The Story of Mirdinan: A Tale of Supernatural Escape and Cultural Depth

Extract from Total Reset, pp.365-66

“Did I tell you about that fella?” Lulu asked.

“No,” I replied, with a clear feeling he had not, even though I had no idea who.

“Mirdinan, that fella. He campin’ with his missus at Kunin, ah, Fishermen Bend you fellas call ‘im. We bin put ‘im in that book I make with Stephen.” He was referring to the 1983 book Gularabulu.

The story was about events in the 1920s when Mirdinan, a maban, was captured by two horse-mounted police on Thangoo Station about a two-day walk southeast of Broome. He admitted having killed his wife after discovering her sexual liaisons with a Malay man in the pearling industry. The police chained Mirdinan’s neck, hands and legs and began walking him to Broome “like a dog with a chain” as Lulu said.

While tending their horses and taking a rest at Nulungu, a waterhole on Roebuck Plains, they left their prisoner under a tree. When they went to fetch him, they found only chains, the neck and leg irons still locked. After searching in vain for tracks they gave up and returned to Broome to report to the sergeant of police. Understandably, he did not believe their account of what had happened.

Meanwhile, Mirdinan had returned to his people on Thangoo but a brother of the murdered wife grabbed him and called the police. They returned and transported him to the Broome lockup where he was shut in a concrete-walled cell.

In the late afternoon the sergeant went to the cell with supper and was shocked to find it was empty, the door still locked. A stray cat was wandering around which he shooed out of the station with his stick.

The sergeant then went outside, told people a prisoner has escaped from the lockup and asked if anyone had seen him. Some had observed a fast-walking man disappearing in the direction of the mangroves. The sergeant did not realise he had shooed Mirdinan out of the police station.

The police again found Mirdinan at Thangoo, grabbed him, took him back to Broome and put him on a boat which transported him far south to Perth’s port of Fremantle where he was destined for the hangman’s noose.

When I asked Lulu why Mirdinan had not escaped from the boat he replied, “Musta wanted to look at that country.”

The authorities did not waste time and soon had him standing on the gallows, a noose around his neck. The countdown from 10 began. When the hangman opened the trapdoor instead of a body falling to its death only a noose was left dangling in the air, an eaglehawk flying free.

It flew all the way back to its country where it landed and shape-shifted to become Mirdinan again who duly composed a song about his journey which included references to Fremantle and the red clothes of the hangman. Whenever Lulu told me the story he would sing the song.

When I asked how Mirdinan could change shape, Lulu rubbed his tummy saying, “Maban power, here in his belly.”

But the story was not over.

Mirdinan’s people did not like the fact that he had brutally killed their relative and were inclined to kill him in the same manner but not wanting trouble with the police again handed him over.

By now, the police had had enough. They took him to Broome, filled him with alcohol, dumped him in a box, added a heavy weight and nailed it shut. A boat transported the box to the Roebuck Bay Deep where it was thrown overboard; the end of Mirdinan.

Whenever Lulu told me the story, he always finished by saying, “He coulda come out of that box if they not make ‘im drunk but that drink make him lose ’imself, lose ‘imself on the inside. Clever man, that Mirdinan. Everybody know the story.”

Some may be inclined to dismiss such accounts as fantasy. In the modern cultural context such scepticism is perfectly understandable. Certainly, if rational German academics of the likes of Dr Helmut Petri had heard the story on arrival in the Kimberley [in 1938], they may well have regarded it so but perhaps not when they departed.

Living on Country with the First Peoples for an extended period invariably leads to experiences that cannot be explained in rational terms, the workings of the other-dimensional reality unable to be grasped by an objective observer experiencing themselves as separated from what is being observed. While such a modus operandi might be effective for explaining the physicality of the world and exploiting it, it is woefully inadequate for explaining the workings of the other reality.

There are two very deep holes in Roebuck Bay (locally referred to as ‘big fish’ holes) where two huge, destructive ancestral beings once lived, Mirring and Jindiralbalgun. When more people began appearing they realised they would need to leave or people would not be safe. After doing their ceremonial business at Didrigun they departed, Mirring towards Karajarri country to become a dangerous rock, and Jindiralbalgun to Bardi country to become a hazardous whirlpool in Sunday Strait out from One Arm Point.