... this poem was written some time ago but it seems to suit Neville's prompt so I have decided to use it. Shoot me if you wish.The life of Aboriginal warrior Pemulwuy is commemorated today at the National Museum of Australia as part of its Defining Moments project, which explores key dates that have defined the country’s history over more than 50,000 years.
THE SPIRIT OF PEMULWUY ... Maureen Clifford © The #ScribblyBarkPoet
I wonder will the spirit of Pemulwuy ever rest
with ancient ones in longed for Dreamtime home?.
They cleaved his body, only shipped his head to England’s shore,
his spirit trapped on earth alas must roam.
The Eora nation’s people to the settler’s great dismay
had fought colonization’s every plan,
and Pemulwuy to Blighty was a sore and festered thorn;
who vowed ‘I never shall become white man.’
They said he killed John McIntyre a gamekeeper well known
on Sydney’s shores out there at Botany.
John McIntyre it seemed had killed some natives in the town,
revenge it seemed was plainly on display.
Now Pemulwuy put fire to use destroying farm and fence.
each angry squatter had him in his sight.
He led one hundred men, including convicts, to the fray
and British troops responded overnight.
As far as Parramatta, Toongabbie to Hawkesbury,
they spoke his name but always with unease.
This warrior, like lightning struck, and he was fast and fierce
then seemed to disappear into the trees.
They called him Rainbow Warrior for ochre colours worn,
his gods it seemed kept safe his vital spot. **
But this time badly wounded straight to hospital he went.
In irons he escaped though full of shot.
The year eighteen o-one saw Pemulwuy proclaimed ‘outlaw’
his sudden death then caused his tribe dismay.
The Authorities had only sent his pickled head abroad
as a trophy for a Joseph Banks’ display.
To capsulate the Governor sent letter with the ‘prize’
he wrote of Pemulwuy – fair as could be.
‘He was a brave and independent character although
a pest indeed throughout the colony.’
In nineteen fifty Pemulwuy’s lost skull at last returned
to seek his Dreamtime, he would find the way.
But it ensued it was’nt his and then that skull was lost,
his tribe the Bidjigal still grieve today.
So where do Spirits linger when they’re trapped and bound to earth?
Are they in truth the black crows that we see?
A clever* man was Pemulwuy, through prison bars he flew.*
Perhaps one day his spirit will be free?
****Aboriginal people believed that the only way he could have escaped from Hospital when he was badly shot and in leg irons was to have become a crow and flown through the barred windows to freedom.
* Clever man. In an Aboriginal society a clever man is often a man who deals with the spiritual nature of things and even sorcery.
An incomplete body cannot enter the Dreamtime – hence much distress was caused to this tribe by his skull being in England and our Government was urged to have it returned, but the skull returned was not his and then that skull was lost. In 2010 Prince William undertook to see that Pemulwuys skull was returned by the UK to his Aboriginal relatives.
