So the old man did not hesitate to use the term walkabout, when he meant they should flee for their lives from Mamaragan.

“You want us to run away with our tail between our legs?” asked Jumjum.

“Better to run away than to be eaten alive.”

“And what about the whites?” asked Jumjum, referring to the inhabitants of the nearby town of Pettiwood.   “Do we leave them to Mamaragan?”

“What have the white men ever done for us?” demanded Weari-Wyingga.   “Stole our country two hundred years ago, poisoned it with their chemicals, logged our forests and turned them into deserts….”

“Yes, yes,” agreed Jumjum, quickly cutting off the old man (to the relief of most of the others present) for fear that he was going to break into one of the five-hour recitations on the evils of the white man, that he was notorious for.   “All that is true.   But Mamaragan belongs to the Aborigines.   He has always been our god.   Now he has gone insane, he is our demon, not the demon of the whites, and it is our job to kill him.   Not theirs.”

“How we kill rainbow serpent?” asked Weari-Wyingga, chuckling to himself at Jumjum’s look of consternation at having his own words thrown up in his face.

“In the past when we met Mamaragan it has been on the surface where he is too fast for us,” said Jumjum.   “But if we follow him underground, through his tunnels, we can come up behind him and spear him with fifty or more spears and kill him before he can attack us.   Even the rainbow serpent can be killed if enough spears pass through him!”

‘Oh, my God, that’s crazy, we’ll all be killed!’ thought Garbarla, as the rest of the men started to murmur their approval of Jumjum’s plan.

“We’ll all be slaughtered!” said Garbarla, startling Jumjum, as he spoke up at a corroboree for the first time since his return to the village nearly two years ago.   “Mamaragan is too powerful for us, and going down into his tunnels will only be playing into his hands.   Mamaragan’s lair is underground, how can we have any hope of sneaking up on him down there?”