_ .. _ ~h •• _ _.

u
.
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along; there are: about as many of them as a man can co~ '--
on the fingers of both hands. While the visiton; cut their way
through dense forest Marngir told them that on his way inland
his ance:ston gathered a pile of wood and leaves and trIed to
make a ncst. A monsoon storm sem after him by jambawal
brought torrential rain, the water washed away the ncst and
scattered the eggs throughout tbe plain. The eggs turned into
billabongs.
uta on, when be bad moved deeper inland, Baru laid
another clutch of eggs. 'Our tribal people hatched from them,'
Marngit told the surveyors, 'ever since: those mythical times
humans have been harassed by ]ambawal's gab and lightning
as much as Bam w3S~' The whites tOPped. up his cup of tea
with Bacardi and told him that with the smell of rum about
no malignant spirit would ever be seen again. Th~y asked
Mizrngir to call in his Otha tribesmen to the camp for a cuppa.
Marllgir explained that he was the only one left of the DaTU
people. The last monsoon hit the country so badly me people,
fearingmey might be washed 2way to sea, turned intO trees
to stay holding on to me land. 'Look. thcy're ~e:rywbm:
around w.' He told the whltcs that from one end of the country
to the: other each of the ua:s is a buman 2fr2id of the storm.
Since the: uecs could DOt walk the whin;;;: lcindly offered to
take their mapc cure against storm, wind and cold, to them.
They loaded a e:onsignment of BaC2!di on a helicopter and
flying over the gcee:n canopy below, sprinkled: 2 drink on each
tree SO th2t it would grow stronger and hold finn against
monsoons.
MaJ71gir died nOt long after his visitors left and the name
of his countrY appeared on the Stoclc. Exchange to tell the world
of the vast resources of woodchips and timber to be h2I'Vested
•

MARNGIT
I from the monsoon-saturated bush. The old healer turned inte
a tr~ sprung from a pile of hanles the whites left behind at
their surveying camp site. Th2t W2S only for a while though;
as the: bulldou:rs moved in they uprooted and pushed him intO
~. WQ1'o46A.-. the river. It 2ppeared at first that the water might be wer
the land; Marngir pleaded to his man, to change himJnto Baru.
than

WHEN WHm SURVEYORS came to the bush no-one

seemed to know how vast was baru, Crocodile People Country; Being a crocodile he cOl,lld move downstream 2nd hide: in
even Marngit the tribal healer felt confused when it came to estuary swamps eovered with layers of crushed wood and bark
the local boundaries. The land stretched hom the seashore floating on the surface. He hoped that after the: whites had
inland toward distant ranges as far as monsoons could venture:. cut down the l:ast tree: they would leave the bare land and then f
Through it flowed bow/ll'U1, river, meandering over the long if you walked into the COUntry and laid a dutch of eggs, man
alluvial plain tOward mangrove swamps: 'It follows the way and planu would come: back again.
of mari, tribal ancescon,' (ht:y told the whites.
The wbites boiled their billy on the campfire and handed
Marngir a cup of lca wjth a lump of sugar. They showed him
a map, crying 10 explain that the country lies according to a
ceruin longirude, the word and the number of which meant
nothing to tbe tribal healer. He believed that tbe land, SCaI
on tbe paper must belong to someone else and not him; bowana
wu his though. 'It marlu the way our mati travelled inland.'
The whites poured him another cup of tea and told him to
take as many biscu.iu as he liked.. They stuck. a white peg near
the river bank lind fuer left behind a wbole line of them as
they moved upstream across the plain. Mtzmgic thought the
pegs were merdy a mark to find your way back to amp wben
you go through dense: forest. He told the whites bow during
won:ar. beginning of the world, his tribal ancc:s(Or Bmv,
. aocodile, was chased from the mangrove swamps inland by
jamb:zwal, the thunder man, with his lightning spc:ar. The
aneator, badl)' wounded in a hind kg, moved through the: plain
with the bc:lp of hiS tail, thrusting it Idt and rigbt. Those tail
marks later tumed intO water bands as the riVO' meandered