Blackfellow Bundi, a native Australian boy

Front matter

BLACKFELLOW BUNDI

* z 4 Native Australian Boy

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Chapter I A HOMESICK LITTLE BOY

M ANY stars shone. The heat of the day still hovered over the Australian plains, but little gusts of cool air chased each other among the gray-green saltbush. They played between some little gunyahs , or huts, which stood together on Booralong cattle station. Into each open doorway went the cool air. It roused one little aboriginal boy from his troubled sleep.

Bundi stretched his black arms upward. The breeze felt good. He was used to wind on his naked body. But when he opened his eyes, the darkness above seemed strange. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t see the stars.

"Clouds,” thought Bundi, "and rain to break the long dry spell. Rain to make the grass spring up and the kangaroos return to feed.”

Then through the doorway in the gunyah , Bundi saw the stars. The blackness above him was not clouds; it was the roof of a strange gunyah. He rushed out from the gunyah as if it were a prison and he were about to be locked in.

Suddenly Bundi remembered why he was not lying out under the stars as he had done since babyhood. His mother and father had gone to the Spirit Land. They had hungered for kangaroo meat and for berries, for any kind of food.

But there was no food, so they had wasted away with a sick' ness, as had his little sisters and brothers and many others of the tribe. The magic and the spells of old Mirrabindi, the Medicine Man, had not saved them.

Bundi had come to Booralong, a white man’s cattle station. There was always food at Booralong for blackfellows who would work for the white man. He had slept in one of the gunyahs that clustered around the station. Bundi looked at the strange gunyahs. The walls were made of tree branches that had been stuck in the ground in a circle and tied together at the top. The whole had been covered with old cloth sacks and pieces of tin.

Bundi wondered why the aboriginals who lived at Booralong should need more than a sheet of bark thrown over a pole. They were strange blacks, he thought, and had forgotten the ways of their own people on the plains.

Soon Yangella came to get him. Yangella was the big, kindly man of Bundi’s own tribe who had brought the little boy to the cattle station. Bundi followed Yangella to the fire, where the food was cooking. Here Yangella stooped and picked up a piece of damper , or bread, from its oven of ashes. He broke off two large pieces and brushed the ashes from them as he held them out to Bundi. When the boy had bitten into the damper he saw that it was white inside and there were no hard seeds. Because

Bundi followed Yangella to the fire, where the food was cooking the food was strange, it seemed bad to Bundi, and he wanted to spit it out. But too many eyes were watching.

Bundi thought about the camping places which had been home to him. He remembered how his mother had looked with the soft glow of the fire shining in her face. A lump rose in his throat, as though a chunk of damper were choking him. His whole body trembled with wishing that he might be safe around his own campfire again.

When he had finished eating, Yangella took him to a building where there were shelves filled with large boxes. It was the station store, and one of the white men gave Bundi a little blue shirt and a pair of trousers to wear. He thought them a kind of decoration. He remembered how the men of his tribe decorated themselves for corrobboree , or the native dance, by sticking feathers on their bodies and painting themselves with chalkstone.

Bundi put on the shirt and trousers and danced about happily, forgetting for a moment that he was in a strange place. The white man laughed and Bundi kept on dancing just to please him.

“Good fella,” said the white man.

“Good fella,” said Bundi, over and over again. He had learned his first bit of white-man talk.

As they walked back along the path, Yangella told Bundi about the work which the stockmen did—how they rounded up the cattle, branded them, drove them to market, and kept the fences mended.

“But that is lubra’s work!” he said to Yangella in their own language. In Bundfs tribe, only women did such work; the men were all brave hunters. Their only work was to hunt kangaroos or to fight enemies. “Do you do lubras work, too, Yangella?” he asked.

“If blackfellow wants to eat, blackfellow must work,” was the only answer. For a moment Yangella hung his head as if he were ashamed of the work he had to do. Not so long ago he, too, had felt as Bundi did. But he had soon learned that the white men had different ideas about work from those of his own people.

As Bundi wandered among the men and children at the cattle station, no one noticed that he was a stranger, because now he was wearing clothes like all the others. He walked silently among the groups, all talking and laughing happily—talking white man’s talk which Bundi could not understand.

As he watched the children racing and playing, he thought of the good times that he used to have with his own people. He remembered the fun he had had with a boomerang, trying to throw it so that it would whirl around and come back to his hand. Suddenly a great wave of homesickness came over him. He wanted the old friends and the old games.

