Finally my black half won out and I turned tail and fled after my three tribesmen.

After tracking the footsteps of the fleeing hunters for hours, I finally reached the outer fringe of the village, where I saw women and Elders sitting around on the brown dirt, grinding grain against rocks, or working pelts, preparing them for tanning.

Toward the centre of the village I found Gunbuk, Marbungga, and Nanguru standing around by a corrugated-iron hut, talking rapidly in our native tongue to half-a-dozen grey-haired Elders.   Although I had not been able to speak a word of the language when I had returned to my tribe nearly two years ago, I was now quite fluent so that at my approach the nine men instantly fell silent.

Nanguru tried to lighten the mood by telling the Elders how I had nearly decapitated Marbungga with my hunting boomerang hours earlier.   They all laughed loudly and one wizened old man, who looked well over a hundred, said, “No good eating there, Marbungga tough meat.”   He poked the young man playfully in the ribs with a bony finger and they all began to cackle again, although I could tell by the look in their eyes that they were all terribly afraid of something.

“Back in the bush…?” I began.

“Not back in the bush,” corrected Nanguru, “over by the fire,” pointing to where the two kangaroos were being baked in hot ashes at the other end of the camp.

“Time to eat,” said Gunbuk, my half-brother.   “We hunt again tomorrow.”

Later, after the others had left the fire site, I confronted my half-brother and asked him about what we had seen while hunting.   He was reluctant to speak at first but I refused to be put off.

“Mamaragan, the Great Rainbow Snake,” he finally said.

“Then why were you all so afraid?” I asked.   “I thought that the Rainbow Serpent is the Giver of Life, the Creator?”

“Mamaragan is the creator,” agreed Gunbuk.   “His body contained the first Aborigines and also created the features of the land by tunnelling from one waterhole to another.   But he is also the Destroyer.   Dream-Time legend says Mamaragan spends the dry season deep underground.   In wet season he lives in thunder clouds in the sky.   Any interference with his tunnels will cause Mamaragan to rise up and destroy the culprits, or cause water to overflow from waterholes to flood the whole country.   Mamaragan appears in the sky as an immense, bright-coloured serpent.   The rainbow is a sign someone has broken tribal law and Mamaragan is going to come down from the sky to gobble them up!”