KING WALLY
“ … On at least three occasions I saved the old man from being cremated …”
Wally was a full-blood Aboriginal man, probably aged between 60 and 70, who had forsaken the tribal country of the Kimberley for the pubs and alleys of many Northern Territory towns, as much at home in his adopted environment as any of the strays and derelicts he instinctively befriended.
His black, wizened face peered expectantly at the world from a hedge of wild white hair and tangled beard.
The eyes were strangely luminous, meek and friendly.
All humanity was his friend.
He did not discriminate between the good and the bad; he accepted everyone as a mate, including the alcoholic men and women who collapsed in doorways, along river banks and in pub backyards.
To all, the old Aboriginal fellow was ‘King Wally,’ even though he failed to mention there was no royalty in traditional Aboriginal culture.
When inspired with sufficient alcohol, the old fellow, with minimum encouragement, started chanting his favourite corroboree song:
“Bin-a-lud barn-gud-yarga, bin-a-lud barn-gud-yarga, yogi …”
With song sticks clicking rhythmically, I often watched King Wally squatting by himself, legs crossed in tribal manner, singing the ancient corroboree songs of his ancestors.
Although he was usually at these times affected by drink, there was a seriousness in his task. The voice was urgent; with eyes closed, his spirit appeared to be reaching back to another time when life was pure and uncomplicated, and the re-enacted rituals carried a rich meaning to the lives of his people, long before he had become corruption by civilisation.
Reaching back into the past, it seemed, striving for an essence that had become hopelessly lost in a fading dreamtime of memories.
It was during this period of my first years in the Northern Territory that I was supervising a training project at an Aboriginal Centre in the main street of a large town.
I was made the resident caretaker of the building, with King Wally as my unofficial tenant.
Every night, when the pub closed, he made his way to the padlocked gate and rattled it until permitted entry.
On the hard floor of an office, he would cover himself with a decrepit blanket and snore away the hours to sunrise.
When consistently drunk, old King Wally, in his imaginings, was visited by nocturnal demons, “cheeky little fellas” who tormented him endlessly.
At such times Wally tentatively knocked at my door to request if he could sleep on the floor alongside my bed.
“Them little fellas don’t like white men,” he told me. “They won’t come if you’re there.”
So he would happily roll out his swag, so close he was almost underneath my bed, and nervously grind his teeth all night as he slept.
Next day he was prone to announce: “Them devil come last night, brother. He was sitting over there. But he wouldn’t come near me because you was here and they proper scared of you white fellas.”
Sometimes, in the cooler months, he borrowed a two-bar electric heater from beneath a typist’s desk, plugging it in to snooze contentedly before its glowing warmth.
On at least three occasions I saved the old man from being cremated.
When stupified with grog, King Wally sometimes allowed his blanket to cover the heater, and I would be awakened by smoke filling the rooms.
I grabbed the smouldering blanket, stamped it harmless, and threw it back over the grunting, teeth-grinding, snorting figure sound asleep on the floor.
At first light I shook him awake to say: “You silly old bugger. You nearly burnt yourself to death last night.”
“Sorry, brother,” he grunted, then went back to sleep, unconcerned.
On pension day King Wally often arrived back at the Aboriginal Centre with a newspaper parcel clutched under an arm.
Knocking on my bedroom door, he announced: “Hey, brother, me got big mob steak here. You want a feed?”
Sleepily, I agreed, even when not particularly hungry, as I did not want to injure his feelings with a rejection.
“You sleep now,” he said. “Me go kitchen, cook ‘em up proper way.”
A little later I would be gently awakened by a gnarled hand on my shoulder, with a steaming enamel plate of meat pieces thrust under my nose.
“Eat ‘em up, brother,” King Wally said. “Good one beef.”
Groggily, I ate the meal, half awake and asleep, thanking him for his thoughtfulness.
In daylight hours I asked him: “Eh, Wally, where did you get that meat you gave me last night?”
“Buy him butcher shop, brother,” he replied. “Butcher shop longa main street.”
One afternoon as Wally and I walked down the street, he suddenly stopped, jabbed me with an elbow and pointed with pouting lips.
“There butcher shop now,” he grunted.
Looking up, I saw a large window with PET MEAT written on the glass.
Stunned, I gasped: “That’s not a butcher shop. You’ve been giving me bloody dog’s meat.”
Nonplussed, he muttered: “All-a-same, ain’t it?” and continued on his way.
Late on another evening King Wally arrived back at the Centre with a squawking chook leg-tied and downright indignant.
“You like chookie-fowl, brother?” he enquired, as I struggled against the usual drowsiness.
“Where did you get the chook?” I asked.
“Me bin find him,” he answered ambiguously. “You want to eat him, brother?”
He casually pulled out a couple of the bird’s tail feathers.
“You’ve got to kill it first,” I said. “You’ve got to kill it first, then pluck it.”
“True,” he said, and, swinging the bird by the legs, slammed its head against the wooden arm of a chair, spraying blood everywhere.
“Him dead now,” he said unnecessarily, and walked off towards the kitchen to complete the operation, leaving a bloody trail in his wake.
Much later that night Wally appeared with a rather bedraggled looking chook, still carrying odd soggy feathers, and allegedly cooked and ready to eat.
“Did you gut it first?” I enquired.
“No, brother, we don’t do that,” he stated firmly.
My loss of appetite was instantaneous and complete.
Came the morning when old Wally decided to consolidate our friendship in a typical Aboriginal way.
Leaning close, he winked his left eye, held up a forefinger and whispered: “Brother, me got nice present for you.”
“Oh? What is it?”
“Can’t say yet,” he murmered mysteriously. “Tonight, brother. You can get him night time.”
