Chapter 11 “Newfellow Piccaninny Boy”

One morning, a few weeks after our Willeroo scare, Bett-Bett came

scampering up from the creek as fast as her thin little legs would carry

her.

“Missus! Missus!” she shouted, “Topsy bin catch newfellow piccaninny

boy, Topsy bin catch newfellow piccaninny boy,” and she sank down in a

little breathless heap beside me.

Fast on her heels came some of the camp lubras bringing me an invitation

to the christening party.

“You eye,” they gasped, “him bin catch him alright,” and then they told

me that Topsy, Sambo’s lubra, wanted me to come and see it, and christen

it with a white man’s name. “Topsy bin talk, spose Missus come on, give

piccaninny whitefellow name.”

Of course I went at once, taking a good supply of “chewbac” and a big

red handkerchief, for we did not have a christening every day. Besides,

I was curious to see this baby, for I had not yet seen a very tiny

piccaninny.

Sambo met us at the creek, grinning widely with delight. We gave the

proud father a new pipe and some “chewbac,” and he tried hard to grin a

little wider in thanks, but found that even a blackfellow’s grin has its

limits. Topsy was sitting among the lubras, and looked round when she

heard us approaching, On her knee was her eldest son “Bittertwine,” a

chubby little rascal about two years old. Beside her lay a coolamun,

nearly filled with fresh green leaves and grass. As I came nearer she

lifted up some of the leaves and showed me the tiniest, tiniest atom

of a baby lying sound asleep; cool, and safe from flies, in its pretty

leafy cradle.

I stood for some minutes, too astonished to speak, for instead of the

shiny jet-black piccaninny I had expected, I found one just about the

colour of honey.

“What name, Topsy?” I asked at last. “Him close up whitefellow, I

think.”

“No more, Missus,” she answered, touching the little sleeping baby

lovingly. “Him blackfellow alright. Look, Missus, him blackfellow

alright,” she added, showing me one thin jet-black line running right

round the mouth and others round the eyes and nails.

Then the lubras all joined in, and explained that a little black baby

when it is first born, is always of a very light golden brown but with

thin black lines, just as this baby had. They said that steadily and

surely these lines would widen and spread till in a few days he would be

like all other shiny black piccaninnies.

“All day likee that, Missus,” they assured me in chorus, so I put

a handful of tobacco in the baby’s cradle, and spread a big red

handkerchief on top. I said he was a man baby and Mr. Thunder

Debbil-debbil would be delighted to see he had a nice red handkerchief.

The lubras laughed merrily at this, and the old men smiled on the Missus

with approval.

Then Topsy asked for a “whitefellow name” for her baby, and I said he

should be called “Donald.”

“Tonald!” cried Topsy. “Tonald! Him good-fellow name, that one.”

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Every one repeated “Tonald” after her, and then called to each other.

“Missus bin talk Tonald,” and the whole camp agreed it was a “goodfellow

name alright.” For some reason, best known to themselves, the name

pleased them.

Topsy said that her baby had a kangaroo’s spirit, and Jimmy was very

pleased and important about it.

You see, Jimmy was head man of the Kangaroo-spirit family, and it would

be his duty to see that “Tonald” was properly brought up, for he must be

taught all the laws of his Totem, as well as how to throw his boomerang

and use his throwing-stick. Jimmy was a sort of godfather to him, and

Tonald would have to obey him even more than his own father and mother.

“By and by me make him grow, Missus,” said Jimmy, meaning that he would

perform some very important ceremony to make the Debbil-debbils keep

away so that Tonald could grow into a strong wise blackfellow. It was

Jimmy’s duty to do this, and a blackfellow always does his duty to his

tribe.

After the christening I passed round some “chewbac” and every one’s pipe

was filled, and Tonald’s health was smoked. Every now and then an old

blackfellow would nod his head and chuckle.

“Tonald! Him goodfellow name that one.”

But Donald slept peacefully on, and Bittertwine sat on his mother’s

knee, looking from me to the piccaninny, with big wondering eyes. Every

little while he took his mother’s pipe out of her mouth, and put it in

his own for a few sucks—smoking Donald’s health, I suppose.

Bittertwine was a wild little nigger boy or “myall,” and terrified of

white men, but I don’t think it was the white man’s fault. I fancy his

mother used to tell him that the white man would catch him if he were

naughty. Just as some white mothers say “the black man” will catch their

piccaninnies.

When we called on “Tonald” next morning I found that Sambo was wearing

his handkerchief and that his friends had smoked his tobacco.

Topsy was very proud of her piccaninny. “Look, Missus,” she said. “Him

close up blackfellow now.” So he was, and a day or two afterwards he was

black all over, all excepting the palms of his hands and the soles of

his feet. These would be a pale grey all his life.

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There was a visitor in the camp, quite a civilized blackfellow called

Charlie, who was a great authority on christenings, for he had once been

in a Catholic Mission School. He told us that when a white piccaninny

got a name that “whitefellow chuck em water longa piccaninny.” He had

been christened himself once, and water had been “chucked” on him, and

he seemed to think he knew all about it. The priests used to tell a

great joke about him. Charlie had been taught that he must not eat meat

on a Friday, but one Friday he was found with a piece of beef.

“Charlie,” said the priest sternly, “you are eating meat.”

“No more,” said Charlie, seriously. “This one fish alright.”

