The fishermen’s altar of rock
The fishermen’s altar of rock
When the southern seas are seemingly tame or boiling and the seacoast’s altars of rock and ledge are awash with the periodic king of waves and froth, and fishermen are prepared to risk all, or throw their lot in with the millimetres of hull that separate them from the sky-world of seabirds and the seabed of starfish – at these times their lives would seem held by a thread.
Yet, surely he is a fool who underestimates the sea, for such oceans forgive but few.
When the southern seas are feathering most of us can all but hold our breath.
For the sightseer who beholds the rippling roar of blinking, breaking swells, majestic in their movements beholds too their myriads of cobalt and turquoise, free-falling.
Those with the sight and an ability to predict must know better than to stand in harms way, better to risk less and to walk away.
And what for he or she who knows and trusts in fate alone, or likes to gamble on Poseidon’s throne?
What says he or she to the boiling sea when grasping kelp and weed?
What last images flash before their eyes, but that altar of rock and its safety of lies?
posted by McCabeandco @ 9:01 PM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
Too true....another drowning on the south coast at the infamous Salmon Holes, the place where my thesis began! The ocean is mighty at this time of year, I was out in it twice yesterday and it always reminds me to stay humble....and then the dolphins milled around us for minutes, so close I could touch them, with fins I am learning to identify because they have characteristic nicks in them. For that it's worth it.....
Thanks for your comments and yes, mighty and scary and only a place for the brave or friends of fish... That place we or they call the 'salmon holes' has probably had some other name... Do locals refer to it by some other name such as 'dangerous holds' or 'dangerous hold' or 'danger holds' on account of the seemingly calm 'safe' reef and beach where many have come to grief...or 'the granite step' (as in stepping stone) that some have taken into the next world? The 'salmon holes' just doesn't seem to cut it... In the non threatening safe naming of 'salmon holes,' one tends to think of lolling schools of salmon sparkling in the shallows, drifting like weed in the sunshine and willing themselves to be caught... Old Noongar stories hold that they didn't even have to enter the water, for in singing their ngurri ngurri salmon song to their totemic dolphins (or salmon), the salmon school would be driven (shepherded) by the dolphin onto the land on mass. The name of 'salmon holes' offers no sense of the respect this particular locality deserves.
And Bald Head, another place name meaning what exactly? Both ST and Wadjella Y speak of Bald Head in deeply respect-filled terms for the surge and raw power that is tied to that exposed place of rock and deep blue depths. But to others who might view it from a postcard or a walking track and its potential fishing platforms, Bald Head elicits less a place name of respect than a name couched in terms of its distinct morphology. Looking at it aided through a satellite it appears more an ancient's talon or the finger nail of a grasping desperate hand. It is truly imposing, forbidding and signifying I don't know exactly what! Both you and ST have 'some' knowledge of these places and whilst they probably appear no less formidable, I suspect you have made some kind of pact with them. In an earlier comment on ST's blog I pondered whether her 'Selky' connections and insights gave to her an acute understanding of the Selky soul vis-a-vis a seal's view to place. Perhaps through such pacts with places, in what Wadjella Y referred to as 'making peace,' perhaps places with a dangerous undercurrent become less inauspicious and place making of the familiar - making family - through known connections in a kinship of trust and mastery of the conditions is the outcome.
I think you are absolutely right......I DO make pacts with these places, and every time I go in the surf, but they are never ones made on equal grounds! They are one-sided affairs, born of a deep and real respect. If that respect isn't there, people just die. I am also aware that my 'pacts' don't guarantee me immunity by any means. I suspect that the naming of these places is an attempt to undermine their power, which of course is not a successful strategy at all. It deludes people into thinking that it these places are harmless, so more people die.
You know when I started my study my supervisors wanted me to make some account on behalf of the local Menang in regard to the site, which I was more than happy to do, but all I discovered was an absence of reference to it in local culture. I am still wondering if this is because 1. It is a place that is not spoken of because it is really a 'devil' place 2. that it was a place of no practical value and therefore insignificant or 3. people had simply forgotten or stories had been lost in the destruction of Aboriginal culture. I am still wondering!
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