Free Carpentaria by Alexis Wright

who was Joseph Midnight’s father. They even made up a name for themselves – Wangabiya – and said that their tribe were the real traditional owners, before Norm Phantom’s group which they called the tribe of the Johnny-come-latelies came to the Gulf. Well! Even though no tribe on earth existed with that name Wangabiya, you had everyone going around claiming to be a Wangabiya. Lost Wangabiya started turning up in the Gulf from all over the place: Brisbane, Sydney and even one came over from Los Angeles saying he was a Wangabiya, and could speak the lost Wangabiya language. It was the hint of big bickies to be had from big mining that did that. It was unfortunate to have to say it, but those Eastside people of old Joseph Midnight were just a lot of nuisance dogs, which was only natural to expect because they were nothing but rubbish.
    They lived among a hundred and one pussycats with pigs. This was how the old people on Westside rubbished those people on Eastside who, they claimed, knew nothing about culture if every one of them had been derived from the genes of trash, from Joseph Midnight. They saw his rubbish blood running through the lot of them so-called Wangabiyas. Even all the pigs you see lying around their yards – all called Aunty and Uncle – can never be shot, Oh! No! You cannot shoot that good pig, he’s Uncle . And living in car bodies and whatnot, which was illegal. All of it was part of Joseph Midnight’s extortion racket with the government. This was what he got for agreeing to the mine. The government gave him a lot of money, a thousand dollars, and said, Go out there and shoot the vacuum cleaners, all of the Hoovers and Electroluxes – all the feral pigs. Money talks. This was what he got for his Native title rights. Money to shoot all the pigs. He was supposed to exterminate them from the entire Gulf of Carpentaria once and for all but he never did that. He let his useless relatives take all the little baby piglets home for pets and they bred up ten piglets each.
    The so-called Wangabiyas over Eastside were also responsible for cane toads, millions of cane toads living in the district to this day. When they heard that the government was paying fifty cents for a cane toad, you could hear them right over Westside talking and talking. They could not stop wishing for the toads to arrive. Oh! Other people are really lucky they got them frogs . Well! How do you think the cane toads got into this pristine environment? Joseph Midnight brought them in his port from Townsville, smuggled them in, not that anyone was there to stop him. Now, shine a torch around outside and you will see nothing but a plague of cane toads all over the place. So, this was the type of people they were – unscrupulous, nasty kind of people – even without talking about the land they tried to steal.
    What was really offensive to the Westside elders was that those squatter people even had the audacity to open their mouths about somebody’s else’s land. They forget they never had any land for a thousand years . And if you see that there are no little native animals around anymore it was because those people ate them. Ate everything. You would think that would be a good case for a bit of serenity around these parts from those people, when they are living on somebody else’s land, and treating it like vacuum cleaners sucking up the wildlife. You would think that, but their loose tongues did not know the meaning of the word serenity.
    Over there on Eastside, the thieves talked about nothing all day, and all night long. It was enough to drive people away. These people were so habituated to talking, the drone of their voices drove other people mad, and even some people who had got trapped on Eastside and could not escape because they had no money to buy a ticket out of the place had to be taken away down South on the Flying Doctor’s plane, to be put away in a mental institution.
    A lot of people wanted to know what Eastside talked