicatrices showed that she had been through the Law; she was a woman elder of the Nyari people. They had great power, these women elders. They had the knowledge that ws handed down from the Ancestors who walked the earth at the beginning of creation.

She sat on a fallen log by the river, her cape of possum skin wrapped around her, for it was the time of year when the days are short, and the air crisp and cool. Next to her was a coolamon filled with herbs. Not far from her two young girls were gathering reeds for basket making, and roots for food.

They were Towradgi's pupils. As they grew up they would learn from her many things; the use of herbs to cure pain and to heal wounds, to assist in childbirth, or to prevent conception. They would learn self-discipline, and the codes of conduct by which the people lived. They would learn about the mystery of creation, and their place in it. How much knowledge was given would depend on their ability to understand.

As Towradgi looked at Alinta, there was in her eyes, black like polished pebbles in their deep sockets a gleam of satisfaction and of pride; she knew that Alinta would one day be her successor among the people. One day, Towradgi herself would die. The day still seemed far away, but it would come. It would come at a time when Alinta, the Flame, had been prepared to carry the torch of wisdom and of knowledge so that it could be passedo n into the far distant future to those who would come after her.

It was peaceful down here by the river. A Murray cod was resting motionless in its home under a hollow log in the clear water, untroubled by the girls who were not here to catch fish. In the golden light of the autumn sun each blade of grass, each reed each leaf, stoof clearly, filled with the mystery of its own growing.

Behind the river flats huge mountain ash rose from a abundance of smaller trees and undergrowth and these, in turn, rose up between fallen and decaying logs and fallen branches which were covered in rich moss, and oozing moisture. Treeferns spread their quivering fronds into the rays of the sun that slanted between the eucalypts, and over small creeks and waterfalls.
High above Towradge a wedgetailed eagle drew his circles in the sky. Towradgi knew that he was there; without looking up, she sent her spirit to soar with him, so that she could see from above the land her people had held in trust since time began. It stretched further than the eye could see; on one side it was bordered by the ocean, on the other its boundary grew faint in a haze on the horizon. there were rolling hills and golden plains where at this time of day the kangaroos would come to graze. The rivers and lakes wer efull of fish, and their banks and shores teemed with waterbirds; there were grey herons and white cranes, there were wild ducks and pelicans, and countless others. Trees and shrubs bore wild berries, and there were nourishing roots and plants.

Many times Towradgi had moved through this land with her people - from camp to camp, following the seasons, singing to the Ancestors who had left many signs of their passing: rocks, rivers, waterholes and mountains, plces where their presence could be felt the moment one approached.

Soon Towradgi would take Alinta to one of them. Alinta, and her cousin Wonda. She would take them to the place that was sacred to the women. No men were allowed to set foot there. The time was coming when two girls would enter womanhood. She would take them to the place where many generations of Nyari women had shed their first blood, and where many would go in time to come.

Towradgi's eyes turned to the two girls, whose brown bodies were slim like the reeds they were gathering. They were dressed in skirts made of emu feathers, and their hair fell to their shoulders, wavy like running water. They were talking to each other, laughing and giggling quietly. Towradgi could hera their voices, clear and sweet, like the sound of birds.
And then a strange silence fell.

It was a silence no one could hear except Towradge. It was absolute. It cut her off from the world around her, singled her out as someone who had to know.

Towradgi sat, alert. A wind sprang up. It ran acorss the reeds and made them tremble. It grew, and tore at branches, so that they shook with tear. If swept across the water, and the water shivered.

Towradgi rose to her feet and listened. She listened to the wind. He often would talk to her, tell her when the rain was coming, warn her of men approaching from a different tribe searching of women to take back with them. He was the messenger of things to come.

But on this day, something was different.

This time there was a great fear in the wind himself. He came from a distant place, far beyond the land of Nyari people and the neighbouring nations, and he spoke of things to come that could not be explained because there were no words for them.

The girls had straightened, their eyes on their old teacher who now stood erect, her chin held high, her eyes wide open, seeing into another time. With every fibre of her being she was trying to understand the message of the wind. In her mind's eye, Towradgi saw Alinta. She was different. She was older, and her eyes and hair were dull, as if she were a shadow of herself. She was running, dragging behind her a small girl. It seemed she did not know where to run, where to hide. Their bodies were covered in something that was slapping like peeling skin; skin that was decayed, unclean.

Behind them was the sea, grey and cold. Great breakers hit the shore. Then Towradgi saw the Hunter: it seemed to her that he had come from the Country of the Dead; his skin was pale, the colour of pipe clay. No living man looked like that. He carried in his hands a stick and when he raised it to his eye there was a flash of lightning and the crack of thunder. The image blurred and Towradgi saw Alinta again, and once again she was a woman, not a child. She stood in a cloud of dust, as if there was a storm after a long drought, and her eyes were dark with rage. She spoke, but Towradgi couldn't understand what she said; she didn't know the words. Once more Towradgi saw the land from above, from where the eagle flies, and she saw with a great shock that the land itself had changed. Gaping holes were torn into the belly of the eart; gone were almost all the trees and the grass, and the many creatures that lived in them.Much of the warm soil was cut off from the sun by large slabs of smooth flat, stone. Huge rocks rose up from the hard ground, and she saw creatures were living in these rocks, like termites.

Towradgi, wise as she was, could not make sense of what she saw. All she knew that the wind spoke of impending devastation and chaos, and that great suffering was coming to the people.
Her eyes turned to Alinta who squatted on the ground beside Wonda. THeir eyes were on Towradgi, bewildered and frightened and awed by the old woman's strange expression.
The sun was about to set. In the bush the kookaburras began their deflant laughter. A chill was in the air. Soon night would come, and they had to hurry to the safety of their camp for it was dangerous to be in the bush after dark - a time when spirits were about, and when the earth itself could open up in front of you.

Towradgi felt a great wave of sorrow and compassion as she looked at the two young girls whose faces were full of innocence and youth. How could she protect them from what was to come? How could she give them strength that would help their spirits to survive in the lives ahead of them?

She beckoned with her bony hand, and the girls came closer. Then she scooped up a handful of dark river soil.

"Open you hands," she said.

She put the soil firmly into their palms, and then closed their fingers over it. When she spoke her voice was loud and harsh, as if she spoke to all the future generations, and was challenging what was to come.

"Feel this earth,'' she said, "It is your flesh, your blood, your sinews. You are the earth, and the earth is you. Your ancestors were made from this earth, and this earth is sacred. What ever happens, remember that."

- By : Hyllus Mris and Sonia Borg