The Rainbow Serpent | A Meeting In The APY Lands of South Australia
Sunrise Out Side Port Augusta On Route To Pimba
Map Link for Pimba
The old man sat on the ground as if he were rising up out of it, his cowboy hat and mile wide smile making him more caricature than real to my untrained eye, exaggerating his features and amplifying his presence.
The main meeting over and the circle dispersed, he nudged over to me and said he had been a camera man too, with PY Media. He recorded many, many Inma and celebrations over the years. But that was a long time ago.
I struggled with the rising and falling cadenzas of the Pitjantjatjara language, tumbling into to my ear with the rhythm of an old fashioned film projector telling stories of invisible worlds far away and long ago.
Introductions over, he said, “That Water Snake, Wanampi, is still here today. He’s with us now. I can see him here. I know him, every year men’s business my whole life. I can see things that you can’t see,” he said, referring to the spirit world, and drawing me in with the craft and magic of an extraordinary story teller.
My scant Pitjantjatjara made everything a riddle and yet I started to piece something from what he said. Aware of my struggle, he rolled up a trouser leg and began mapping the conversation on the side of his calf, as if to say, “This story its in my body. It is part of me.”
“That Wanampi is a cheeky fella, he said, “looking at everything, looking this way and that, this way and that way. He’s coming up from Canberra,” he said, sweeping his forefinger across his calf, “He’s coming up form Sydney. He’s coming everywhere, that Wanampi”.
“He’s looking at me, looking at you, looking at everyone, taking a good look. He’s thinking who are you? And moving on, black fella, white fella, black fella, white fella. Noticing… Who are you?” With that, he broke a wide disarming smile and laughed, and the vortex closed.
Rolling across country
afternoon sun showers,
breathing rainbow life
