The Fethafoot Chronicles

by Pemulwuy Weeatunga

  A man of many names

  The elder conferred a benevolent smile and placed his hands over his heart. “I am known by many names, man of many dreams,” he said, opening his arms wide and sending a small wave of wind and blue energy rippling and bursting out through the area around where they sat. “I have as many names as there are tribes in the land.” He gave a wry smile.

  The old man turned both hands toward himself and held out his graceful black and white fingers as though he were a mature woman supporting her heavy breasts. “You may call me Takkan, if I must have a name, man of dust,” he told Leichardt. Takkan then, Ludwig thought, relaxing some more now that he could put a name to this puzzling mystery in front of him.

  Takkan had prepared some small stick kindling while they spoke and appeared to Ludwig’s gradually clearing vision that he was ready to light it. Leichardt began to search his pockets, groping for a flint-box or a box of waxed matches in his clothes.

  After turning his pockets out and finding nothing, he gazed back at Takkan to discover that the small fire was already alight. It burned with a weird sparkling blue flame that danced about more like petite, controlled sheet lightning than normal fire, Ludwig thought. He shook himself, suddenly realising that he could see with pinpoint clarity, right across the clearing to the tree line. It was unlike anything his well-worked mind had ever envisaged with his unfortunate eyesight. It seemed that just being close to this old man had certain curious affects. Takkan passed his hands in small intricate movements over and through the fire, setting off tiny explosions of swirling sparkling blue lights that licked and stuttered as they slowly began to creep over and cover Ludwig’s sweat stained pale body.

  Takkan gave a small chin-lipping movement of his jaw, pointing to something behind him. Leichardt looked where directed and was astonished to spy a circular doorway bathed in blue light and set into the air itself. It was calling to him and shimmering at the base of a great walkway-bridge structure. Through the doorway, an elevated path ascended up into the sky until it disappeared in the distance. His body abruptly became itchy. He looked down at himself to discover that he was instantly naked, clothed only with the static blue lightning that had jumped from the tiny fire and was now flickering all over him…

  Chapter 12

  Refreshed

  In this unusual state of clothing, Leichardt allowed himself to be led to the unearthly doorway hovering brilliantly above the ground. He was dumbstruck at the enormity of what he was seeing and doing, as he followed his strange guide and approached the shimmering blue door. A path beckoned through the twinkling iridescent doorway: a large flat pathway that should not; could not really be there. He numbly followed Takkan through the swirling kaleidoscopic opening and stepped up bravely into a thick cloying darkness.

  Leichardt stayed as close as possible to his only contact with reality without bumping into the old warrior. Immediately, he felt his fatigue, loss horror and sadness drop away as quickly as had his clothes previously.

  And with those terrible weights went the disorienting suspended feeling that had begun earlier that night as they were attacked. It was now gone as soon as he stepped through the impossible doorway. He felt a familiar solidness to the path under his feet – an earthy sense of weight and touch that allowed him some small measure of his usual confidence to return. But as soon as he was through the nebulous opening and on the pathway, he forgot Takkan, the impossibility of the path, his nakedness and his short boost of confidence.

  Takkan had stopped and Leichardt could see his form in the strange glowing light from the path. This Takkan no longer had the form of a frail older man. His body had been transformed entirely. No longer did he have to check or hold in his great power in this mysterious place of spiritual magic. He had become his powerful Spirit self – the legend that Leichardt had heard stories about all across this huge land. Leichardt now understood. This mysterious and graceful old man was the Australian native’s fancifully real Dreamtime Rainbow Serpent: in the flesh and spirit simultaneously.

  Ludwig could clearly see a form of sinewy muscle and flowing colour that seemed to be joined with the pathway it owned. His human-like arms and legs, spiralling out of the serpent form, were themselves thick and strong, like enormous tree roots that were well able to grip, hold and crush any earthly material. The great serpent head had raised horny ridges above large rainbow coloured eyes of fire, with pupils that showed the face of Takkan in them…

  A living sky

  Shocked to his core, Leichardt stood before this living myth, rooted to the spot – unable to move, speak or run – even if he wished. The great serpent head swung toward him and laughed out a deep carefree belly laugh that immediately released his fear and frozen body and mind. His casually powerful guide was looking up now, pointing with one of those massive arms and exhorting Leichardt to do the same. His awed eyes were drawn upward until he saw millions of brightly coloured stars above them. These stars should not have been there either, but there they were, giving off a subdued silver rippling light onto the sentient – he was sure - pathway.