"When the rains come, I will c go bush’,” Bundi promised himself, "back to my own people. Then I will forget all about the cattle station and the white men who do lubra’s work.” To "go bush” meant to return to his native wild bush country to live.

Chapter II THE HUNTERS RETURN

Weeks passed and still the rains did not come.

Bundi learned more and more whitefellow talk and whitefellow work, but all the time he hugged his secret close and it comforted him. He did not tell Yangella that he was planning to go bush as soon as the rains came, for Yangella would try to stop him. And anyway, Bundi now had something else to wait for besides the rains.

The white men had gone on a hunt, and Bundi longed to see the excitement when they returned. There would surely be a feast and shouting and singing and dancing—a kind of whitefellow corrobboree. And the one who thrust the spear that killed the kangaroo—how proud he would be.

The brumby charged right toward the horse and rider

Day after day Bundi sat on the stockyard fence searching the plains for a far sight of the returning men. His eyes were like those of an eagle, and one day, far, far in the distance he saw a tiny cloud low on the plains. His heart beat fast. He knew that this was not the rain cloud for which he had been waiting so long. It was a dust cloud. The hunters were coming back to Booralong.

As they came near, Bundi saw two horses without riders, being driven along ahead of the group. They were brumbies , wild horses of the plains. So the men had not been hunting kangaroos! There would be no feast that night!

As the brumbies dodged, reared, and circled about, the stockmen gradually hemmed them in and forced them toward the yards. They were glorious red-brown creatures, their heads arched and their tails like plumes. Everyone at the cattle station, white and black alike, was watching the exciting chase as the hunters neared the gateway to the paddock. The brumbies were filled with fear. But every time they tried to break away to the open plains, a horse and rider blocked the way.

It would have been easy, thought Bundi, to throw a spear and kill a brumby. Forcing them through the gateway was far more difficult. Suddenly Bundi gasped, partly with fear for the rider and partly with wonder that he could sit his horse so well. As one of the horses sidestepped to block a brumby , the brumby charged right toward the horse and rider. The horse reared on his hind legs as if he would claw the brumby with his front hoofs. All the while the stockman sat his horse as if it were gently trotting across the plains.

Bundi was thrilled. His eyes gleamed. “Good! Goodfella horse!" he shouted. And rushing into his mind came a new wish — to be a stockman some day, to ride a horse, to chase brumbies.

Soon all the brumbies were in the yard and the slip rails were again in place. Now the wild horses galloped round and round, looking in vain for the opening which might set them free. Bundi knew how they felt. He had felt that same way the first night he had slept at Booralong. A new longing for freedom and a fear of white men and their stations surged into the boy's heart as he watched the imprisoned horses.

When the brumbies were all safely in the stockyard, the station men went back to their work. The excitement was over. Bundi felt cheated, after his days and days of patient waiting. Always in his tribe there had been a real corrobboree when the men came back from a kangaroo hunt. But white men were different. All their ways were different.

So Bundi went back to his work. A lubras work it was—this job of watering the hundreds of garden plants each day. He was still ashamed to do lubras work. But he dared not tell the others the shame and ache that was in his heart. He took up the pail and walked up and down the long rows, giving each plant a little water.

Very often Bundi looked up from his work to stare at the big windmill over by the water tank. He could not understand how it pumped the water which came bubbling out of the big iron pipe that was sunk in the ground up to the big wooden tank high above the ground. And how did the water get into the pipe in the garden? To Bundi, it was all a part of white man's magic.

As he looked at the “big gunyah with wings," which he had named it, he spoke to it, using soft aboriginal words which flowed as free as the water. “You smart Medicine Man. All time make water come on. Blackfellow Medicine Man, Mirra' bindi, no can make water come, and Bundi's people die. You make water come on for white man. White man have plenty food longa garden."

Today the white man seemed stronger than ever to Bundi. He could shut brumbies in when they wanted to run over the plains with their kind. He could make blackfellows do lubras work. So, because Bundi could not understand, fear stayed in his little heart.

Chapter III BUNDI GOES BUSH

Another week went by and the rains had not yet come. Bundi was still at Booralong. He dared not leave, he dared not go bush until the rains came. If he went before, he would die of thirst out on the plains.

Then one day a message came from the head stockman saying that the first lot of cattle would be in on the Flats the next day. What excitement there was at the cattle station. The cattle round¬ up on the Flats was the biggest event of the year.

Bundi wished that he might ride a horse out to the Flats. Instead of that, he walked along beside the cook's wagon, which he had helped to fill with cabbages, potatoes, and carrots from the garden. How the men out on the Flats would enjoy these fresh vegetables after eating bread and dried beef for many days.

