She was a beautiful little girl, so natural - a little fairy (Mrs E M Waterhouse of Whakatane, New Zealand, referring to Lindy Chamberlain, Daily Telegraph, November 1, 1983.)
I feel that I am the victim of a medieval witch-hunt (Lindy Chamberlain, Woman's Day, October 1, 1980.)
In a cartoon, Jenny Coopes has depicted a bubbling cauldron tended by two silhouettes in puritan dress and fuelled by newsprint with headline fragments (Sydney Morning Herald, November 13, 1982). The cartoon suggests what essentially underlies the Azaria Chamberlain case: the making of Lindy the witch. According to Jong, witches and fairies have long been associated in the popular mind, and often the same characteristics are attributed to both groups: 'the practice of sorcery, the ability to appear and disappear at will, shape-shifting, the preparation of magic salves, the stealing of children, dancing in circles, and having wild nocturnal parties... But the witch was used as a scapegoat... while the fairy flew free' (1982:155).
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Azaria and Lindy Chamberlain have slowly been absorbed into Australian folklore, their tragedy told and retold until it no longer stirs so strongly the surges of disquiet and morbid fascination. They have become a nation's obsession, producing prodigious newspaper copy and endless legal speculation as well as a particular genre of jokes and graffiti. According to Sanders, the case was surrounded by 'an incontinent excessive discourse that subverted the official attempts at closure' (Sanders 1982:54). The imagery which informed the public discourse was peppered with potent allusions to creatures and moods of other times and other places long past. The spectre of Lindy as witch was rarely articulated, yet the notion percolated just beneath the constantly informing the imagery which pervaded the discussion. The discussion surrounding the case clearly illustrates just how deeply the figure of the witch has permeated our cultural forms. The paraphernalia of witchcraft pervades our humour, our art, our literature, our mythologies and our history. The witch 'has come to be seen as both a scapegoat and saviour, a figure of fun and a figure of menace, a model for women and a cautionary antimodel' (Jong, 1982:55). As a symbol of female freedom, power and sexuality, the witch also represents and reminds women of the potential brutal retribution which the exercise of this freedom, power and sexuality can bring.
The Events
During the 1980 August school vacation, a young family of five went on a camping holiday to Central Australia and in particular Ayers Rock. They had driven there in the family car from Mt Isa some 1700 kilometres northeast, where Michael Chamberlain, the husband and father, was a Seventh Day Adventist pastor. Lindy, the wife and mother, had given birth just nine and a half weeks previously to a daughter named Azaria Chantal Loren. They were accompanied on the trip by their two sons, Aidan, 6 years old and Reagan, 4 years old.
One evening, in the Uluru camping grounds at the base of Ayers Rock, Azaria disappeared from her carry-basket in the family tent. Her body has never been found. Lindy raised the alarm that night, claiming a dingo had taken her baby. A week later, a tourist found Azaria's clothing at the base of Ayers Rock near the Fertility Cave. In the subsequent coronial inquest held in Alice Springs, the Coroner, Dennis Barritt, found that a dingo had indeed taken the child but that there had been human intervention by a person or persons unknown, to dispose of the body. The parents were exonerated of all blame and the Northern Territory police were sharply reprimanded for their ineptitude.
Because of the enormous public interest and speculation about the case, Barritt took the unprecedented step of announcing his findings live over national television. Animal lovers, and in particular, supporters of the underdog-dingo, were outraged by his conclusions. Gossip, harassment, death-threats and innuendo plagued the Cham-
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berlain family. They had earlier chosen to move to the sanctuary of the Avondale Seventh Day Adventist College at Corranbong near Newcastle, to escape the rumours and accusations to which they were constantly subjected.
Investigations by the police continued. The findings of the first inquest were quashed and a second inquest set up. As a result, Lindy was charged with the murder of Azaria and Michael was charged with being an accessory after the fact. The couple were allowed bail after a trial date was fixed. By the time of the trial, held in Darwin in September-October 1981, Lindy was seven months pregnant. Both parents pleaded their innocence, still claiming a dingo or wild dog had taken their child. Each side in the case, the prosecution and the defence, employed a barrage of experienced lawyers. The trial lasted six weeks, and as each daily court-session closed, the ever-present journalists dispatched detailed accounts of the grisly evidence, led by the prosecution which alleged that Lindy had cut Azaria's throat with scissors in the family car. Because the case was based on circumstantial evidence, the contest moved between a formidable array of forensic experts.
A few weeks before Christmas in 1982, the jury returned a verdict of guilty (beyond reasonable doubt) in both cases. Lindy was immediately sentenced to the mandatory sentence for murder in the Northern Territory of life imprisonment. Michael was given a suspended sentence and a three year good behaviour bond in order to take care of their children. The jury's verdict did not, however, dampen the vigour of public debate; the extensive newspaper, radio and television coverage had by then clearly awarded the public a juror's mandate.
