Chapter 4 “Me King Alright”

How to punish Bett-Bett puzzled me more than anything. I often excused

her naughty tricks because I thought she knew no better, but in certain

things I was determined she should obey. The hardest work of all was to

stop her from chewing tobacco. When I told her she must not, she smiled

sweetly, and the very first chance she got begged pieces of “chewbac”

from the lubras.

Whipping her was no good, for I couldn’t hurt her a little bit. I only

seemed to tickle her.

“You too muchee little fellow, Missus!” she explained, cheerfully.

Any other punishment she got nothing but fun out of.

I gave her sewing to do, and she threaded ticks on to her needle and

cotton.

I gave her bread and water for dinner, and she and Sue caught

water-rats, and Bett-Bett made a fire and cooked them. In fact, they had

a splendid picnic.

I took Sue away from her, and chained her up; but the little dog howled

so dismally that I was more punished than Bett-Bett.

I shut her in the bath-room by herself. She always called it the

“bogey-house,” and she pretended that she was hiding from her enemies,

and told Sue awful tales of Willeroo blacks, through the cracks under

the door.

I could think of nothing else, and was at my wits’ end; but the

ever-cheerful Bett-Bett continued to chew tobacco.

In despair, I had almost decided to send her back to the bush, when she

suggested a fearful punishment herself, of course without meaning to do

so.

I was busy painting some shelves one morning, and allowed Bett-Bett to

help. She enjoyed it very much, and spattered herself and the ground for

yards around with daubs of white. By and by the heat and the smell of

the paint made us both sick. Bett-Bett was very bad, and thought she was

going to die. “Me close up dead-fellow, Missus,” she moaned. Poor little

mite! she had never been sick before, and thought that her inside was

coming right out. When she was well again, she asked me what had made

her so ill, and I said it was the paint.

Next day she was singing like a young skylark, and chewing away at a

piece of tobacco between times.

I was very angry indeed with her, and deciding to send her “bush,”

called sternly, “Come here at once, Bett-Bett.”

To my surprise she screamed and cried out,

“No more, Missus. Me goodfellow; spose you no more make me whitefellow

longa paint.”

I saw at once what she was afraid of. I had the paint-pot and brush in

my hands, and she thought I was going to paint her, to make her sick for

punishment. I put them down, and told her to come to me.

“Bett-Bett,” I said, “will you be a good girl if I don’t paint you this

time?”

“You eye, Missus; straightfellow,” she sobbed.

“And you will not chew tobacco?” I added.

“No more, Missus; straightfellow,” she said, promising “straightfellow,”

or “honour bright.”

“Very well,” I said, putting down the brush; “I will not paint you

to-day.” After that I had very little trouble with her, for the sight of

the paint-pot made her as good as gold.

Bett-Bett loved polishing the silver, particularly the biscuit-barrel,

which she called “little-fellow billy-can belonga biscuit.” One morning

we were busy with it on the verandah, when a shout from the lubras of

“Goggle Eye come on” made Bett-Bett scurry round the house like a young

rabbit. It was always like this, and I began to wish the blacks would be

less particular about falling in love with their relations.

As he came along, I saw he had a headache, for he had his wife’s

waist-belt round his head. It is wonderful how quickly a wife’s belt or

hair-ribbon will charm away a headache. It only fails when she has been

up to mischief of any sort. Of course when a lubra’s belt does not cure

her husband, he knows she has been naughty, and punishes her as she

deserves. The lubras say that the belts do not always speak the truth,

but the men say they do. Whichever way it is, they are mean, horrid

tell-tales.

I told Goggle Eye I was sorry for him, and as he really looked ill, I

gave him a dose of Epsom salts to help the belt-cure, and to save Mrs.

Goggle Eye, the Queen, from a beating. He took it, and then sitting

down under the verandah, nursed his head in his hands—a poor forlorn

old king! As he sat with his back to me, I saw a peculiar mark on his

shoulder that I had not noticed before, and wondered what it meant.