Even if he couldn’t ride a horse, it was good to be away from the buildings and to see only the open plains again. Bundi picked some of the saltbush leaves and pressed them between his fingers. How could the cattle live on these leaves through the long dry season, he wondered. Bundi wished that he could eat leaves. Then he would never have to go back to the cattle station and do woman’s work.

Finally, in the afternoon, they reached the place called Poker Flats, which was filled with cattle. Bundi thought that all the kangaroos he had ever seen would not make so large a herd. Over the far edge of the Flats puffed little clouds of dust, showing that more cattle were being driven in.

Cows were bawling to their calves, and young bulls were bellowing in anger at being driven from their pasture lands. Young steers were trying to break away from the mob. Stockmen on prancing horses were circling the mob and holding it on the Flats.

Bundi wanted to watch the musterers but he had to build the fire. Soon the cook was putting cabbage, carrots, onions, potatoes, and fresh meat into the huge iron kettle hanging over the flames. Then he made strong black tea in a big black “billy can.” Bundi waited on the men, who all chattered and laughed as they ate.

The noisy chatter and laughter of the men went on as they came back for two and three helpings of the stew. Only Bundi looked gloomy.

“Hurry up there, boy,” one of the musterers called to Bundi, “bring us some tea. You’re as slow as one of these old cows.”

Bundi hung his head. He was ashamed that he had to serve these men the way the lubras served the men of his tribe. When the meal was over and Bundi had finished washing up, he went up on a rise of land where he could see all that was going on.

Bundi watched the cattle stirring and dodging about while the stockmen rode among them and began cutting out certain animals from the mob. And a queer kind of excitement gripped him. He had felt this same way when he had watched the men of his tribe making ready for a kangaroo hunt. How thrilling it would be to ride one of those prancing horses, to be a stockman and to bring in cattle instead of kangaroos.

Bundi's eyes danced as he watched Split, one of the stockmen, and his horse Charger. Charger and Split were enjoying the fun. Charger shied away from the mob of cattle and pranced on tiptoe. He seemed to be frightened—as if he had never been in a cattle camp before. But it was all a part of the game. Split let Charger rear and sidestep and snort. But when he said, “All right, Charger, stop that playing; it's work time now,” the horse steadied down and went after a half'grown calf.

That one was easy. Charger headed it out to a waiting stock' man who sent it on to the branding yards. Then Charger was back in the mob, ready for Split to show him the next calf to be cut out.

Bundi pretended that he was on Charger and that the horse was obeying every pressure of his hands or his heels or his legs. When Charger stopped suddenly, bracing his four feet to block a red and white calf that did not want to leave its mother, Bundi braced his feet too. Then Charger sprang into action, and Bundi swung his arms just as Split did when he headed the calf off the camp.

The work went on until sunset. Other stockmen took their turns and the work went faster and was more difficult. The calves that were cut out first had been easy. They were all in the branding yard. But the young steers that were to be sent to market were tricky.

Each stockman cut out two or three, and then rested his horse while another stockman took a turn. There was one white and brown steer which Bundi thought would never be driven out, for he seemed quicker than the horse. Angry and frightened, the steer lowered his head to charge. The horse sidestepped just in time, whirled like a top, and sent the steer hurrying toward the yard. As Bundi watched, he wondered if the steer would keep on fighting for freedom, once he was fenced in.

Suddenly Bundi felt a fear of being shut in on the station, just as the steers were shut in by the fences. At first the mustering had seemed an exciting game; now it seemed a fearful thing. Bundi wanted to get away from the white men who could build such strong fences and who could make him do woman's work. He forgot all about wanting to be a stockman and to ride a horse. He wanted to go to his own people.

Bundi started to run, like a wild little creature that is seeking its freedom. He gave no thought to the direction in which he fled. He wanted only to get away from the camp and the yards. The bush, the plains, the kangaroos, and all his people were calling him. Bundi was answering that call and nothing else mattered. His wild little heart made music like the thud, thud, of kangaroo tails pushing big hopping bodies.

As he ran, he stripped off his blue shirt and his trousers and threw them away. They belonged to the white man and all that Bundi was running from. They did not belong with the people and things that were calling Bundi.

The wind on his naked body felt good. He swung his arms, glad of freedom from clothes. He wished that he could have let down the rails so that the steers could run free too. He imagined the steers running with him, their tails straight out behind their backs. But the steers were not with Bundi. He was hurrying on alone, one little boy on the vast Australian plains.

