The four of us stood still for a few seconds, and then Gunbuk said, “Rainbow Serpent!”   Although he cupped his hands over his mouth and shrieked, his words were only just audible above the angry hissing that filled the sky.   Still the others obviously knew what he was talking about and all three took off as fast as their legs would carry them, still carrying the two speared kangaroos between them: Poor Gunbuk having to carry the back end of one spear over each shoulder, after I had dropped my end.

While the others fled, I stood rooted to the spot watching in fascination as circles of blue, purple, green, yellow, orange, and brown undulated across the sky, reflecting the twilight sun’s rays back to earth in blinding bursts of colour, like the flashing of a strobe light at a discotheque.

“Rainbow Serpent!” Gunbuk had said, and even I knew enough about Aboriginal mythology to know that he was referring to the Great Rainbow Snake.   Standing in the Victorian outback, all alone, with the roaring hissing in my ears, I was torn between my natural inclination to run after the others and an overpowering curiosity.

I had been born thirty-five years earlier, in 1949, Garbarla Bulilka, the son of a tribal Gin, Debbie Bulilka, and a travelling State Electricity Commission linesman, Edward Hunt.   For a year or so we all lived together near my tribal village, then, forced to move north and unable to take Debbie and baby Garbarla with him, my father had promised to return for us as soon as possible.   But we heard nothing more of him for over ten years, until at the age of eleven, I had been given to my white grandmother, Bettina Hunt, after my father had been electrocuted to death at work.   Against my will I was taken from my black mother Debbie, and raised as Joseph Hunt.   (A practice which was nothing but legalised kidnapping, covered by the 1909 “Aboriginal Protection Act”, which allowed Aboriginal children to be taken from their natural parents under the delusion that they were better off being raised by strangers in white society.)

Now back among my own people again I found myself in a dilemma.   On the one hand my white blood and western education told me that there is no such thing as a giant snake that can fly, so I should stand my ground.   On the other hand my black blood told me that of course there is a Great Rainbow Snake.   And as I continued to stare upward the varicoloured flashing lights rapidly began to take on the shape of a giant rainbow-coloured serpent “swimming” through the shimmering summer air, as it began slowly to dive down toward me.