Jack Dale

Signed Jack Dale verso.
Djuwa Gargarja – oral history as spoken by Jack Dale – page 54 of the monograph “Jack Dale Mengenen” by Neil McLeod.
“In the wet time, everyone, especially when it is raining, is frightened of the Devil Bird. When they hear the bird singing “Gar Gar Gar”, no children cry or ever talk. Everyone must keep quiet. The Devil Bird is coming. If he doesn’t hear anyone crying, he stops and sings out, Gar Gar Gar. He just floats around waiting and listening for about half an hour. Everyone is quiet. If he hears a child he garbs hold of him and takes him to that hole in the hill where his wife had a big fire ready. She knew that he went hunting and was glad he brought a baby back. She got everything ready to cook that baby and bash his brains out.
Some kids in the camp walk about mad, pick up sticks, eat dog shit, anything because their head was bashed in by Mimi, Devil Bird’s wife.
In our camps we have people that Gargarja took. They’re mad and do what they like. Teenage people about 18, 19, when they hear this bird they take a shield. We train these people after being young [train and initiate them], then they can tell that bird, “Get away!”, and bang a stick on that shield. “Go away Gargarja”, they say, and the bird hears them and can’t pick them up and take them to his cave. The bird swears and curses. Told by Jack Dale.