Chapter IV BUNDI MEETS A SUNDOWNER

Bundi cut across the open plains, enjoying the swish of tall dry grass against his legs. He skirted clumps of saltbush, and then without even thinking, began to follow the cattle tracks. It was comforting to be running along a cattle trail, a way where other live things had gone.

Bundi was headed for the best possible place to spend the night—the Oolong bore. When he saw the big iron pipe standing as high above the ground as himself, it startled him. He had been keeping his eyes on the tracks. Water was flowing from the pipe into a large, basindike tank.

He knew that Booralong stockmen had sunk the pipe and scooped out the earthen tank so that cattle might drink. He was thirsty. He lay down on the red sand at the edge of the tank and scooped up big handfuls of water which was almost hot. Steam rose from the water which was pouring from the pipe.

The little boy lay quietly for a long time. It was good to be still and alone. He almost forgot about his hunger. It seemed enough just to know that he was a little bit nearer his own people.

Then he remembered that many of his people had died be' cause they could not find food and water. The rains had not yet come, and food and water would be hard to find now. A great wave of fear and loneliness swept over him and he started to cry. Suddenly he thought, “I never saw my father cry, and I must be like my father.” And the thought held back the tears.

Next morning Bundi wakened to the smell of smoke. Not far away was a strange man, baking bread over a campfire. With the instinct of a wild creature, Bundi kept perfectly still, watching every move of the stranger. The man’s blanket roll lay near, showing that he had camped there for the night. And because no harm had come to Bundi during the night, he was not afraid.

He was sure that this man was not from a cattle station, be' cause stockmen never wore such ragged clothing. Nor was it someone sent to bring him back to Booralong, for white men never tried to keep blackfellows when they wanted to go bush.

There was a sudden hissing, and steam rose from the fire as water boiled over from the tin can hanging above the flames. Bundi jumped up to take the can off the fire, and at that moment the stranger turned and saw him. The man grabbed the can, then dropped it quickly.

“Him hot; him bite hand,” said Bundi, as if he had been camping with the man for months.

“Put that lid on and keep that tea hot,” said the man, still shaking his burned hand.

Bundi obeyed, then stood quietly, not knowing whether to go or stay.

“Sit down,” said the man, as he went on about his camp work.

He fastened his blanket roll with two straps and then put into his tucker or provision bag the little bit of flour, baking powder, and salt which were left after making damper.

Bundi watched in silence, wondering who this man could be. His blue eyes looked kind. His face, almost as dark as Bundi’s, was wrinkled by the wind and by years of living.

"You go Booralong?” asked Bundi.

The man went on with his work as though he had not heard, and Bundi did not speak again. The man scraped a few ashes off the damper and then, satisfied that it was baking nicely, covered it and sat down on the same side of the fire as Bundi. For a few minutes the man and the boy watched the thin blue smoke drift¬ ing away. Then, still watching the smoke, the man answered Bundfs question.

"Yes, Fm headin’ for Booralong. Have to get the tucker bag filled. Is the cook a good sort?”

Bundi wondered how the man knew that he was from Booralong. But he only said, "Cook will give big mob tucker.”

"Sundowner’s luck! ” said the man, half to himself.

Bundi remembered hearing the cook grumble about the Sun¬ downers. They were the strangers who always arrived at sun¬ down, when they knew it was too late to do a bit of work for the food they wanted. The men at Booralong didn’t think much of Sundowners, but Bundi thought they were the nicest kind of white men because they lived much as his own people did. They wandered over the plains or through the bush, stopping now and then at a station, but never caring about anything except food and water and being free.

Bundi sniffed the air. The damper was burning. The Sun¬ downer quickly pulled the loaf from its oven of ash. When it had cooled a bit, he handed half of the loaf to Bundi and motioned

The TYicLU sat dowu ou the same side of the five with Bundi him to take a pot of tea. Bundi crammed large hunks of bread into his mouth. How hungry he was, and how good the food tasted!

As the Sundowner packed up, he said to Bundi, “The black' fellow camp is far away, over in that direction . 11 He pointed to the edge of the plains where the sun was making the sky as red as the sand they sat on.

Bundi 1 s heart beat fast with excitement and longing. He must hurry toward the camp of his people.

“Dank you big mob ,’ 1 he said, as he had learned to do at Booralong. Then, as though to give something in return, he added, “You goodfellow. Cook will give big mob tucker . 11

In another moment Bundi had started off toward the black' fellow's camp, without a single backward look at the man by the campfire. He had only his two small hands to help him live alone on the plains. But Bundi was not afraid. Was he not the son of the bravest man in the tribe?