Lindy meanwhile gave birth to another daughter named Kahlia, who was immediately taken from her into the temporary custody and safe-keeping of the state. Lindy's lawyers lodged an appeal against the life sentence, and pending this hearing, Lindy was freed on bail and reunited with her daughter. Three months later, the Federal Court in Sydney rejected the grounds of appeal and Lindy was returned to Berrimah Jail in Darwin. Her request to keep Kahlia in jail with her was denied.
A further and final appeal was lodged, this time to the High Court of Australia in Canberra. In February 1984, the appeal was dismissed by a majority of three to two. Public discussion has continued unabated, with television, radio and newspaper documentaries, dramas and new angles feeding the obsession almost weekly.
The Setting
While Australians in their millions watched the unfolding of the 'theatre of death' (Sanders 1982:54), the forty-odd press, radio and television journalists covering the case fed the obsession. The ten camera operators present were 'poised to film everything that moved'
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(Age, December 16, 1981). The journalists created and repeatedly reconstructed the night of the disappearance, speculation, gossip, joke and fact becoming but strands in a complex net.
The setting of the mystery was confined to a place which was regarded as being inherently mystical, projecting a foreboding of danger and death. Ayers Rock or 'the Rock' was variously described as an 'awesome geological freak' (Shears 1982:2), in the 'dead heart' (Daily Telegraph, September 9, 1982); as sitting 'in the desert like a huge beast at rest' (Shears, 1982:1); having 'a brooding presence' ('Australian Women's Weekly, December 23, 1981) and being 'the haunt of ghosts and demons' (Simmonds, 1982:1). Its mystery was 'as deep as its subterranean roots' (Sydney Morning Herald, January 17, 1981) and growing around its base, one report said, was 'a deadly plant called mother-in-law [which] killed three of explorer William Gosse's camels when he came in 1873 to name the Rock' (Sydney Morning Herald, January 17, 1981). Tourists by the thousands 'touch the hunched mound... study its changing mood... blood-red at sunset' and 'watch its breathing at the last light of day' (Shears, 1982:3). Typically, 'a hot wind blows the red sand. The spinifex rustles and brown hawks and black crows wheel overhead. At night, the dingoes howl' (Australian Women's Weekly, December 23, 1981).
On the particular night of Azaria's disappearance, before Lindy signalled her anguish, 'in the half-light of evening, an eerie stillness settled over the desert, broken only occasionally by the shrill squeal of a nocturnal hunter on its prey' (Simmonds, 1982:1).
After Azaria had 'vanished' from the 'death tent' (Sun, November 3, 1982), many people were involved in the subsequent search for her. One report described the prevailing atmosphere as spooky and creepy; 'although there was no wind some of the trees started moving, waving as if there was a breeze' and one person in the same report, 'thought there was something eerie about the atmosphere that night. And her dog, he was unusually quiet...'; when the search was abandoned about midnight, the searchers 'closed their door on the evil blackness of the night' (Shears, 1982:9).
On their holiday, the Chamberlain family had already visited such places as the Devil's Marbles near Alice Springs and a place called Cut Throat Cave as well as the Fertility Cave at the base of Ayers Rock. According to journalists, it was once reserved for Aboriginal women 'to use as [a] midwifery clinic for their natural childbirth' (Simmonds, 1982:3) and to perform their 'sacred rights in order to bear children' (Sun, November 1,1982). Now the cave had added significance as the place where Azaria's clothes had been found, complete with cut marks alleged by experts to have been made by scissors.
The Accusers
The public witch-hunt for Lindy Chamberlain began not long after Azaria disappeared. The family had been forced to leave Mt Isa, 'a town
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without pity' (Simmonds, 1982:34), because of its 'hate campaign and [poisonous atmosphere' (Sun, November, 1982). It was not just the apparatus of the stage and the media which fuelled the witch-hunt, but as well, the Australian community. Many of the public saw the second inquest as 'the first step towards punishing the Chamberlains for an imagined crime which, as yet, had never been stipulated' (Simmonds, 1982:112). There was an obsessive quest to ascribe blame - to Lindy, to the dingo, to the adherents of a marginal unorthodox religion, to the Rock itself.
The public became officially' involved when Coroner Dennis Barritt asked people to come forward with any constructive information of dingo attacks on children. He suggested that it would be of interest to know the predisposition of dingoes in this respect. When he later announced permission for his finding to be televised across Australia, he paradoxically reprimanded many of those same Australians he had asked to help with information, for having all too fertile imaginations. He added that the case had crossed state borders and had touched the emotions of a great percentage of Australians. An estimated two million people saw the telecast in Sydney alone, rivalling, according to one newspaper, the interest produced by the video of the first moon landing (Sun, February 2, 1981).
The state went to enormous effort and expense to bring Lindy and Michael to trial. During the first inquest, there were 30 witnesses and at least 200 exhibits; at the second inquest, there were 263 exhibits, and at the trial, there were 73 witnesses (45 prosecution, 28 defence) and over SOOO pages of transcript produced. The estimates of the total cost to the state varied considerably, from between $3 million to $8 million.
