Crows

Crows recur as more than background wildlife: their calls punctuate the landscape and become a point of contact between Molly, Yadaka, and cultural memory. The birds move between an ordinary presence in the bush and a specifically Ngarigo spiritual significance, with Yadaka’s gestures of acknowledgment making that connection visible.

Presence in the Landscape

During Molly’s passage through a clearing, birdsong from male flame robins is interrupted by a crow calling in the distance. The scene places the crow within a changing seasonal landscape: frost-browned sweetgrass and the robins’ red chests signal that winter is coming, while Molly continues through the thicket toward the climb home. The crow’s call does not stop her journey, but it cuts across the clearing’s otherwise serene natural sounds.

Yadaka’s Acknowledgment

At daybreak, a crow calls from the trees above Yadaka and Danny. Yadaka turns toward it and nods; the gesture is presented as an acknowledgment, not as a spoken message or an interruption to his immediate actions. He then tends the fire while Danny prepares to leave and return the next afternoon to learn spear-throwing and men’s business. The bird’s call thus accompanies a moment of contact between the two, while Yadaka’s response remains part of his ordinary observance.

Totem and Spiritual Significance

Yadaka explains the practice more fully when Molly asks why he acknowledges a crow. He identifies the crow as the totem of his mother’s mother’s mother, as a carrier of souls to the Dreaming, and as having a special place in his clan’s creation story. He also describes the nod simply as paying respect. The explanation gives the crow several connected meanings—ancestral relation, the passage of souls, and clan tradition—without reducing it to a single emblem.

A Motif of Attention and Continuity

The crow’s distant call accompanies Yadaka’s account of being put out by his tribe after he refused to join them in seeking payback; he says he knew resistance would achieve nothing against the many white people and guns. In the silence that follows, he turns toward another crow and nods. This recurrence links the bird to a life marked by separation from his people without suggesting that the crow itself resolves that separation: its significance rests in an inherited relationship and a continuing act of respect. Across the scenes, attention to the crow makes cultural continuity audible within the surrounding landscape.