Carnivorous Nights Read Online Free PDF Page A

dingoes never crossed the water.
    When the mainland thylacines died out, so did the rock art. Now the only reminders of the mainland thylacines are fossilized bones, dehydrated body parts preserved in outback deserts, and a handful of ancient paintings.
    Les said his discovery of a thylacine drawing in the environs of Aus-tralia's largest city had been slightly controversial in archaeological circles. “There's actually some debate about whether it
is
a tiger,” he said. “The jury's about 60–40 in my favor. Some people think it's a kangaroo with stripes.”
    Les turned off the main channel, and we headed into a branch of the estuary known as the Southwest Arm that reached into the national park. The arm was lousy with sandbars, and at one point we ran aground. Les put the engine in reverse and it made a disturbing grinding noise. As the pudding chugged on, the hillside homes receded. Sea eagles circled in the distance. Pied cormorants, seagulls, and pelicans flew by. Climbing up the walls of pale gray sandstone were thin silver-barked, gray-barked, and red-barked eucalyptus trees, topped with tufts of brilliant green leaves. There were also native fruit trees: figs, wombat berry, and yellow-berried tuckeroo. Les estimated one hundred aboriginal people had lived in this bay. There were signs of aboriginal habitation everywhere: shell middens, fire pits, engravings of dolphins and whales, paintings of fish drawn in yellow ocher, drawings of flying foxes hanging upside down in charcoal.
    Les pointed out an ancient midden, an aboriginal rubbish heap of oyster and mussel shells that now formed part of the shoreline. “Some of these middens are dated to have been in use for six thousand years.” Les coaxed the boat into shallow water. It scraped against the rocky shoreline with a ripping sound and Les cut the engine. “I want to show you something up here. It's just a quick detour.”
    Sun-doped, Alexis and Dorothy staggered down the stairs and followed Les out of the boat. We hopped out, too, and scrambled up a short, nearly vertical trail, pulling ourselves along by grabbing on to the roots of eucalyptus trees. White shells crunched beneath our feet. Les led us to a narrow sandstone ledge surmounted by an overhang of dark rock.
    “What do you see?” he said.
    We peered at the rock. There was nothing there. It looked like any other outcrop, rough and streaked with age.
    “Give it a minute,” Les said. “It's like an optical illusion.”
    Then, like a photo in a developing bath, four black hands slowly emerged from the rock face. “Hand stencils,” Les explained. They were made by Tharawal people who lived here hundreds of years ago. Each was framed by a ragged halo of white.
    “That's intense,” said Dorothy. “It's like they're reaching out and grabbing us.”
    Alexis studied the pigments, black and white on gray rock. “How did they make these?” he asked.
    “It's sprayed on,” Les said. “They filled their mouth with water and chewed-up charcoal, and sprayed the rock in a series of short bursts. That created a black background. Then they would fill their mouths with white clay to make a white pigment, place their hand against the rock, and spray around it.” He pantomimed spitting out pigment with his hand flush against the rock.
    Les wasn't sure what the hand stencils meant—or if they had a meaning. Archaeologists have found similar stencils in radically different parts of the world: Africa, Europe, the Americas. The question was, were they signatures (an ancient “Kilroy was here”)? Messages? Les thought the positioning of the fingers might be some sort of signaling, or bush code. “In some instances, there's such a lot of effort that's gone into the preparation of the surface and then the way the fingers are splayed. I think there are meanings we don't understand.” Hand stencils could also have a spiritual significance. Some archaeologists theorize the rocks used for hand stenciling served as