The Northern Territory police responded seriously to their public reprimand by the Coroner at the initial inquest. Not only did they intensify their undercover investigations, but, according to Simmonds (1982:94), 'closing ranks to defend themselves against outside criticism', they scapegoated a female member of the forensic division; Constable Myra Fogarty 'found out what it was like to be on the wrong side of heavy police interviews'. After four sessions, an internal charge was laid against her and she was fined$50 as well as being transferred to another section. Soon after, she resigned; 'Myra had learned about police cameraderie the hard way', says Simmonds (1982:94).
The police kept heavy pressure on the Chamberlains. A senior law official had been heard to say, during the first inquest, that if enough pressure was applied to the parents they would break (Shears, 1982:107). The renewed secret investigation was called 'Operation Ochre' by the police involved. Detective Graeme Charlwood, the man who had led the investigation up to the first inquest, 'haggled with his superiors to be allowed to keep digging' (Simmonds, 1982:132). He twice tried to secretly tape conversations between himself and Lindy
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and was open in his unflinching resolve to have her charged with Azaria's murder.
Chief Minister of the Northern Territory, Paul Everingham, after announcing the re-opening of the inquest, expressed disgust at the amount of speculation which followed. Ironically, as head of the state which had instigated the legal vendetta against the Chamberlains, he accused the media of behaving like 'a bunch of vampires', their speculation being 'ghoulish' (Sydney Morning Herald, December 24, 1981).
As the second inquest and subsequent trial proceeded, the evidence became daily fodder for the symbolic but unequal relationship between the media and its public. The court exhibits ranged from 'the bleached skull of a dingo to the blood-spattered clothing of Azaria Chamberlain' (Australian, December 24, 1981). Their assigned numbers were reported: '...Exhibit 11l,asinglet; exhibit 12, a jumpsuit; exhibit 13, bootees; exhibit 14, the remnants of a disposable napkin' (Daily Telegraph, September 16,1982). There were reports of bizarre video films showing dingoes feeding on meat wrapper in babies' nappies and of a dingo attacking the freshly-killed carcass of a kid goat dressed in a baby's jumpsuit. There were reports of tests 'using a singlet, weights and two skulls of dingoes from Ayers Rock and Newcastle Waters'(Shears, 1982:76); of others using an effigy of a baby which was dragged through soil and undergrowth, and of those done by an entomologist using Kentucky Fried Chicken boxes around Ayers Rock to discover whether various insects were attracted to wet or dry blood (Sydney Morning Herald, December 24, 1981). During the second inquest, reports told of Professor James Cameron, one of the leading forensic experts in the world, who, while dressing a doll in Azaria's blood stained jumpsuit before attempting to grip it with a dingo skull, apologised to the Coroner for the time it took, saying, 'I'm a little out of practice', and of a London odontologist who gave evidence that forty percent of battered babies have been found to show bite marks (National Times, December 27, 1981 - January 2, 1982).
The lawyer assisting the Coroner in the second inquest was reported to have been 'hunched over his table like a great bird of prey' (Australian, February 2, 1982), and the dingo-baby jokes which swept the country had wide appeal. Even the Prime Minister was alleged to have used one in a speech: 'Did you hear about the Irish dingo? 1t ate the tent' (National Times, December 27, 1981 - January 2, 1982). 'The ghouls' said one writer 'were getting their kicks out of increasingly tasteless gags ... and black jokes' (Simmonds, 1982:18).
Even after Lindy had been convicted, sentenced and jailed, the witch-hunt continued with the Truth newspaper (November 27,1982) announcing a $250,000 reward for the body of Azaria. In addition, at a 'Free Lindy Chamberlain' Rally in Brisbane, speaker Dr. Weston Allan told the assembled crowd that there were people who wanted to execute
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Lindy: 'They say they are prepared to form lynch mobs and go out and hang her'; Lindy, he said, had been described in letters sent to him as a 'hard-faced, cruel-eyed monster and a witch'. Michael Chamberlain had been called her 'down-trodden, hen-pecked husband' (Daily Telegraph, November 7, 1982).
New facts emerged, the most notable being the police 'discovery' in the Chamberlain family bible of two excerpts from the Book of Judges, purportedly outlined in red:
Then Jael took a nail of the tent; And took a hammer in her hand; And went softly unto him; And smote the nail into his temples; And fastened it into the ground; For he was fast asleep and weary; So he died/
'She put her hand to the nail;
And her right hand to the workmen's hammer;
And with the hammer she smote Sisira;
She smote off his head;
When she had pierced and stuck him through his temples.
(quoted in Brien, 1984: prologue)
An a possible scenario, one journalist proposed that Azaria's death under 'the shadow of the great Uluru' was planned: 'all day, that particular text from the bible had been ringing through her head. The time had come to make the sacrifice to atone for her sins'. Lindy took the child and a tent spike to the family car and 'inside the darkened car Lindy laid Azaria on the floor, and lifted the tent spike. She took a deep breath and impulsively lashed out in a moment of blind brutality. Seconds later, Azaria's throat was cut, almost to the point of decapitation. The act was complete.' As she emerged, 'Lindy could hear the faint strains of religious music ...' (Brien, 1984:380-1). This same journalist alleges that police also found a tiny white coffin 'reserved for Azaria in case her remains were someday found' (Brien, 1984:126).
