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PROLOGUE

Court of the Red Kangaroo

A circle of black, wizened women confronts the author.

Grandmothers: Who do you think you are? Are you attempting to write about the Kaurna, the Red Kangaroo people?

Author: Hey who do you think you are? I am trying to write Chapter One.

Grandmothers: We are the Kaurna Grandmothers. And we want to know why you are writing about us? We exist in an oral tradition. We are here to protect our sacred Kaurna heritage. We don’t want white, nosy know-it-alls, poking their pointy snouts into our business. We’ve had it with you whites – a long line of interfering busy bodies – Methodists, Anglicans, eugenicists, doctors, missionaries, entomologists, Darwinians, anthropologists, sociologists, you name it. Why are you writing about us?

Author: Well it’s not just about you – I’m juxtaposing what happened to your people in the Adelaide area in the 1830s, with what happened to my people, Eastern European refugees, in the 1950s.

Grandmothers: Uh oh, you sound like an academic.

Author: Well I’m not.

Grandmothers: Thank our ancestors for that! Save us from the academics. They are the worst of the lot. Academics have prodded, dissected, and analysed us to smithereens. But you are a PhD!

Author: Yes, I learnt to be a researcher, but as you will discover, that skill can come in handy.

Grandmothers: Well at least you’re not descended from the British Imperialists who did us in. But we don’t take kindly to being ‘researched’. We are fed up with the number of trees it takes to pile up the feasibility studies, flow charts, and bureaucratic nonsense you whites seem so enamoured with. And then you ignore crucial research, as witnessed in the Northern Territory today! So why are you writing this book?

Author: Well if you must know, I had a vision to write it.

Grandmothers: Ah, a vision. Now that’s more interesting. We can relate to visions. Tell us about it.

Author: In the vision I was accosted by a bunch of 1950s Adelaide Australians, looking like the gauche country bumpkins they were.

Grandmothers: Doesn’t sound much of a vision. More like a second-rate nightmare.

Author: Just hold your horses – er kangaroos! As a result of what I saw in the vision, I knew I had to confront where destiny had placed me. These misfits were the people into whose lives I, as a small child, had been thrown. I was terrified of them. Can you imagine? I had just finished writing a book about what my family had escaped from, and now I felt compelled to write a book about what we had escaped to. And that’s how you guys come in.

Grandmothers: Us guys? We weren’t even around in 1950s Adelaide. We were virtually extinct. Dispensed with. Put away.

Author: Yes, I know. I didn’t even see an Aboriginal person until I was twelve, and I only recently discovered the existence of the Kaurna race.

Grandmothers: So how do we come into it then?

Author: Ah well, that’s what this book is about. In the vision, your story and my story intertwine inextricably. But if you must have a clue – I saw terrifying images. I clearly saw something disturbing about these 1950s Adelaide people who influenced me and tried their hardest to assimilate me into their way of life; they carried a dreadful legacy. And it took a vision over fifty years later for me to finally understand something that had always lurked around the edges of my consciousness; a truth I am now richer for knowing.

Grandmothers: And that obviously involves us.

Author: Absolutely. Where Adelaide stands was originally your country... for at least forty thousand years, before white man ousted you.

Grandmothers: So you shouldn’t be surprised that we have made our appearance.

Author: I guess not. In fact, I am delighted and I welcome you. I invite your comments and input as the story unfolds. I would like you, as keepers of deeper knowledge and dreaming, to act as a kind of chorus, a conduit between the action and the audience.’ Grandmothers: Yes, we like the sound of that. Like our own plays, our Ngunyawaietti, which always endeavoured to make sense of what was happening around us. We Kaurna loved educating through plays. We sang, we acted, we danced.

Author: Also, I hope you can influence and have a part in the action, as well as challenging me. Anyway, please introduce yourselves.

The grandmothers confer amongst themselves and put forward two spokeswomen.

Wauwe Woman: I am Wauwe Woman.

Wauwe is Kaurna for ‘female kangaroo’. I am a ngangiburka, a wise woman elder from the central Adelaide area.

Wirra Woman: I am Wirra Woman – ngangiburka from the Kaurna Wirra clan, just north of Adelaide.

Wauwe Woman: So, you’re saying we can challenge you?

Author: Absolutely.

Wawe Woman: About your racism?

Author: My racism? What do you mean?

Wirra Woman: Were you brought up in Australia?

Author: Yes.

Wauwe Woman: Are you white?

Author: Yes.

Wauwe Woman: Then you are a racist. It is imbued in every cell of your body. Takes a lot more than some fancy reconciliation ideas to wash that clean.

Anyway, whack us with the first chapter.