the Melanesian people living in the Torres Strait and New Guinea. The Melanesians planted crops and tended gardens, used bows and arrows and beat on drums. The northern Aboriginal people took the bow and arrow and the drum into their ceremonies, but made no other use of them, for the hunting and gathering system worked well. In other places and among other groups, however, this way of life was quickly put an end to when our lands were taken from us.
The invasion by the British resulted in the greatest catastrophe for many Aboriginal groups since the end of the ice age and the rising of the seas. The British, unlike the earlier Malay visitors, were a non-traditional people who came to stay. They disregarded all of the Aboriginal customs and beliefs, took the land and dispossessed the Aboriginal land-owning groups whenever and wherever they wanted. It was a cruel time, a killing time. Diseases were introduced which swept the land and the remnants of our people were herded into reserves. Many died, especially in the southern temperate parts, and the stunned survivors became ‘wards of the state’ and were given rations of flour, sugar and tea, and allowed to eke out a miserable existence. Christian missionaries came to help us, and decided that our ceremonies, our beliefs, our rites and rituals were the work of the devil. We reeled under the onslaught, though many of us remained true to our ancestors, but it was a time of great change, great calamity, and many of our customs, languages and oral records were lost, or changed when they were written down. It is only now that we are recovering from those killing times.
Still, in our collective lives, the last 200 years is but a brief spell, a wink of an eye, and whereas the British and other invaders live from day to day, from year to year, we live from epoch to epoch. Our rich oral historical tradition reaches back to the ice age and even beyond to when the giant marsupials roamed Australia. Not only this, but our culture is considered to be one of the oldest in the world, with some of our rock art being accepted as the first known examples of human art. We still paint, we still dance, we still tell our stories, we still sing our songs, and some of our beliefs and stories are recorded in this volume. Perhaps our essential belief is that we belong to this land of Australia, that it is our mother or father and that we must care for her or him. That it was given to us of old and that no one can take it away. As Bill Neidjie, a traditional owner of Kakadu National Park, declares in his book, Story about Feeling:
Ground ...
We hang on.
This earth for us.
Just like mother, father, sister.
Thus many, if not most, of our stories and myths are land-centred, and reflect that interconnectedness with all of existence, that reciprocity between all, that should not be lost. The universe is a biomass and we must tend it, for we are the caretakers, and we are not lost souls, but parts of a whole in which everything is related. So we should not pillage and destroy, but co-operate and tolerate, nurture and care for the whole universe with its myriads of living and breathing things.
The continent of Australia is vast and such was the distance, such was the number of Aboriginal family groups, that customs and languages, stories and records, vary from place to place. There are long dialect chains of language and over the links changes occur, so much so that a word may reverse its meaning by the time the end of the dialect chain is reached. As for language, so it is for our customs and myths. Long myth song circles and stories travel over the land, ordering and shaping it, naming and renaming things and landmarks. Some of these myths and stories are found in this volume.
In a book of Australian Aboriginal mythology it is difficult not to risk offending some groups in that secret sacred material may have been inadvertently used. An apology is given here if there is any revealing of things that should not be revealed. Care should be taken in using this book when Aboriginal people are present and an elder should be asked to check it out. Again, in some Aboriginal communities there is a prohibition in the use of a person’s name after death. This prohibition is of varying lengths of time and I have tried to name only deceased persons after the time of mourning has passed. It is a little difficult to keep to this sanction, as it is not a universal custom and whilst I was writing this book some of our elders and relatives died. This volume is dedicated to them. I have sat around the campfire in dry, dusty places and in clearings in rain forests listening to our story-tellers. It is as much their book as it is mine. I trust I have kept to a promise I made to tell their stories so that everyone can under stand a little of our culture and way of life. I near the end of this introduction with a few words from Bill Neidjie, whom I met some years ago in his country, now called Kakadu National Park:
You listen my story and you will feel im
Because spirit e’ll be with you
You cannot see but e’ll be with you e’ll be with me
This story just listen careful.
Please note that the spelling of Aboriginal words varies quite markedly. I have tried to give the variations which are known to me. In regard to the people I have named, in Aboriginal culture, the first name is usually used and I have kept to this practice in my book, though deleting the kin term which usually precedes it.
A
Aboriginal and Aborigine The words ‘Aboriginal’ and ‘Aborigine’ are used by the invaders to designate the indigenous people of Australia. They are seldom used by indigenous people themselves, who prefer their own words. These often simply mean ‘people’, such as Koori (south-east Australia), Nyungar (south-west Australia), Nanga (South Australia), Wonghi (Western Desert), Yolngu (Arnhem Land), Murri (south Queensland) and Yamadji (Pilbara region of Western Australia). There is no Australia-wide indigenous word for the whole people, so Aboriginal and Aborigine remain in use until such a word can be found and generally accepted.
Adno-artina the gecko lizard See Parachilna; Red ochre.
Adnyamathanha people The Adnyamathanha people are the traditional owners of the Flinders Range in South Australia. Although much of their traditional culture has been lost, or been changed drastically in response to the British invasion, a tribal revitalization programme centred on Nepabunna Aboriginal School began in 1984. The Adnyamathanha language (Yuru Ngawarla) and culture are being taught and in 1986 young Adnyamathanha people met at the Aboriginal keeping-place, Pichi Richi, in Alice Springs in central Australia, to learn about their Dreaming and associated stories.
The Adnyamathanha people are symbolized by the iga, the native orange tree (Capparis mitchellii). It is related by the elders that in the Dreaming the iga tree was a man who came from Yaramangga in Queensland. He gained a wife on his travels and engaged in battle with the mulga trees. Eventually, they settled in the Flinders Range and became the ancestors of the Adnyamathanha people.
Akngwelye See Arrernte landscape of Alice Springs.
Akurra serpent The Akurra serpent deity of the Adnyamathanha people belongs to the great corpus of snake mythology which extends across Australia. The serpent is sometimes known as the rainbow snake or serpent and the Adnyamathanha Akurra serpent is similar to our Nyungar creative ancestor, the Wagyal. Adnyamathanha elders describe it as a huge water snake with a beard, mane, scales and very sharp fangs. The Wagyal has been described to me as being a huge water snake, black in colour, with a hairy neck. In the Flinders Range, as in south-western Australia, the marks of Akurra’s passing are found all across the land. As with other serpents, Akurra is associated