Although neither of these 'facts' were used by the prosecution, the very journalist who dreamed them up for yet another front page scoop in the Sun (March 6,1984) continued his 'cool objectivity'. He reported Michael Chamberlain's publicly televised denial of these 'facts' on a programme, Terry Willesee Ton ight( Channel 7, Sydney, March 28,29, 30, 1984) in a 'Sun Exclusive', the headline of which read 'Michael Chamberlain Tells ... Crucified! By Those Hurtful Rumours' (Sun, March 29,1984). Acknowledging his difficulty separating 'reality from dreams' (1984:78), Brien posed as a friend to the Chamberlains. His betrayal of that purported friendship is justified in the name of that higher god, Objective Truth and the Cover Story. The ambushes, stakeouts, cat and mouse games and car chases he set up, he regarded as noble if a trifle adventurous. Despite feeling guilty that he had more or less stolen the Chamberlains' innermost feelings (1984:120), he doggedly pursues his victims: 'Why should Michael and Lindy, who
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97
were on such friendly terms with me, want to run away and hide as they did? I stood at the door for a while, feeling hurt... they could have had the decency to tell me and not just run off... I was determined that an insult should not be our only reward for having come so far' (1984:133).
As in the witchcraft trials of the Middle Ages, the Chamberlains were harassed then convicted on circumstantial evidence, and enormous pressure was applied while the long wait took place for a confession.
The Accused
Azaria was killed by
a dingo or Lindy
an animal or a mother
a beast and a woman
a devil in league with a witch?
'I know a dingo took your baby' read one letter to Lindy, 'a two-legged dingo like
you.' (Sun, November 11, 1982)
Whether Azaria was killed by the ‘Devil-Dog' (Sun, July21,1983) or by her mother, Lindy was blamed. According to one writer, the trip to Ayers Rock' was the trip she had for years been nagging her husband to take... but Michael had been worried about going so far through the barren centre of Australia... It had been dark and near freezing when they arrived at Ayers Rock... their baby Azaria, nine weeks old, had not been well. Lindy Chamberlain's "perfect baby" had a cold and was sleeping fitfully. She had been grizzling - enough to give her father doubts about leaving Mt lsa' (Sun, November 1,1982). It waseven said that 'Lindy admitted she had guilt feelings about leaving Azaria alone, even for a moment, in the tent that night' (Simmonds, 1984:29).
The devaluation of nurturing skills implicit in unpaid mothering means that in general, when a child misbehaves, gets lost or dies, the mother is, covertly at least, held responsible. Conversely, when a child is well-behaved, high-achieving and successful, it is usually credited to Good Luck. Attributing blame to mothers is not a new phenomenon. Kellum has noted that in the twelfth century for example:
If a mother placed her child near the hearth, and 'another man' - presumably the husband -came a long to boil a pot of water the overflow from which scalded the child to death, it was the mother who was to do penance for her negligence while the man was to go carefree.
(1976:370)
'The not-unpleasant past-time of Lindy-watching' (Simmonds, 1982:127) became a national sport during which she was called many names. Some of these included, 'the woman who had fed her baby to the dingoes' (Simmonds, 1984:40), a modern-day Lady Macbeth or Pontius Pilate' (Sun, February 14,1983), 'the "Guilty" Mother' (Sun, November 1, 1982), 'the young mother with faraway eyes' (Daily Mirror, April 29,1983), 'Dingo Baby Mother'(Sun, February 5,1981), 'Poor little Lindy' (Lindy Chamberlain's aunt, Mrs Hann, Daily
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Telegraph, November 1,1982) and 'a bright little spark' (Dr Jim Cox, President of Avondale Seventh Day Adventist Church at Cooranbong, Sydney Morning Herald, November 23, 1982). Perhaps the most significant was the description of her by one of the campers at Ayers Rock as a
'perfect/little/mother'
meaning
unambivalent, co-operative/unresisting/unpaid career.
A patriarchal social order such as ours depends for its very existence on hordes of 'perfect little mothers' assigned responsibility for the biological and social reproduction of the species. Lindy, by even raising the possibility of having killed her child, like many women before her, struck at one of the pivots of patriarchy, as did the medieval witches who used their female magical power to defy the laws of nature in the service of Satan (Bovenschen, 1978:97). Every woman was a potential witch. Lindy, in so many ways, crystallised the particular fears and passions inherent in motherhood today: defending one's child from the enemy within the nuclear family as well as the enemy without.
Current theories about child murder by a parent have recently focussed around the idea of it as a suicidal act resulting from identification with the child. According to Alicia Tierney, (Australian, 3/11/1982)
a child may remind a mother of unwanted and repudiated parts of herself. This would be possible especially if her own earliest perceptions were of being a bad baby. It follows that a mother may adequately nurture some of her children, but for unconscious reasons may single out another for destruction. The sex of the child may be a crucial factor here. It may also be the case that a woman's conscious perception of her relationship with her infant is that it is a loving one, while her murderous feelings remain unconscious so she may give every outward sign of being a devoted mother... It may be that not only the motive is unconscious, but memory of the act may also become so within moments of recognising its terrible nature.