All blackfellows have thick, ugly scars up and down and across their

bodies and limbs, but Goggle Eye had more than most men.

He told me once that he had made a great many of them himself with a

stone knife. After his first corrobboree he had cut himself a good deal

to show the tribe that he was a man now, and not afraid of pain. Of

course when any near relatives had died, he had cut himself all over his

arms and thighs, to let the Spirit know that he was truly and properly

sorry. Whenever a blackfellow dies, all his friends cut themselves a

little, but his near relations gash themselves terribly, because if

the Spirit thinks they are not sorry enough, he will very likely send

Debbil-debbils along to punish them for their hardness of heart.

After a good long “cry cry,” the wise men say that the Spirit is

satisfied—I don’t know how they tell—and then everybody rubs hot ashes

into the wounds. This heals them very quickly, but it makes the scars

into big ugly weals that will never fade away.

Goggle Eye would talk about this as often as I liked to listen, but

whenever I asked him the meaning of the marks on his back or shoulders,

he always answered, “Nuzzing,” and either changed the subject or walked

away.

Now when a blackfellow says “Nuzzing” like that, it simply means that he

is not going to tell, for when he really does not understand the meaning

of a law or custom, he answers:

“All day likee that,” which means that his fathers did it, and so must

he, even if he has forgotten why.

After a while, I saw Goggle Eye feeling among his thick curly hair for

his pipe, and I guessed his headache was better. When he found it, he

filled it ready for a smoke, and I remarked that Mrs. Goggle Eye must

be a very good lubra. He smiled approval, and said, “My word!” and I

thought that if Mrs. Goggle Eye had known everything, she would have

given “three cheers for good old Epsom!”

As he sat puffing at his pipe, I wondered if these extra marks had

anything to do with his being King, but knew if I asked questions he

would go away. Instead, I showed him a picture of King Edward VII., and

told him that he wore a crown to show that he was King.

He liked this very much, and said so, and then smoked on in silence. At

last, pointing to his right arm, he said:

“Me King alright,”

“My word!” I said, “I think you big mob King.”

This pleased the vain old chap immensely.

“Me plenty savey corrobboree,” he chuckled, rubbing his hands up and

down his back; “me savey all about corrobboree.”

“My word!” I said, to show my great admiration. “Tell me, Goggle Eye,” I

added.

He hesitated for a while, and then told me that when a blackfellow has

been through a corrobboree, his teachers put a mark on him, to show

that he understands all about it—a certificate for the examination,

I suppose! Of course a great number of marks mean a great deal of

knowledge; so it was no wonder that Goggle Eye was proud of his. As he

felt his certificates he chuckled,

“Big mob sit down longa me.”

Corrobborees are really the books of a tribe, for they have no others.

They are not just dancing picnics, as some people think, but lessons,

and very hard lessons too, sometimes.

The old men are the teachers, and the Head Man is the Head Master. They

teach the young men all they should know—how to point “death-bones,”

the best way to “sing” people dead, the way to scare Debbil-debbils away

with bull roarers and sacred stones, all the laws about marriage, the

proper things to eat, how to make rain, and I can’t tell what else.

The man who proves in a great many ways that he understands all he

should, will one day be King and Head Master. A black king is not king

because his father was so.

As I listened to Goggle Eye’s explanation of all this, I thought how

necessary it was to have a wise king, since he has the care of the

special “death-bones,” and “pointing-sticks,” and all the sacred charms.

No one knows what terrible things might happen to the tribe if any one

touched these magic charms who did not know how to use them. Why,

he might set a death-bone working, and not be able to stop it till

everybody was dead, or make a mistake and invite Debbil-debbils to come

and chivvy everybody about, when he was meaning to tell them to stay

away. It really is too fearful to think what might happen with a foolish

king!

When Goggle Eye stopped talking, I asked him what the peculiar marks on

his shoulder meant.

“What name this one talk, Goggle Eye?” I said, touching it with my

finger.