Chapter V TRACKS IN THE GULLY

As Bundi walked over the plains he wondered why white men needed so much room for their cattle. There was very little land left for the blackfellows. The plains belonged to the white men now. Perhaps blackfellows would always have to live on cattle stations and eat the meat of cattle, when the kangaroos were gone. Fear again swept over Bundi, and he hurried on, hoping to reach the water hole and camp with his own people that night.

When dusk was settling over the plains Bundi came to a line of gum trees, whose white trunks gleamed softly in the oncoming darkness. The trees seemed like familiar friends, and Bundi ran to touch them. He pulled off a few strings of brown bark which still clung to the white trunks. When the trees shed their bark it made him think of a snake shedding its skin*.

In the dim light Bundi could see that he was on the edge of a gully. Down below must be the water hole that the Sundowner had told about. Underfoot there was a tangle of coarse grass and fallen leaves. Bundi stepped lightly and lovingly. After the burning plains, this grass felt like a cool, soft carpet to his bare brown feet. He pressed his hot body against the cool white trunk of the tree. “This is my home," he thought, “these trees belong to blackfellow.”

As Bundi went farther into the strip of bush that fringed the river course, he saw that the leaves were turning yellow. “Plants sick too. Rain no come on,” he thought as he hurried toward the water hole.

Bundi was oh, so thirsty and oh, so hungry. Far back on the plains he had eaten the last bit of bread that the Sundowner had given him. He hurried down the gully, climbing over fallen logs and making his way through the tangled grass, looking for the water hole which he must find.

There was no stream. Only a muddy pool lay in the river bed. But to Bundi it seemed like a fine little water hole. Any water looked very good to the tired, unhappy little boy. Thirsty as he was, Bundi did not drink at once. He walked carefully around the pool, looking for tracks—blackfellow tracks, kangaroo tracks, any kind of tracks that would tell if any living creature had been there. But the mud was dry and no tracks could be seen. So Bundi lay down beside the pool, scooped up the water in his hands, and drank.

Throughout that long, hot day Bundi had kept trudging on, hopeful of finding his people by nightfall. But now, hope was gone. His heart was heavy and his legs were heavy, too heavy for him to lift. If only he had found some little sign—a footprint in the mud or a mark of a coolamon , one of the small, troughdike

BiATidi scooped up the ivatev iyi his hxiTids, avid dvofilc vessels his people used to carry water. Wretched with loneliness and disappointment, Bundi lay on the ground and buried his face in the dead leaves. If he could only hide from his own sad thoughts!

The sounds of bush creatures settling for the night made the little boy more lonely. Each had a place to go, a place he knew, a place where he could sleep in safety. Only Bundi was far from his own kind. He had no campfire, and he had no fire stick to make one.

In the morning Bundi woke to the sound of laughter, the strange wild laughter of the kookaburra. The bird was sitting on the limb of a tall gum tree, looking down at a big snake on the ground. Bundi had often seen a kookaburra swoop down, grab a snake behind the head, carry it up to a high perch, and then let it drop. Time after time the bird would do this. Finally when the snake lay quiet, the kookaburra would burst out into a long, rollicking laugh.

As the bird’s laugh ran through the bush again, Bundi laughed too, and there was joy in his laugh like the joy of a wild creature. Surely he would find his people this day!

Driven by a terrible hunger, the little boy began to dig in the soft mud at the edge of the pool. His eyes brightened while his hands were still under the muddy water. He was gripping a squirming crayfish.

Bundi wished that he could cook the fish, but he had no fire stick. Greedily he tore the flesh apart and began to eat the raw meat. Several times his hands dived into the water and brought up more food. There would be other pools along the river course, where he would find more fish and perhaps footprints, too. So with new strength and hope, Bundi hurried along the gully.

As he walked along he saw a mother koala—a small, beardike animal—settling down in the fork of an old gum tree for her day's sleep. Her joey or baby clung to her back, with eyes closed but with his claws tightly gripping his mother's fur. They had been feeding all night on the tenderest gum leaves, and the mother had been giving her baby some lessons in climbing along the branches. He was such a tiny koala, Bundi thought that he had never been out of his mother's warm pouch before.

As he went farther along the gully, the tree ferns were large and sheltering. Soon Bundi came to another small water hole. This one had a wider rim of mud along its edges. Bundi knelt down and looked carefully for tracks. A sharp footprint near the outer edge of the rim of mud caused his heart to beat fast with excitement. This mark made by a human being seemed like a message from his own people. Soon he found another and am other.