On the one hand, mothers thrown into a constant, relatively isolated, intense relationship with their dependent children are often confronted with their own potential for destructiveness - embodied so savagely by the idea of Lindy killing Azaria with scissors despite her professed love for the child. On the other hand, modern society, with its annihilating, anxiety-provoking forces of accidents, madmen and nuclear war confront the mother with the dilemma of how to protect her children from irrational external destructiveness - symbolised so starkly by the wild, lurking dingo. From the moment Azaria died, 'she seemed to become public property' explained Michael (Simmonds, 1982:98). 'So many letter-writers told us they thought of Azaria as one of their own children' (Shears, 1982: 111). The relationship between a mother and her child can have aspects not unlike the one between the witch and her victim about which Thomas has written: 'two people who ought to have been friendly to each other, but were not... Existing
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in a state of concealed hostility for which society provided no legitimate outlet' (my emphasis) (Thomas, 1971:560-1).
Lindy's dress and personal style became a focus of much public ambivalence. Like the medieval witch, who it is said, made her own cloak, Lindy, a qualified tailoress, made her own clothes. Like the witches who played on masculine fear of the threat of feminine sexuality (Bovenschen, 1978:97), Lindy's sexuality became a point of discussion among the all-male journalists:
The pert brunette had worn a different outfit to court each day so far ... and always managed to look striking. When she wore a filmy apricot dress with thin straps ovei the shoulders, male onlookers ogled her shamelessly, many tipping that she was braless beneath it. One middle-aged reporter felt the urge to comment on the 'soft roundness of her tanned shoulders', but he certainly was not the only man there to notice it. If indeed the Azaria case was to bring people back to God, as Lindy has said more than once she hoped it would, it was more likely to happen through her sultry good looks and the apparent influence of her wardrobe than other factors. One old-timer who spent hours sitting on the public bench watching the comings and goings at the court house was heard to tell his mate: 'It's easy to see why Michael is a pastor and not a priest' (Simmonds, 1982:127).
The same journalist again raised the apricot dress:
Lindy looked stunning in her of f-the-shoulder apricot dress, her lithe body faultlessly sun-tanned as far as could be seen (1982:138).
Another group of journalists felt compelled to write,
Lindy Chamberlain arrived at court looking, as one observer fondly recalls, 'ravishing' in a frilly pink dress (Sun, November 3, 1982).
And again,
She dressed in a fairly sexy sort of way. She was obviously aware of how she looked I think she was aware of her sex appeal. She obviously dressed to highlight her attributes. Again in the second inquest she wore a different dress almost every day. In court a guessing game developed over whether Lindy would arrive in a new dress a nd if not, which one she would repeat (Sun, November 5, 1982).
According to van Vuuren, young pretty women were often subjected to accusations of witchcraft in the Middle Ages; 'the man who looked upon a young woman with lust would accuse the women of making him lust by means of witchcraft. If the woman did not respond to the man, this too could be cause for accusing her of witchctraft’ (1938:96). The other categories of persons who were commonly accused of witchcraft during the Middle Ages, according to van Vuuren (1938:92) included
1 persons knowledgeable about herbs and poisons;
2 persons who made a pact with the devil for power, even if only in their imaginings;
3 persons who arranged with other persons to bring about supernatural effects;
4 midwives;
5 old women.
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Even Lindy's handwriting was interpreted as saying 'Notice Me' and her signature, it was claimed, 'showed she has a strong desire to be in the limelight and can be a little secretive at times' (Sun, November 3, 1982).
Yet at no stage did Lindy flirt with or use her sexuality to communicate: she was unattainable. 'Through it all, Lindy maintained the strong-faced look which had become her national trademark' (Sun, November 5, 1982). It was thought that she had an uncanny ability to detach herself from reality' (Sun, November 1, 1982), an attitude 'which has oddly irritated many people' (Australian, February 14, 1981).-Her behaviour flew in the face of strongly-held notions about what is normal under the circumstances. Like the witches who 'could shed no tears' (Thomas, 1971:464) neither Lindy (nor Michael) were seen to cry after Azaria's disappearance, thus building 'an undercurrent of resentment and suspicion' (Sun, November 2,1982). At the Chamberlain home in Mt Isa, a room was set aside to commemorate Azaria. 'In the child's bassinet was a wreath made from a ring cushion from a wedding. "It reminds me", said Lindy, "of happiness, of weddings and fluffiness... of happy things"' (Shears, 1982:31). Lindy's emotions were represented as being capricious and superficial:
I wondered whether Mrs Chamberlain really felt the things she was describing. When she cried in the witness-box during the inquests, the sobbing seemed to stop in an instant. During the second inquest, the Coroner... adjourned the court briefly when Mrs Chamberlain buried her head in her hands and appeared to cry. But when she raised her head she was laughing (Sydney Morning Herald, November 1, 1982).
