CAN A MAN’S SKULL ROLL?
What was their story
Those twelve dead men
How could they speak
With not one tongue between them
Twelve dead men
Stripped to the bone
Can a man’s skull roll in the wind?
Twelve headless men
Half buried in sand
Stinging wind
And the wild sea crashing
Carrion for the jackal
Perch for the gull
Can a man’s skull roll in the wind?
What is a man that he dares to dream?
What is a man that he turns his back on the wind?
What is the call that it carries no prophesy?
Can a man’s skull roll in the wind?
These twelve dead men
They were found by others
Twelve skeletons
Stripped to the bone
Found by others
And the cold sea crashing
Can a man’s skull roll in the wind?
What is a man that he dares to dream?
What is a man that he turns his back on the wind?
And what is the call that it carries no prophesy?
Can a man’s skull roll in the wind?
Roll, roll in the wind
Roll, roll in the wind
CAN A MAN’S SKULL ROLL?
In 1942 the Dunedin Star, carrying 21 passengers and a crew of 85, ran aground some forty kilometres south of the Kunene mouth. The passengers, some of them women, and 42 crew members managed to reach the shore through the pounding surf before the lifeboat broke up. The rescue operation reads like a chapter of disasters and lasted for days. The people on the shore had no food or water. In the course of digging for water they unearthed twelve headless skeletons.
When I read this I couldn’t leave it alone. What on earth could have brought these twelve men to this isolated stretch of nowhere? And how did they get there? And when? And who or what on earth on this desolate strip of coast would have removed twelve skulls?
I imagined them gradually drying and becoming hollow: ideal for rolling in the wind.
- Barbara Fairhead
Dear Jacques and Barbara
What a haunting song and evocative backstory, an altogether beautiful and mature accomplishment, congratulations!
I've often wondered who the twelve dead men were and, following the song’s release online, wrote to Mignon (22 October) about the inspiration behind your possible sources. This actual page (posted a few days later, coincidently) succinctly explains the lyric’s historical context. Thank you.
Do you perhaps have more information to share—such as an estimated date or the indentity of the original castaways—that is, assuming their fate is on record somewhere? It is tempting to think that the skeletons may have belonged to Diogo Cão and his crew, c.1486, who dissapeared along the same stretch of coast?
As you already know, the central event in my novel is the prophesied death of Cão’s compatriot Viceroy Francisco d'Almeida who, according to Portuguese sources, was killed with twelve of his officers on the beach below Table Mountain in 1510. An estimated 60-65 men died after being overwhelmed by the local Khoena (Goringhaqua) and their stampeding herd of cattle. From my research—and several clairaudient messages passed on to me—it appears that Almeida and his ill-fated party were led into an ambush and then hurriedly abandoned by their countrymen. In short, Almeida was “assassinated” by a rival Catholic faction which, in all probability, took advantage of the political discord back in Lisbon. As a novel, Knot of Stone begins with the discovery of a dozen skeletons and, via Almeida's skull itself, follows the protagonists as they piece together the events of the past. Please see www.knotofstone.com or, more specifically, my blog www.knotofstone.com/2012/05/first...
I'd like to use your song (and some live concert/studio footage, if available) for a video I plan to make this year. Please let me know if that would be possible. Meanwhile, my congratulations to you both and best wishes for 2013!
Nicolaas
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Email: nicolaas.vergunst.berends@gmail.com