“Why does everything with you have to happen at night?” I gently complained. “Night time is for sleeping.”
Again came the suggestive wink and the alerting forefinger.
Much later, from a deep sleep I was awakened by King Wally in the very early hours of the morning, knocking at my door and peering expectantly inside.
“I got a nice present, brother,” he winked. “Come look.”
Switching on the outside light, I opened the bedroom door to find myself staring in disbelief at two drunken old Aboriginal women, lying sprawled on a sofa.
The stench of alcoholic fumes and urine was almost overwhelming.
“You pick one, brother,” Wally offered. “One for you. One for me, eh?”
At this point in the proceedings one of the unconscious women burped and the other expelled wind from her hindmost regions.
Grabbing King Wally by his scrawny shoulders, I said to him: “Thanks, mate, but I’m going to give you a present now.”
“What that, brother?” he beamed expectantly.
“I’m going to give you both of them,” I said. “They’re all yours. Okay?”
“Brother, you proper kind fella,” he whimpered setimentally, obviously touched by the generosity of my selfless spirit.
In that period, the Centre became the personification of all things ‘Aboriginal’ to the European public – commercialised ‘corroborees’ being the main money spinner.
These dances were all conceived, adapted or stolen, and painstakingly choreographed, by one termed in the media as ‘an Aboriginal leader.’
The real objective was not necessarily to perpetuate the Aboriginal culture, but more to earn money from those who did not know the difference.
Their contrived corroboree were, in reality, but tame imitations of the real thing but, of course, the white world knew no better and accepted such offerings in good faith and with hard cash.
I aided and abetted the fraud by participating – at King Wally’s insistence – as their didjeridu player, a skill acquired earlier in Arnhem Land, even though the instrument was foreign to that particular location.
In the whole organisation, I was the only full-blood Caucasian.
To the ‘Aboriginal leader.’ this incurred a problem.
He needed to disguise my racial origins at public functions in order to present a semblance of authenticity to paying customers who were expecting the fair dinkum article.
The answer was provided in a bucket of charcoal dust, mixed with water and rubbed into every pore of my pallid Celtic body.
Dressed in what the ‘leader’ called a “cock-rag,” with a woman’s ruffled black wig over my ginger locks, King Wally proudly claimed I looked like a “proper black fella.”
Only the eyes gave me away.
Opened normally, the whites were too white.
So I had to keep them downcast or squinted.
Misrepresented in this manner, I appeared in an historic TV documentary and at numerous other functions attended by the elite and fatuous, and never, to my knowledge, was the ruse detected.
One chilly night King Wally’s corroboree group were engaged to appear at an upper-class affair attended by visiting American businessmen.
Even the West Australian premier, Sir Charles Court, was to be in attendance.
While the dignitaries feasted inside, we ‘Aborigines’ were instructed to remain outside in the car park.
There we huddled under blankets, resentfully munching meat pies and shivering to keep warm.
The ever-resourceful King Wally maintained himself with a flagon of wine.
At last an impeccably attired attendant ushered us into the heated, carpeted room, a faintly distasteful look on his haughty face.
Around us lounged the bloated social hierarchy, richly fed and self-satisfied, as they sat back with amused detachment to view a moment of orchestrated Aboriginal culture.
Following the performance, we were instructed to stand in line to be introduced to some of the lofty personages, including the West Australian premier.
In turn, the ‘leader’ introduced his troupe to the distinguished visitors and their entourage.
Stopping before myself, Sir Charles was informed that I had only recently arrived from the wilds of the Kimberley country, never before having journeyed so far afield from the homeland tribes.
As Sir Charles smiled his welcome, I gave him a Masonic handshake and quickly winked.
I think his jaw hit the floor and he dropped his grip as though he had accidentally touched a hot rock.
Obviously shaken, he moved on.
Towards the end of his days old King Wally sometimes became very ill with pneumonia and spent most of the time huddled in front of his two-bar heater, a grubby blanket over his shrunken shoulders, chatting happily with anyone who would spare him the time.
Occasionally, his old legs refused to carry him and he had to crawl over the floor like an invalid, sliding on his buttocks.
It was especially sad to see the ‘leader’ step over him as he hurried about his affairs, barely giving the old man a glance or kind word.
Fully realising King Wally was not going to be given much care or consideration at the Centre, it was arranged for him to be placed in the care of a nun who ran a little refuge for the homeless.
Soon afterwards I left for the North West.
The news eventually reached me that the still body of old King Wally was found one frosty morning slumped in a back-street doorway where he had stopped for his last sleep.
It was some comfort to know his wandering spirit had safely reached its dreaming place, away from this careless world.
I miss him.
My sister now lives in Maroochydore, Qld. Years ago when while working for the Red Cross, she lived in Wyndham, WA. She just sent me some photos of a didgeridoo she purchased for me in 1969, but has not yet sent to me. I think she feels I would be more likely to hold to my comitment to visit her next year, and bring it back to Canada at the same time(4 yrs ago we made a promise to meet in Qld in 5). The didgeridoo was made for her in 1969 by King Wally. Could this have been the same gentleman? I am book-marking your page in hopes of some info. If this could be the same King, I plan to print, frame, and hang your tribute to him beside the cherished instrument when I retrieve it.
Very interesting site. By the way, I have another reason for the interest (empathy). I too am an alcoholic, but have been in recovery for a few years and work in the addiction field with many of our Canadian Aboriginal Brethern. Thank You Kindly
Ralph Watson Calgary, Alberta
— Ralph Watson · 20 October 2009 · #
i have a didgerido made by King Wally in his younger years that was passed down to me by my grandmother and would like to know a bit more about it , please contact me at my hotmail. thanks .
— Teresa cardwell · 6 November 2009 · #