THE BIG EAGLE
‘…the baby bird left its mother and floated across the waves…’
Wurarbuti was a respected elder of the Tiwi people of Melville Island. His beautiful daughter, Nagranini, shared her father’s camp, cooked young turtles and collected tender roots for the ageing man because she loved him.
One afternoon, far out to sea, a great white eagle with many fluttering wings appeared on the horizon and sailed towards their sandy beach giving the women and children such a fright they fled in fear and hid themselves in the dense mangroves.
The brave warriors, however, gathered their strongest spears together and crowded along the water’s edge watching fearfully as the great white eagle paused to give birth to a tiny piccaninny that had no wings at all.
The warriors muttered in alarm and retreated hesitantly as the baby bird left its mother and floated across the waves in their direction, its two thin arms thrashing the water as it came.
A white-faced man on the baby eagle’s back raised his hand in a gesture of friendship and his pink tongue spoke strange words.
Wurarbuti ordered his men to cast aside their weapons because the pale stranger’s words were soft as a woman’s and his face was not that of an enemy.
“Why do you come to our island?” Wurarbuti called to the white men with women’s voices.
The red-haired man who walked like a leader spoke more soft words to Wurarbuti and offered him a flat rock whose surface reflected his image and he laughed loudly at the magic gift these strangers had given him and said: “Sit down, my brothers. We will give you food.”
That night when the hot fire of the sky had died, a great yoi (corroboree) was performed around warm fires on the sane and their white visitors laughed, feasted and drank evil-smelling water till they behaved like children and began to offend the imballinya (women).
The red-haired man seemed much desirous of young women and when he offered Wurarbuti shining circular rocks, the elder accepted the gift, and at once the red-haired one pursued his beautiful Nagranini into the bush and ravished her.
When the old man heard his daughter’s terrified screams he took up his throwing stick and slew the red-haired one with a deadly blow.
Weeping wildly and gashing his forehead with a stone, Wurarbuti cried: “Sleep in peace, my little one, for I shall avenge your death.”
Angrily, he strode back to the beach camp and there he killed one man by thrusting a spear into his stomach.
Immediately, the other white men sprang to their feet and pointed their short shiny spears at him. But they did not throw them.
Instead they made loud noises like rocks sometimes do when they become too hot, and Wurarbuti felt a terrible weight crash against him and he collapsed to his knees with blood pouring from small smooth holes in his flesh.
“What is this evil?” Wurarbuti cried in surprise and, quickly fitting a spear into his woomera, he flung his weapon at the fleeing men with faces the colour of dried bones, striking one down.
The remaining members of the moorundunni (white tribe) swiftly clambered on to the baby eagle’s back and the young bird with no feathers carried them quickly back to its mother with the many fluttering wings.
Wurarbuti staggered weakly to the ocean’s brim and commanded all the fish to gather about him while he told them how to destroy the murderers of his lovely daughter.
But only a few fish were in the vicinity and these all swah towards their Tiwi friend’s voice and noticed that the water had turned crimson.
The brave old man collapsed among them and from that day forward all the sons and daughters of those faithful fish have proudly borne the stains of Wurarbuti’s blood.
© BJC.
