When Kundekundeka was five, his grandfather Ramijirring told him legends of the Dreamtime and beyond. On a summer night, while the tribe gathered in the ritual of corroborree, while the moon glistened mystically over the waters of the distant billabong, and while the silver skyships of the whitefellas drifted overhead, Ramijirring sang the time-songs.

He sang of Kunapipi, the feathered she-serpent of the far-distant Dreamtime, who created men from the grass and women from the sand, and saw them multiply across the desert outback. He told of Jangardbla, the red-haired warrior who slew a hundred enemies with his strong left hand, and who conquered the beast-men of Luritja. And he told of the people Wandjina, who came from the stars and went back to them, in the days of our grandfathers' grandfathers, and who wore lightning in their hair. The Wandjina had no mouths, for they held all the weather of the world within themselves ... and if they spoke, tempests and tidal waves would run out of their faces and drown the whole Earth. All these things were many rains ago, in the days of Kutjulpitu: in the Big Walktime when the coolibah groves whispered magic, and the Bunyip sang, and the enchanted Miruru spirits rode the high wind. But then came the walypalu--the whitefellas--and they brought with them their guns and horses and fences. The walypalu said that this place Woombalooru was now part of some land called Australia, and on that day the magic left Woombalooru forever.

When Kundekundeka was nine, his grandfather Ramijirring taught him how to play the wooden drum and the ebroo tree-flute, and then--when Kundekundeka had mastered these--his grandfather taught him to play the most beautiful instrument of all: the didjeridoo. Ten feet long and as thick as a man's arm it was, but Kundekundeka never forgot how it sang silver notes when his grandfather breathed life into it:

OOdaOOdaOOdadadaOOROOdadaOOROOdaah ... !

When Kundekundeka was twelve, the time came for his entry into manhood. His grandfather Ramijirring taught him how to use the woomera and the spear and the knife. He taught him which beasts were taboo and which ones might safely be hunted. He taught Kundekundeka how to forage for mingkiri: any of the non-taboo small animals that were suitable for food. Kundekundeka learnt how to hunt Ninoo the bandicoot, and how to bring down the kangaroo Nyatunya with one throw of the curved-stick boonang, and how to make the boonang fly back to his hand when he tossed it into the wind. And Ramijirring taught his grandson how to use Wirtit: the bull-roarer, the flat stick on a braided-hair thong that could sing to the spirits and let them know that the hunting was good.

"Always remember, tjamu-tju, my grandson," Ramijirring would say, "that you are a member of the tribe Woombalooru, the most noble of nations. And we the tribe Woombalooru are the favoured ones, for we are watched over by the spirits who dwell in mighty Oolooru, the Stone-from-the-Sky. Sacred is Oolooru above all else."

Oftentimes, on a steaming summer night, while the men of the tribe did their snake-dance to the throb of the didjeridoo, young Kundekundeka could look southwards and see Oolooru looming on the desert horizon. He asked his aged grandfather why the people Woombalooru spent their days wandering, instead of living peacefully in the shade of Oolooru. And Ramijirring replied:

"Nowadays no man among us goes there, but in my day Oolooru was home. Shall I tell you what the place was like, child? Rock and sand and little else, but if you can climb the rocky peaks of Oolooru as I did once, aye, and reach the very centre of the crest you shall find the Valley of Oolooru. And there grow trees and birds and grasses, and the waters are sweet. In the Valley of Oolooru, son of my son, far away from mortal eyes."

Kundekundeka was silent, and for a moment he sat and listened to the throb of the didjeridoo: