We have left the Kimberley and slipped into the vast region south known as the Pilbara. The desert plains here are vast, the heat is arriving, climbing each day. The humidity is on the wind that sweeps across the plains and you can feel it heavy on your skin. We are headed south towards the cooler temperatures like thousands of other travellers and locals, this to escape the climbing heat and humidity in the air now blowing on our tails.
Millions of years ago in Queensland an ocean covered the vast regions of the Outback plains. The Great Barrier Reef was inland by about a 500 klm and now these ancient reefs and silt beds lay buried beneath a hardened volcanic cap of a later epoch.
The ancient Lore of the Kadaitcha, or Featherfoot is a Lore lost in time. I first began writing fictional tales about this ancient Australian Aboriginal Lore some years ago now, mostly for the young adults seeking something of their own in Australia. Yet still, after four novels and the framework the new series, I find not only is historical reality a rich resource for a fiction entwined in the facts, but that there is so much more yet to be told of this ancient world.
That these tales went on to become a series dealing with the growth of the Kadaitcha man within his culture and within the mainstream Australian culture, was as much a surprise to me as it is to my readers.
They say that you should never go back, but there are some things, some places from your childhood that draw you back towards them irresistibly. At the moment The Man and I are showing one of our precious Grandies the sights of Sydney, introducing her to the joy of adventure and the wonders of the greater of the Aus. cities.
We headed out towards the mountains west of Sydney to show her something special, the area otherwise known as the Blue Mountains. They are a misty eucalypt blue at a distance from Sydney and are charming backdrop to any metropolis. Continue reading
The Gooyorn is often depicted as a bird, a creature of flight however the form of the Gooyorn is not what is important. What is important is that the Gooyorn are helpers. They are an assistant of the Wandjina and can take a form that best suits their needs.
The Lore of the Wandjina is the Lore in which the Gooyorn exist. It is a Lore as ancient as the land itself and quite possibly the oldest continually existing Lore or Religious following on Earth. It is the beginning in the story of the Dreamtime and as is told, the Wandjina is a creator and giver of fire or light and believed to be the most ancient Creator Spirit of the Dreamtime. The Wandjina are said to have come from the sky and therefore are often identified as the Sky people, however there are those legends which say they emerged from the sea but could this have been the means by which the Creator Spirit arrived into the country of the storyteller in the time of the Dreamtime.
The study of the stars was an integral part of Aboriginal life, the science of the Songmen and Storytellers in preserving a history and the ancient understanding of who were perhaps the first astronomers to live by the cycle of the stars and the movements in the heavens in mans history.
It was the role of the Songmen and Storytellers who preserved the ancient knowledge and who passed down this knowledge to initiates and others while settled around thousands of campfires, and during the trials of initiation in the Aboriginal culture.
In my study of the Oruncha Spirit Men I have come to appreciate that they are a powerful force to be reckoned with. There are two concepts of who or what the Oruncha Men were (or are). They are a tribal men, who lived apart from their tribe at times and practice their lore, not unlike the Kadaitcha men.
The Kadaitcha and/or Featherfoot are also men of power and authority, men who enforced the Lore of the Spirit world in their deeds and who are feared by the tribes and mobs of traditional tribal Australia. Even to this day they are feared by many of Aboriginal descent.
The concept of the Dreamtime is often for some a difficult concept to understand. Dreaming, that wonderful state between reality and fantasy is a place most of us know and enjoy, but the Dreamtime is a place very different. Some would affiliate it with the concept of heaven and hell when arriving at a perception of what manner of place the Dreamtime is.
The Dreamtime is a combined state of both heaven and hell, indeed the only separations made between heaven and hell are those made within the tenets of the religions scattered around the world, which is a recent development given the timeline of man.
The Roof of Queensland
The Kadimakara is an old Australian Aboriginal word that is used to describe the Dreamtime, prehistoric monsters, or the unique megafauna and/or dinosaurs (not strictly speaking) of the Australian landscape. That the word survives in a culture that has no written text is a testament to the power of storytelling.
No one instructed the Australian Traditional Aboriginal in the existence these animals. The account of them was born of experience and knowledge alone. The creatures were spoken about as having foraged and fed across the lands of Central Australia and other regions. We know also that they actually existed because they left their bleached and fossilized bones in the once great lakes and sea’s of central Australia. They are yet another account of something of which modern man has no practical written record, outside of palaeontology studies, art and storytelling.
The Featherfoot is of the Australian Kadaitcha Lore. The name is a reference to the shoes of the Kadaitcha Men of High Degree, these allow the wearer to pass across the ground unseen and unheard. They were made of feathers, blood and human hair and held mystic powers belonging to ancient tribal Aboriginal Lore.
Understood to be of use only once, the shoes remain a mystery in their construction despite samples being available. It is known that the sole is constructed of feather and blood although it is unknown how they remain together. The upper shoe is of woven hair and their construction in based in ceremony, as is their use. They were kept hidden from the eyes of women and children and commonly wrapped in skins to conceal them. These shoes were a mystic weapon of the Australian Tribal Aboriginal and one greatly respected above all others.
Jan Hawkins Author 