The white man was not frightened and said it was all his land.

The white man was not frightened and said it was all his land. They could move very fast for they had horses and we did not. We had started the Emu Dance, when the white man and his outlaws shot us many times with their guns. Their guns would not stop and as we lay down they killed and killed, as they ran they killed, as we went to our camp they killed. They even killed the all the women, the Lubras and the children. They burned our humpies and they killed even those that ran in the bush. I saw many things but they couldn’t see me, for I was hiding like a Kaditja. I saw two men kill one warrior and cut off a slice of his thigh and make a fire and eat it as they drank and laughed. These people are devils who eat the land and the people. They also raped our lubras and smashed little picanninies heads on the rocks. Baime the Great Spirit had deserted us, for some strange reason. The whites said it was a battle but it was a big murder and we must remember. That is why I am here at this Corroboree. I come to lead the Emu dance of our people and the spirits will come back and you will see the massacre again.” `Now we dance’! he shouted. A group of dancers came on to the stage wearing only red loin cloths and lap-laps. Amongst the dancers were Bob, Willy, Joe and Cy. More and more joined and the crowd was chanting to the sound of click click clapping sticks. The didgeridoos drone on and the auditorium was filled with primitive, primeval yet spiritual sound. The effect was ethereal and ecstatic to the dancers and crowd alike. It was a moving meditation and trance inducing state. The dancers were following the Kaditja man in a large circle. He was not an old man anymore but was now the red emu. Their legs moved up and down like the birds themselves, in that jerky strutting motion. Their whole bodies moved as an emu for this was their totem and they were descended from the emu. The emu was the spirit totem of the Kalkadoon and the Emu Province. Each and every dancer was decorated differently but there was about half a dozen styles. There was the dancer completely covered in white clay, another had a white line down his middle and down his arms. Each side of the lines there were rib like strokes, like stumpy vertebrae. Another had no markings on his face but white clay sprung from his belly like a fountain up to his chest and down his arms. Another fellow had a white band across his face, a large V from shoulder to sternum and bands across his trunk and arms. The fellow behind was covered in dots and stripes with feathers stuck all over him. He was in fact a striped emu chick. Others had variations 68 ‘WESTMINSTER TIME FILES’ of dots and bars and feathers stuck here and there; Others had variations of all kind of wavy lines and circles, it was an amazing display. The old Kaditja was standing chanting by himself now and the whole scene was becoming a trance situation. I noticed straight away that his hand was clasping a pendant just like mine, as he spoke. And in the darkness I could see a little dog, (Jai-Jai, as always), coming over to him. The sound was like chanting mantras to change one’s consciousness. It had become in fact a kind of mass hypnosis, or shared dreamscape. I had read Kumba talking about this mass power and now it seemed the old Kaditja had entered all our minds. I felt that we were being prepared for something and I felt rather relaxed. It came slowly for the old Kaditja was sitting cross, legged in a circle now. Slowly a vision appeared in our minds or a rocky barren hillside of red dirt. There was scrub here and there and gnarled ghostlike trees swaying in the breeze. The grass was straw like and wispy on the almost barren rocky ground, with bull ants moving about their business. The sky was blue with an occasional errant cloud, and the sun was low in the afternoon sky. I could hear chanting and sound of musical instruments; I thought for a moment it came from those present but it didn’t. It came from thousands of warriors and initiates gathered on a hillside. It was a Coroboree and it was on Battle Mountain. I felt sad and despairing, frightened and fascinated, as a man at a sacrifice. I closed my eyes to block out what I knew was going to happen. I squeezed my eyelids together but the sights and sounds were still there. It was a vision in my mind. Melissa was sobbing next to me and the gathering was moaning in grief. The Kaditjas wail could be heard behind the vision. Horses, horses, I could see hundreds of horses coming. Men on them in blue, some black men, most white. The horsemen fanned out in a great semi¬circle and moved against the thousands on the mountain. There were thousands of boomerangs and nulla nullas readied along with spears and a few guns. A withering crackling rang out from the horsemen and the dying started on the mountain. Falling silently, fusilade after fusilade mowed down the Natives, who had nowhere to run. Screams of anger and pain started to be heard as the reality of what was happening sank in. The screams were mixed with the scent of blood and fear, and the stench of defecation. The horsemen were crazed and were going beserk, especially as some of their own fell to the spears of the warriors. The horsemen were laughing and gut shooting people and leaving them to the meat ants. Their blood mixing with the redder earth, as they writhed in agony and confusion. The scene shifted to the women’s camps where the horsemen were killing women and children. Some were raping and even scalping them, after smashing the babies to death on the rocks or shooting down older children. The humpies were burned down, still containing the wounded, howling to the sky, nobody was spared. There was a clearance going on, not a punitive expedition, this ‘DIARIES OF WARP-TIME INTO THE PAST AND FUTURE’ 69 was genocide. Stragglers and those who could run were run down with pig dogs and torn to bits women and babies together, as the horsemen laughed and encouraged their dogs. Egging them on shouting their names, even wounding some women and children so the dogs could get them easier. The shooting continued with babies being shot out of their mother’s arms, their little heads exploding like water melons, as the dogs dragged and tore at the mothers. Then suddenly the scene changed we were back at the present day Corroboree, and all were quiet except for a voice saying. “ This was a vision from the spirits of the dead who talked to you today.” Then there was a rushing souND.