The priest then said it was very wicked to say what was not true, but

Charlie insisted that his beef was fish.

“Yes,” he said, arguing it out. “This one fish alright,” and then he

told the priest that they had christened him with water, and called him

Charlie, so he had christened his beef with water and called it fish.

“You bin chuck ‘em water longa me, you bin call me Charlie. Alright me

bin chuck ‘em water longa beef, me bin call fish,” and he quietly went

on eating his fish.

Charlie came up to the house a few days after the christening, and very

rudely demanded a “big mob of chewbac.”

I felt very angry with him for coming to me like this when he knew I was

alone, so I said as quietly as I could—

“Very well, I’ll give you a big mob of something, Charlie,” and before

he quite knew what had happened he was looking at my revolver, as I

pointed it straight at him.

Poor Charlie, he could hardly be seen for the dust he made, in his hurry

to get out of revolver range. That was the first and last time I had

to take my revolver to a blackfellow, but Charlie was supposed to be

civilized, you see. You cannot change a blackfellow into a white man, if

you try; you only make a bad cunning sly old blackfellow. I don’t mean

you can’t make a blackfellow into a better blackfellow. I know that can

be done, if he is kept a blackfellow, true to his blackfellow instincts.

After this I expected that Charlie would keep out of my way, but he

didn’t; he now seemed to consider himself a very special friend of mine.

“My word, Missus! you cheeky fellow alright,” he said next morning,

when I went down to the camp, and he sat in front of a little circle of

blackfellows, looking up at me in admiration.

“My word!” echoed the old fellows, for Charlie had told his story, and

my old friends, being blackfellows, were full of reverence for any one

who was a “cheeky fellow.”

As we sat talking, Charlie told us that God made everything a white man

has—trains and watches and horses, and that He showed him how to know

miles. A blackfellow can see nothing to mark a mile, and wonders how

the white man can. “Me plenty savey,” said Charlie, “me savey count all

about,” and he began to count his fingers. He kept getting mixed, and

that meant beginning at his thumb again, and it was not till after many

struggles that he managed to count to five.

“My word!” everybody said, and Charlie swelled with pride. You see

a blackfellow only counts up to two. His arithmetic is very simple,

just—One, Two, Little Mob, Big Mob, so it was no wonder we were all

amazed at Charlie.

He then told us in confidence that a little Debbil-debbil “sat down”

inside the telegraph wire, and ran messages “quickfellow,” from one

telegraph station to another. “Me savey,” he said wisely; “me bin hear

him talk-talk longa Daly Waters.” Then, looking gravely round, he added:

“Him bite alright, that one little fellow Debbil-debbil.”

I laughed at this, and the old men giggled nervously, for we all knew

that he had done what nearly every nigger has done—he had climbed up a

telegraph pole to break off a piece of wire for a spear, and had found

out that the Debbil-debbil could bite when he got an electric shock! He

said it didn’t bite the white man because he was its master. The very

fiercest dog never bites his master, you know!

Charlie knew all about that telegraph line. It was really a fence to

keep the kangaroos in. That was why it was so high—too high for them to

jump over. Unfortunately, the white man used up all the wire he had for

the two top rails, and couldn’t finish it. When the little Debbil-debbil

“jumped in,” he made him run messages “quickfellow” for him.

“My word, whitefellow plenty savey,” said Jimmy.

Billy Muck agreed with him, but said he was a “big-fellow fool” when he

rounded up a big mob of cattle, and worked hard day and night only to

brand them and let them go again. If Billy owned cattle he would kill

them all and invite his friends to the feast. Somehow as I sat looking

at the generous, honest, simple, unspoiled, blackfellow—absolutely free

from vice or care—I felt that perhaps he was right, and the white man is

a “bigfellow fool,” after all.

Charlie didn’t like Billy’s getting so much attention, and offered to

count his toes, but I was tired of Charlie and his civilized ways, so

called Bett-Bett and went home.

Bett-Bett was fascinated with Tonald and asked all sorts of questions

about white piccaninnies. Were they born white? Did they wear clothes?

and so on.

To amuse her, I made a rag doll, and painted a face on it, and dressed

it like a baby. She looked at it for a long while, feeling it carefully

all over, then she said with a chuckle—

“Him gammon piccaninny I think, Missus!”

All the first day she carried it in her arms, and Charlie told great

tales of “gammon piccaninnies” that broke if they fell down.

The next day she said that “gammon piccaninnies” were “silly fellow.”

The day after that, Sue and the station pups had a tug-of-war with it,

and the last we saw of it was when Sue was “going bush” with it in her

mouth, and the pups in full chase after her.

Bett-Bett took no notice of the fate of her “gammon piccaninny.” She had

found something much more interesting—a nest of little kittens under the

raised floor of the bath-room—and for several days we saw very little

of her, except the soles of her feet, as they stuck out from under the

bath-room floor.

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When the kittens were big enough, I sent Billy Muck with one of them

to my next-door neighbour. With a bottle of milk and a saucer under one

arm, and the kitten under the other, he started for his hundred-mile

walk as cheerfully as though he were just going round the corner, and in

two days reached the Katherine, his journey’s end.

On his return I asked him why he had hurried so.

“Milk close up finissem,” was all he said.

Good kind old Billy Muck! He wouldn’t let even a kitten suffer from

hunger or thirst, if he could help it.