Well, gidday, gidday, all you earth fullas.
Come, sit down, my country now.
I see you come into sacred place of my
tribe to get the strength of the Earth
Mother. That Earth Mother…
We are different you and me. We say the
earth is our mother – we cannot own
her, she own us.
This rock and all these rocks are alive
with her spirit. They protect us, all of us.
They are her, what you fullas say now,
temple. Since the Alcheringa, that thing
you fulla call Dreamtime, this place has
given man shelter from the heat, a place
to paint, to dance the sacred dance and
talk to his spirit.
How does one repay such gifts?
By protecting the land.
This land is the home of the Dreamtime.
The spirits came and painted themselves
on these walls so that man could meet
here, grow strong again and take this
strength back into the world.
This my totem, Kabul. You
know her as the Carpet
Snake. She my tribe’s
symbol of the Rainbow
Serpent, the giver and
taker of life. Sometimes
she is called Borlung,
sometimes Ngalyod. She
has many names, that wise
one.
When the spirits of men
have been made strong
again by Kabul, she’ll come
back to this earth.
But we are not strong now.
We are too tired from
fighting time, machines and
each other.
But she send her spirit
ones with message sticks
to help us take time.
To remember. To care
for her special things.
First there is Dooruk, the
emu, with the dust of the
red Earth Mother still on his
feet. He come to remind us
to protect the land, to
always put back as much
as we take.
Then there is Kapoo, the
big red kangaroo, the very
colour of the land. He come
to remind us to always take
time for ourselves.
And Mungoongarlie, the
goanna, last of all because
his legs are short. He bring
the news that we, his
children, are forgetting to
give time to each other.
But the animals of the
Earth Mother come to say
more than this. They come
to say that our creator, that
Rainbow Serpent, she get
weak with anger and grief for what we are doing to
this earth.
But here now you fullas.
You come sit down by my
fire. Warm yourselves and I
will tell you the story of how
this world began.
In the time of Alcheringa
the land lay flat and cold.
The world, she empty.
The Rainbow Serpent, she
asleep under the ground
with all the animal tribes in
her belly waiting to be born.
When it her time, she push up.
She come out at the heart
of my people – Uluru –
Ayers Rock. She look
round – everywhere all
dark. No light, no colour.
So she get very busy now.
She throw the land out –
make mountains and hills.
She call to her Frog Tribe
to come up from their sleep
and she scratch their belly
to make them laugh.
The water they store in the
bad time spill over the land
making rivers and lakes.
Then she throw good spirit
Biami high in the sky.
She tell him to help her
find light.
Now Biami, he a real good fulla. He jump up high in the sky and smile
down on the land. The sky lit up from his smile and we, his children,
saw colour and shadow.
And that warm sun spirit saw himself in the shining waters. The pine
trees, they burst into flower. That’s his way of telling us it’s time to
hunt the big mullet fish.
And when the wild hop
trees bloom, that’s his way
to tell us the oysters are fat
on the shores of our great
sea spirit, Quandamooka.
Grow strong, Kabul, come back to your
children, the mountains, the trees and
our father, the sky. Come back to
your rivers rushing to Quandamooka.
Come back to your teeming fish of a
thousand colours and shapes.
Kabul is the mother of us all. She is the
spirit of the land – all its beauty, all its
colour. But there are those who see no
colour, who will not feel the beauty of this
land – who wish only to destroy the
mother and themselves.
Their eyes are open but they do not
see…
Kabul, bring back the fire of knowledge to
your children. Like the fire of that pretty
stone in the ground. The one you call
opal. The colours of the rainbow, the
colours of life itself.
Yet it is good for all people
to dream of places which
are beautiful to them.
Of the waters where they
sail their boats and canoes.
And now it seems that with
all our great machines we
can travel almost
anywhere. We can travel
across the land at great speed.
And, for some, the city with
its bright lights and the
music and dancing of a
modern world.
There is almost nothing mankind cannot do.
We can hover or swoop in the air.
We do all these things with
the land. Good reason to
protect it.
But where would we ask
our machines to take us?
They have no spirit or
feelings of their own. Only
we can guide them to the
places that have meaning
for us.
That is why, like my
ancestors before me, I will
always come back to this
place to share the feeling of
the land with all the living
things. I belong here where
the spirit of the Earth
Mother is strong in the land
and in me.
Take time you earth fullas.
Let the spirit of this mighty
land touch you as it
touches my people.
The water is good. It
carries the strength of
Kabul. Now I am rested
and ready for my own
journey into the world.
Have I helped you to rest
on your way? Perhaps
soon, in all our travels, we
will see Kabul in the places
she has made.
Perhaps she will come
again when the spirits of
men and the spirit of this
land are once more
together as one.
The Rainbow Serpent was written for presentation at the Australian Panvilion at Expo 88 in Brisbane, and is reintroduced by permission of the Australian Government Publishing Service, publisher of the illustrated book of the same name.
Oodgeroo Noonuccal (1920 – 1993), formerly Kath Walker, a poet and educationalist, was an elder of the Noonuccal tribe of Minjerribah in Queensland.
Kabul Oodgeroo Noonuccal (1953 – 1991), also known as Vivian Walker, was her second son, a painter and playwright.
