2011 - Theses - Flinders University

‘So there was a gate across the track?’, I asked, trying to visualize the scene.‘Oh yes, these ramps and grids are only a modern come-up’, he answered, firmly.Minerawuta, 2001There are no ramps, grids or gates to mark the places along the variously graded andgravelled Nepabunna road; nothing, that is, until you drive out there with three old ladiesfrom Copley, my friends and mentors, Rosie, Rita and Lorna. 38‘You’re going to Minerawuta?’ Rita asked, squinting at me through the brown mesh doorof her pale blue house.‘Yes, this morning maybe, if that’s OK.’ I was saying the word carefully in my head, as Ihad heard it, Min-er-oot-u. I tried not to visualise its written form on the cover of Betty Ross’small book Minerawuta: Ram Paddock Gate. An Historic Adnyamathanha Settlement in the FlindersRanges, South Australia she produced in 1981 and which I had packed in my car. I had to hearthe sounds, not read them.‘I’m ready, but you seen those others? I think they going to the hospital this morning,’offered Rita. By afternoon, the trip and commentary had commenced, pointing out where thebest uti trees were found bearing bright red fruit in the Spring; stopping to see the remains ofa deep well where Granny Dolly was born; and complaining about each other all the way.Then to the left, under a tree, was the grey upright wooden pole marking the men’s Wimila,and we pulled up and they stiffly manoeuvred out of the car and began a slow fanning outacross the ground, searching the earth.Lorna, her white hair in a soft coil at the nape of her neck, stooped and picked somethingup. It was a small bright-blue marble, and she rolled it between her fingers. ‘Nyanga:yackartis playing round here.’ 3927