2011 - Theses - Flinders University

Section D: MeetingsRefer to Book 2 Exegetical Essay FiveLife Writing Chapter ElevenJim comes to Adnyamathanha CountryIga Warta, Flinders Ranges 2005I sat comfortably beside Cliff Coulthard in the morning sunlight at Iga Warta, where hisfamily had established their homelands and a cultural tourism enterprise, just west ofNepabunna. Looking further west, I saw columns of dust hanging in the still air like tamedwilly-willy’s, pointing their fingers towards the close valley that folded Minerawuta awayfrom view. Fenced in north and south by craggy ranges, that did not mean that those who hadlived in the cleft of the land saw nothing.Cliff leant forward from his plastic chair and moved a stick across the fine grey gravel.He pulled his hat low against the mid-morning glare, his beard nodding at the explanation hegave as he drew a figure of a bird in the dirt, and stabbed his stick at its open beak.‘…if you look at a map you can see the hills make the shape of a beak: that’s Yurlu,kingfisher beak. Minerawuta is right in the middle of the beak, where the food goes downinto the body, so they would have preferred to be there, between the two ranges. Then there’sCrystal Gorge right at the point of the beak. Then the head goes around here, on Mt Serle.’Cliff dragged the twig around the curving crest of the bird’s head, tracing north on the tinymap.‘…And King Bob, he picked the place he wanted to be buried right where the brain wouldbe. Mt Serle Bob – he called him King Bob – was one of the fellows first saw white men65