White Lives in a Black Community: The lives of Jim Page and Rebecca Forbes in the Adnyamathanha communityTracy SpencerVolume Three Appendices: Creative Life WritingSection C: Contact ZoneFrom there, the Forbes family join the well-trodden stock route coming down from theStrezlecki desert from the north, with salt lakes glittering white to the east and ranges to thewest glowing red in the rising sun. They cross countless gravelled creeks draining from thehills and lined with fat bellied river red gums – wida, Jack teaches his boys to say, as theypick at the wityari beneath the bark. At a larger creek, Jack pulls up the horse and gazes upthe twisted dry bed until it disappears into the folds of the hills. He begins to speak softly,sounding words carefully as they come, remembered, to him:‘Wadu ngaarlaakanha wabma yanaanggu (Long ago there came a big snake)Mityiwa Akurra. (His name was Akurra)…’ 7Rebecca listens to the soft consonants and rhythm of Jack’s voice. When the story isfinished, Jack sweeps his arm towards the hills.‘All water in there, from that big snake. True.‘ Rebecca and the boys turn unbelievingfaces to him. Jack laughs. ‘I’ll tell you about those Valnaapa, then’ says Jack, ‘the two mates,Arruru and Mathari. They killed an emu back up there and carried it along in the hills …’Rebecca’s attention drifts away with the jilt of the cart, although the boys eyes grow wide.‘…They’ll be looking at you tonight, Vulka Varlka’ Jack concludes his story, ‘and whenyou made men, they’ll make sure you marry right way. 8 See, those Valnaapa are yuras,people from this country, but they come like us, from Wangkumara country, Wadigalicountry, Bilarlapa mob. 9 Maybe they even see England from up there in the sky, eh?’ ButRebecca is not listening, only wondering where they might camp tonight.They turn in the gate at Wooltana station and, after stopping at the yards to ask after work,find the yuras camp to the northeast and build themselves a widlya there of slender treelimbs covered with grey blankets, not far from the Johnsons and Coulthards. 106
Wooltana Station 1917 Photo by Tracy Spencer from Iga Warta Cultural Centre Display 2008At night they share the fire’s warmth, hearing news and practising verses of songs. Whenthe white wityari grubs are sizzling on the coals, the old ‘Uncle’ tells an animated story toher boys with much pointing to the wida and the moon beyond. 11 Jack laughs.Wityari, Rebecca hears, and thinks of other names: Witchetty Jack. Mrs Witchetty. That’snot me, I married Mr Jack Forbes, and that’s the name he wanted good as anybody else’s,Rebecca thinks, watching her boys suck the warm stuff from the grub, and licking theirfingers. Just then, the old man cries out and points to where rocks jut out from the hill,catching the moonlight.‘Mindaapanha!’ (Look!)7
- Page 1 and 2: 2011Thesis Title:White Lives in a B
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comes, he struggles to preach in mu
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Did Jim see such a vision in his da
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Ram Paddock Gate, 1928The mail that
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Life Writing Chapter TenJim and the
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‘Ah, so it could supply the “na
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supply of every need [by] God who h
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Grote St, Adelaide, May 1929Jim Pag
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draws breath accounting for the cus
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Gerard does not seem to notice. ‘
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een a journalist, collecting tales
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Australia. Prayer is needed that th
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Works Cited(Secretary), JH Sexton.
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2 South Australia Dorothy Tunbridge
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26 Education, The Adnyamathanha Peo
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54 Clara Brady, Transcript of Inter
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84 Ian Buckley, Conversation with I
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122 Mission, 'Constitution of the U
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