Her ability to change her image appeared to cause concern. On one day, said a journalist, she would look 'like a schoolgirl... light blue dress with a billowing skirt and bobby socks' and on the next she would look 'like a filmstar with a black dress, red lips, shoes and handbag' (Sydney Morning Herald, November 1,1982). By the time of her trial, her form had changed dramatically, as if Lindy herself was pushing the contradictions of her situation to the limits. Apart from looking tired and somewhat older, 'the most obvious alteration was her shape. She was heavy with pregnancy and had put on weight all over her once-trim frame. Her dark hair was cut shorter than before, her fringe seemed more pronounced, even severe...' (Simmonds, 1982:161). Did Lindy purposefully change her form? None of her children were accidental, Lindy had asserted at the first inquest. Could she really have killed her dearly loved babe? Could she have invented the dingo story? Could she indeed have been the 'two-legged dingo'?
One particular legendary witch, Baba Yaga, was reputed to travel across the skies with Death, her constant companion. A Slavic ogress, she stole children, and if they were unfortunate she ate them. The picket fence around her hut was crowned with the skulls of such children. Parents warned their unruly progeny, so the legend goes, that
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Baba Yaga would come to take them if they did not behave. And during the Middle Ages, the witch, it was believed, could change her form and assume the shape of a beast (Kramer and Sprenger, 1971:Pt II, Qn 1, Chp 9) and intimately co-operate with the Devil (Kramer and Sprenger 1971 :Pt I, Qn 2). The dingo's legendary significance as a devil was introduced at the first inquest when the Coroner asked a local Aboriginal tracker, Mr Nipper Winmatti, to tell the court about Aboriginal legends relating to dingoes and children. If twins were born, he said, the stronger one was kept and the other was left out in the bush 'for the dingo spirit, which was classed as a devil' (Age, December 19,1980). Ayers Rock, according to one journalist, was reputed to be the home of the 'huge white ghost dingo' which was supposed to roam about eating Aboriginal babies (Daily Telegraph, November 2,1982). Lindy herself linked the killing of her child by the dingo with the devil Satan: 'We felt that there was a reason for her death and that somebody needed this to bring them back to God. Secondly, we felt the major reason why her death occurred was because of the tourists attracting dingo dogs right into the small rock. God allows things to happen but Satan is the instigator' (Simmonds, 1982:33). In graphic detail she described the way in which a dingo would have removed her baby's body from its jumpsuit: 'They never eat the skin. They use their feet like hands and pull back the skin as they go - just like peeling an orange' (Sydney Morning Herald, February 8,1982). It was reported that Lindy believed the dingo which had killed her daughter had planned the attack; earlier in the day on which Azaria disappeared, as the Chamberlain family had been leaving the Fertility Cave, 'a solitary dingo ... looked down in silence': it had stared intently at Lindy and baby Azaria: 'It gave me the creeps' said Lindy (Daily Mirror, October 15, 1982).
The Malleus Maleficarum, a misogynist tract written in the Middle Ages as a manual for witch-hunters, claimed that certain witches, against the instinct of human nature, and indeed against the nature of all beasts with the possible exception of wolves, are in the habit of devouring and eating infant children '... and when they do not kill children then, as if for some other purpose they take them out of the room and, raising them up in the air, offer them to devils' (Kramer and Sprenger, Pt I, Qn 12). The notion of the baby Azaria being used 'for some other purpose' is certainly present in, for example, the accusations which took place concerning a photograph of her and her mother supposedly taken by her father just hours before her disappearance. In this photo, Lindy Chamberlain is standing on the lower surface of Ayers Rock, holding baby Azaria upright (Woman's Day, October 1,1980). Reports questioning whether the baby was in fact Azaria were backed up by the opinions of two senior pediatricians
who believe the child in the photo to be between a three-to-five month old rather than Azaria, only nine weeks old. This opinion was based on the appearance of the child, her weight, expression and ability to
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support herself (Perth Daily News, March2,1984). A prominent motif in the witch-hunts of the Middle Ages was the substitution of a human child by the devil, who, assuming the child's body, could 'perform any spiritual action, and perform it again and again although man may not have been able to discern it' (Kramer and Sprenger, Pt I, Qn 3).
Oddly enough, the dingo is popularly assumed to be related to the wolf,' It is the nearest we have to a wolf... it has an ambiguous image...' (National Times, December 27,1981 -January 2,1982). Wolves in the Middle Ages were reputed sometimes to snatch men and children
out of their houses and eat them, and run about with such astuteness that by no skill or strength can they be hurt or captured ... As to the question whether they are true wolves, or devils appearing in that shape, we say that they are true wolves, but are possessed by devils.
A person through an illusion caused by witches 'could turn into a wolf and the devil having possessed the wolf would than devour children' (Kramer and Sprenger, Pt I, Qn 10). In January 1573 for example, Gilles Garnier was condemned by the court of Dole, Lyons, to be burnt alive for the crimes of lycanthropy and witchcraft. More than fifty witnesses swore that he had attacked and killed children in the fields and vineyards, devouring their raw flesh. He was sometimes seen in human shape and sometimes seen as a 'loup-garou' (voluntary wolf or werewolf). Throughout the unfold-ing of the Azaria drama, Patrick Cook the cartoonist clearly exploited the ambiguous image of the dingo and the wolf.
