Old Man Tuart

Old Man Tuart 29th Jan 2009
Where I live was once an old Tuart, he was just a stump when I first came here.
His size was huge, and when alive he must have shaded the wild horses in the district.
I reckon he must have been very old, he might even have been in the vicinity of 800 years.
As I come to think about it now, to the Noongar he was probably a favourite, they probably climbed into his branches for eggs and possum.
Maybe they just rested beneath his branches when hunting duck and djilgies in the nearby lakes.
Imagine that!?
Imagine when Perth was a placename in Scotland.
When Perth belonged to the Picts and this region belonged to the Noongar - Booroo - place of lakes and swamps full with tortoise, kweyaar boolaarr with plenty of frogs, and women folk, whose naked bodies glistened red from oily ochre... and kids laughing, screaming in joy... bitten by a djilgie, thrusting arms into their burrows in the stream banks to pull them out, and duck and lizards hanging limp in the men's noolburn belts - men scraping their spears by their smokey fires, watching for the smoke of others beyond, signals on the horizon... and the shadows getting longer, the sun sinking and in the silence an old man singing!
Imagine when Perth was a place in Scotland!
And this boodjaa smelt of the doolyaar-kaalanginy, the scent from burning leaves. Yep, this old Tuart must have heard any number of sounds - Noongar singing by their fires, warm and snug in their bell hut mias - a far cry from the noise that is now...
And to think, that everywhere in all directions this was true... all sand holds the memory of such fires and old trees, fires that were cooked over, sung over and old trees that shaded the many, now memories in the soil, bone and charcoal beneath the houses of the residents of Perth.