What Has Moses To Do With Making Two Brothers Walking?
Wati showing the underground stream
We were sitting in the departure lounge of Adelaide airport on route to Cairns, the Manta Nganampa Dancers and me, their cameraman. From there we'd continue by mini-bus to Mossman and on to the Laura Aboriginal Dance Festival, singing all the way, Ngintaka (perentie), Caterpillar, Wanampi (Rainbow Serpent), Hallelujah. I turned to the tjilpi (old man) across from me and asked him over my cappuccino and his kupa-tea, "How is it, since Anangu have their Tjukurpa, still alive, right back from the beginning, their songs, their stories, their country, how is it that Anangu are so interested in Christianity?"
He often took inspiration from the Old Testament to get his own story across. Why, Nehemiah had a dream that his mother came to him and said he has to go back to country, away from exile in Egypt and rebuild the temple at Jerusalem. "That's what we got to do, we've got to keep going," said the old man, "We've got to rebuild our culture and keep Tjukurpa strong. I've been doing that my whole life. It can never go away."
Not that long ago I heard him reflect on the meeting between Pharaoh and Moses, "God wants those Anangu to go back to their country," Moses said to Pharaoh, "you shouldn't make trouble for them. Really, they are free people, you know." Recalcitrant as ever, Pharaoh, wouldn't be swayed. He had mud bricks on his mind, and a fairly substantial building program to take care of. "You really gotta let my people go," repeated Moses, "God's got the power!" and with that, threw down his digging stick shape shifting it into liru (snake) before it hit the floor. It slithered under Pharaoh's chair.
Well, Pharaoh got the fright of his life. You've never seen anyone jump up so quick, and he very nearly capitulated. But he regained his composure with the thought of those bricks weighing heavily on his mind.
Anyone can see that Moses is a wati pulka, a man of high degree, a lawman, going up that mountain and getting the commandments from God. It's no trouble for him to make his digging stick turn into a snake. (Makes me think of those two sisters, the older one and the younger one, digging and digging for that big Wanampi. Of course they didn't know it was Wanampi. They were hunting for kunya (carpet snake) same as all those little ones that got at Tjawatjapitja, Piltilti Creek. "A nice big one, that's what we want. Kuka wiru," (Really good tucker.) said one of the sisters.
But Pharaoh would not be moved. He's a real mongrel, like a general manager who doesn't know the law he is bound to uphold.
So what happened?
Moses turned all the kapi into blood, blood in the creek, blood in the tank, blood in the tap, blood everywhere. Moses was undaunted by handling such power, as if blood flowing down Piltilti Creek bed was a regular thing.
"Go on then, get going," said Pharaoh. "Go! You can go."
Tjilpi looked at me over his kupa-tea and said, "What are you saying?" So I repeated the question, the sense of my own ignorance now rising. "Why is it that so many Anangu are interested in Christianity?" Returning his gaze was like looking into the desert night sky. I was shocked by the small mindedness of my question but still curious.
"Because God gave us our Tjukurpa before he gave Piranpa (white man) the Bible," he said simply.
In that moment my desire for categories, for making fine distinctions, my obsession for separating this from that, struck me dumb. I could see it made me deaf to paradox, dull to consensus and impotent to rise to a greater truth. That fixation meant choosing one certainty only to turn your back on another.
On that trip we shot the Far North Queensland sequence for Two Brothers Walking. Our Manta Nganampa dance group celebrated connection to country, culture and family through story, song and dance with peoples of the top end, maintaining a custom that has taken place for millennia across the land.
tjilpi gaze
holds strong to ancient tjukurpa
paradox dissolves
You can see the trailer and the full documentary at: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/twobrotherswalking