During the legal proceedings against the Chamberlain couple, the dingo became imbued with human qualities. Many people felt obliged to take the dingo's side, particularly after newspaper headlines such as 'Dingo Massacre - 50,000 killed in the wake of Azaria inquest' appeared (Daily Telegraph, November2, 1982). 'Dingoes are innocent' badges were on sale in Alice Springs during the inquests and onlookers at the Darwin trial were prevented by the judge from wearing T-shirts with a logo defending the animal (Australian Women's Weekly, December 23,1981). Tea towels depicting the animal went on sale as souvenirs of the trial to the accompaniment of accusations of 'being in poor taste' (Daily Telegraph, November 9,1982). Summing up at the trial, Mr Justice Muirhead said:
The dingo, ladies and gentlemen, you must bear in mind is an animal of prey. It may, I suppose, like a dog, play and give a friendly nip on the bottom, or take up soccer as we have heard. But they won't as Mr Barker (for the prosecution) emphasises, take up dress-making widi scissors (Daily Telegraph, October 30, 1982).
The overtness of the Chamberlain's religious beliefs became a source of public antagonism. Defending the members of the marginal Protestant sect, one reporter explained that the Chamberlains were 'the prayer warriors - people who retain basic Christian beliefs in a supposedly secular age' (Sun HeraId, August 7,1983). Rumours which arose because of the Chamberlains' beliefs were, according to one report, weird.
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Seventy tea towels went on sale in Darwin during the Chamberlain trial. They were subsequently withdrawn on legal advice. (Daily Telegraph, November 9, 1982.)
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Some talked of sorcery. Others told of fearful rites carried out in the desert. And countless people were firmly and wrongly convinced that Azaria meant sacrifice in the wilderness' (Daily Mirror, April 29, 1983).
Their assertion that Azaria's death was God's will and that she would be restored to her mother's arms at the second coming of Christ (Sydney Morning Herald, September 16, 1980), raised the spectre of divine permission. According to the Malleus Maleficarum, 'three things are necessary for the effecting of witchcraft: the devil, a witch and the Divine permission' (Kramer and Sprenger, Pt I, Qn 11).
Much was made of Azaria's name, to the extent that the Coroner at the first inquest felt impelled to clear misunderstandings about it. Lindy claimed that it meant 'fair-haired one', and that she had only become aware after Azaria's disappearance of its interpretation as 'sacrifice in the wild'. In the book Three Thousand Unusual Names, the name Azazel appears directly under the name Azaria. '1 think someone looked up the wrong name and got the wrong meaning', protested Lindy. 'Azazel is an old Hebrew name of Devil or Bearer of Sins' (Sydney Morning Herald, September 16,1982). But as one report said 'the name Azaria had a powerful magical ring' (Sun Herald, October 31,1982) and, added to the fact that Azaria had on at least one occasion been dressed in a black dress, which Lindy originally made for Reagan 'because she liked black' (Simmonds, 1982:36), public imagination was fuelled.
The harassment of the couple was immense, 'but no amount o£ questioning broke Lindy Chamberlain's story' (Sun, November 2, 1982). In retrospect it is surprising that the police did not resort to the practice of fabricating a confession commonly known as a 'police verbal'. It was a curious correction that appeared in a Sydney newspaper saying that in an earlier report, 'a list of items discussed a t the inquest included the word "tortures". It should have read ."torches" ' (Sydney Morning Herald, November 22, 1980).
The hunt for Lindy the witch has ended. She is in jail separated from her husband and children and in particular her new baby daughter who was placed in the care of a wet-nurse, the woman having weaned her own child so she could breast-feed Kahlia (Sun Herald, November 20,1983). Lindy works on a large tapestry as well as keeping up those traditionally feminine crafts of crocheting and knitting (National Times, November 11-17, 1983), fit tasks it would seem for a woman who so blatantly shattered so many of the myths which patriarchal Australian holds so dear: happy nuclear families, carefree camping holidays in the great outdoors, the glowing motherhood associated with the arrival of new babies, the dog as a symbol of faithfulness and security, to name just a few. It is hardly surprising that Lindy herself has internalised the image of herself as witch. She sent a poem out of jail to one of her supporters. Not surprisingly it found its way to the national press:
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A little bird am I Shut in from fields and air, And in my cage I sit and sing To Him who placed me there. Well pleased a prisoner to be Because My God. it pleases Thee.
Sun Herald, November 20, 1983)
Lindy described the poem as being typically fitting and attributed it to Madame Jean Mariede la Motte Guyon, a seventeenth century French mystic who was jailed for heresy, significantly one of the crimes of the medieval witches.
The crimes of witches according to the Malleus Maleficarum (Pt I, Qn 14) exceed the sins of all others' and 'deserve the heaviest punishment above all the criminals of the world' for 'in their apostasy they do not deny the Faith for any fear of men or for any delight of the flesh... but, apart from their abnegation, ever give homage to the very devils by offering them their bodies and souls'. According to Jong, hundreds of thousands of people, eighty per cent of whom were women, were killed for being witches during the Middle Ages (1982:38).