He was just trying to decide whether it would be all right to tell a

white woman what a black lubra must not hear, when a wretched little

Willy-Waggletail flew into the verandah after spiders.

No blackfellow will talk secrets with one of these little birds about.

They say they are the tell-tales of the bush, and are always spying

about, listening for bits of gossip to make mischief. They call them

“Jenning-gherries,” or mischief-makers, and say that they love mischief

of all kinds.

“Jenning-gherrie come on,” said Goggle Eye, pointing to the little

flitting, flirting bird, and I knew I should hear no more that day.

“Very well,” I said, and giving him a stick of “chewbac,” sent him back

to his camp, and called Bett-Bett.

She came, carrying old “Solomon Isaacs,” our white cockatoo, on her

wrist, and asked me why he had not got any legs.

“But he has,” I said. “He has two,” and I touched them to show her.

“No, Missus,” she said, “him hands,” and to prove that they were hands,

she showed me that he was holding a biscuit in one of them as he nibbled

at it.

“Perhaps he has one leg and one hand,” I suggested, saying that it

was his leg he was standing on, and that his hand was the one with the

biscuit in it.

That satisfied her, and she was just going off to play, when the

miserable creature changed its biscuit into the other claw.

“Him twofellow hands, Missus,” she said, coming back to argue it all out

again. Fortunately “cocky” changed the subject, by passing a few remarks

about himself and the weather. Bett-Bett listened for a while, and then

informed me that a white man’s spirit had jumped into “Solomon Isaacs”

when he was born, and that was why he could talk. Billy Muck knew, and

had said so.

Before I could think of anything to say, the gramaphone in the men’s

quarters began to play, and she and Cocky went off to listen, and I had

a little peace. When she came back she told me that a “white missus” and

some whitefellow bosses were in the men’s rooms. I wondered whoever

they could be, for “white misuses” were rather scarce “out bush,” and

I hurried over to the quarters to make the lady welcome. I found no one

there excepting the stockmen, and they said that no travellers at all

had arrived, not even men.

Page 27

I called Bett-Bett and asked where she had seen the “White Missus” and

the travellers. She said she hadn’t seen them, she had only heard them

singing.

“Him there, Missus,” she said, pointing to the gramaphone. “I bin hear

him sing-sing.” Then she wanted to know how they had got in, and what

they had to eat, “Which way whitefellow sit down, Missus?” she asked,

peering down the funnel of the gramaphone, and screwing up her comical

little nose as she tried to shut one eye.

“I don’t know, Bett-Bett,” I said, tired of answering questions. “Come

for a walk-about in the paddocks.”

Off she scampered to collect the lubras, and by the time I arrived at

the gate, they were all waiting for me with their “dilly bags.” I

was the pupil, and they were the teachers, and my lessons were most

interesting. They tried to teach me the tracks of animals, how to tell

if they were new or old, where every bird built its nest, what it built

it of, and how many eggs it laid, where to look for crocodiles’ eggs,

and where the Bower-bird danced. They knew the tracks of every horse

on the run, and every blackfellow of the tribe, and if they came on a

stranger’s track, they knew the tribe he belonged to. They tried hard

to teach me this, but try as I would, I could never see any difference,

excepting in the size. They were very patient teachers, and I tried

my very best; but I suppose I had not a blackfellow’s sight for tiny

differences, and I failed dismally, I couldn’t even learn the tracks of

my own lubras.

We all enjoyed the walk-abouts, and generally had a good time. This

afternoon we found all sorts of queer prizes, and were coming home

with them, when we came on Goggle Eye’s tracks, going in our homeward

direction.

Bett-Bett simply refused to go any further, and so we had to take a

short-cut through the scrub. By bad luck we came on his Majesty himself,

just as we came up from the creek. He and Bett-Bett shut their eyes

at once, and felt their way with outstretched hands. The path was very

narrow, and as they groped about, I wondered what would happen if they

bumped together, Perhaps Debbil-debbils would have come with a whizz,

and would have left nothing but a little smoke!