The imagery of the witch-hunt has deep roots in a patriarchal culture such as ours. The fact that it can surface in the 1980's is a clear indication that
the witch is not dead; she is merely hibernating. The witch-hunting is hardly dead; it
is merely waiting to be born again under a different name ... The witch is used as a
lightning rod for society's fury. She takes the fire, and the thunderclouds move on to
the next location. (Jong, 1982:39, 51)
The witch, then, is a mythic embodiment both of the male fear of women as well as of the female distrust of self: the burning woman who keeps all other women from succumbing to their own inner fires.
In a world where both sexes are taught to fear and despise female autonomy and
assertion, the witch becomes a perfect symbol of female crime and punishment - a
symbol that is equally potent for women as well as men ... In her rattling cart,
blindfolded, gagged, bound, on the way to the torture chamber, the gallows, the stake,
the witch is trying to tell us something. She is trying to warn us. Hear her. She may be
you - next time. (Jong. 1982:172).
Postscript
Avers Rock or Uluru in 1984 is remarkable: the official silence on Azaria's death is stunning. There is no monument, no mention of the relevant places in tourist brochures or maps; there is no reference to it in post cards, momentoes, local history or picture books; none of the widely distributed paper-backs on the matter is available. Even the places around the Rock where the drama occurred and was subsequently re-enacted over and over again - for courts, juries and TV documentaries - have been restructured. Twelve other deaths which have occurred on or around the Rock are recorded in brochures and five
105 Aust. J. Cultural Studies, 2:2 (1984)
of them are commemorated by plaques which are fixed to the Rock-face. According to the Uluru National Park Guide (1983:1) four of these deaths were the result of falls and eight were from heart attacks.
Two major changes have occurred since Azaria's disappearance in August 1980: the near completion of the massive pink, red and orange 'Yulara' tourist development project begun in 1979. and then return ot Avers Rock to its traditional Aboriginal owners. The infamous camping ground from where Azaria disappeared is now a somewhat under-utilised and rather bare-looking barbeque and picnic area, as the camping area has been moved out of the National Park area to the Yulara development. The well-worn path from the road to the 'Fertility Cave' where Azaria's clothes were found is fenced off for conservation purposes, because of the formation of erosion gullies. Other sites which regularly appeared in the press such as the 'Maternity Cave' are fenced off as well, as they are on sacred Aboriginal land only used nowadays by local Aborigines. Aboriginal names are asserted and appear prominently on signs and maps, placed above the more widely known European names: Maggie Springs where the Chamberlain family visited is now also known as Mutitjula. At the mention of the Chamberlain case, an otherwise rather garrulous, verbose and friendly Uluru park ranger froze and became mute at a further enticement into discussion. The silence which followed was huge and unforgiving, and there was a clear feeling of trespass.
Yet the official denial cannot silence the howls which emerge from the busloads of kids as they leap through the trails and caves on their way to Mutitjula; or the occasional joke such as when one of the look-alike, do-alike tourists turning exasperated circles looking for something was approached by his friend who said lightly, 'Lost your baby?'; or the remark overheard on the Webo or climb up the Rock about the remarkable physical fitness of Michael Chamberlain, who, it was said, equalled the record time for the ascent. The gossip is as difficult to silence as thehowls of dingoes which intermittently fill the night air, potent reminders indeed in a place where, after a while, one is led to wonder if the whole Azaria event was not simply an elaborate construction of the urban media. The enormous tranquility of the Rock and the endless streams of tourist buses, cars and caravans seem at times to conspire with the official denial of the matter: Azaria did not die here because she has never been. As the young Conservation Commission Officer stationed in the Yulara Visitors' Centre said when questioned about the matter: Azaria who?'
Dianne Johnson works in the Anthropology Department, Sydney University.
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REFERENCES
Bovenschen, Sylvia (1978), 'The Contemporary Witch, the Historical Witch and the Witch Myth: The Witch, Subject of the Appropriation of Nature and Object ot the Domination of Nature'. New German Critique, 15, (Fall).
Brien. Steve (1984), Azaria: The Trial of the Century, Melbourne: QB Books. Jong. Erica (1982), Witches. St Albans: Granda Publishing.
Kellum. Barbara. A. (1976), 'Infanticide in England in the Latter Middle Ages'. History of Childhood Quarterly (Journal of Psychohistory), Vol. 1, No. 3.
Kramer, Heinrich & James Sprenger (1971). Malleus Maleficarum. London: Arrow Books.
Sanders. Noel (1982), 'Azaria Chamberlain and Popular Culture', Intervention, 16. Shears, Richard (1982), Azaria, Melbourne: Thomas Nelson.
Simmonds, James (1982), Azaria, Wednesday's Child, West Melbourne: TPNL Books Thomas, Keith (1971). Religion a nd the Decline of Magic, Ti owbridge: Redwood Press
Van Yuuren, Nancy (1938) The Subversion of Women as Practised by Churches, Witch-hunters and Other Sexists, Philadelphia: The Westminster Press.
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