  As he stared upward in wonder, he noticed patterns and movement among the stars above them. Suddenly, individual pinpoints of light began to join together and become great starry animals and birds that swooped down toward them, singing ancient spirit songs. Melodious harmonies grabbed a hold of his heart and crushed his former understanding of beauty and music as they flew majestically close past him and the Rainbow Serpent spirit. They trailed slivers of star-tails behind them that sang a deep song themselves: an eternal song of infinite spaces and pliable time that Ludwig’s ancient soul recognised, even as they sped back to their places in the living kaleidoscopic sky.

  After what seemed like hours of musical wonder and spectacular sights, when his head and heart were full to bursting and he felt that he could take no more, the scientist-explorer looked down at his feet and noticed that the path on which they stood was itself rainbow coloured. Nicht, he thought, as he realised where he stood. It wasn’t just rainbow coloured, he realised with awe. He was on the Rainbow Bridge! Was this the “bridge” that he’d heard Takkan sing about?

  It was not a symbolic desire, as he’d always believed the black’s stories to be, but a tangible, powerful pathway that transcended time and space, he mused, as he tried to accept the new reality in his eager and humbled mind. The idea was preposterous to his scientific mind, but his human heart and empathetic spirit felt the truth through his feet as he stood with a living myth on a living bridge that should not logically exist…

  Warning

  “Please take care here in this place.” Takkan brought him sharply back to the present. “There are shameless cunning beings imprisoned here. Beings who would trick you and try to get you to take their place – and if they tempt you and succeed, you could be stuck here forever,” he said in a heavy rumbling voice to a still dazed explorer. “You will also see some of the Heart-rock people’s totem spirit-animals moving through here as well, man of dust no longer,” the spirit’s gentle whisper told him. “But do not be alarmed, as these are going about their life’s work and will not worry you – and, you may call on them should you need help,” he reassured.

  As they moved higher up the pathway toward its apex, Leichardt recognised the lands that he’d walked through recently, now spread out below him as if they were looking down from a great height. He saw his own people spreading out over all this land. He saw many small blue lights winking out, faster than his eye could follow, and was ashamed when his guide explained that those lights, “were the laws and customs dying out, as my Heart-rock people – the original carers of the land – are taken over or killed by the settling invaders.”

  “When we first gave them life here,” Takkan said sadly, contemplating the land below, “we gave the language creatures the proper Dreaming laws for communal structure: the ethics of equality, balance and respect,” he said. “But now, that long-time moral strength falls away rapidly under your people�
�s self-centred irreverent power.” The bridge beneath them quivered at this statement.

  “Come,” he said, leading Leichardt slowly forward. “From higher yet, you will see that it is not only this – our land – that suffers, as the bridges between Heaven and Earth are forgotten in the mad rush for possessions and power. Selfishness has over taken almost every nation in our world - and it will only become worse as the arrogance of the language creatures adapts to their ever-growing, imagined self-worth.” The profound sorrow in his rich, wonderful voice was almost more than Leichardt’s current state of mind could bear and he shed silent tears for his race; knowing assuredly that the reproving words were true…

  Chapter 13

  A world of their own

  “See there.” Takkan pointed outward to another country, far away over the blue seas. “These people have made slaves of their own long-ago, forgotten families,” he said, angrily shaking his great head. “They take them and treat them like unwanted possessions – and they too, have forgotten the laws that were given to all language creatures - the world over.” His voice crashed against the pulsing path around them in fury.

  “But there is - and always will be - a tiny piece of knowledge of the law buried deep within each life given.” He hissed a sigh of frustration at the stubborn blindness of mankind. “And, it screams this: each life is given to maintain the balance. Which states that each and every single one – be they language creature, or tiny invisible midge - are exactly equal to the other,” he said, shaking Leichardt to his core and vibrating the entire pathway with his impassioned plea for proper sight by the self-blinded language creatures.

  Leichardt moved ahead, still following Takkan’s sinuous form. He watched several ugly scenes play out from his high magical vantage point and cringed at the sight of his fellow man’s raw, naked ugliness. He saw men, women and children’s bodies, being thrown from a great sailing ship like refuse. They were dead, but the absence of any dignity in their final moments appalled Leichardt, who had argued savagely against slavery of any description. He also gradually began to realise that if this information was getting back to the Australian natives, it was no wonder that so many of them wanted to fight, rather than suffer a similar fate; nor wanted to join a society that treated others like so much unwanted rubbish…

  Maintaining the nexus

  Takkan stopped as they neared the highest part of the bridge, and signalled Leichardt to look down. The various Dreaming totems of each tribe had their spirit-animals maintaining the links between heaven and earth for each tribe and clan. Ludwig could see the blue and silver trails attached to the heavens above and trailing down to the earth below. On one such trail, a huge half-goanna, half-man animal spirit worked tirelessly, rebuilding broken pathways from heaven to earth. He also saw from their perspective: as the sacred places on the land were no longer maintained, the webbing-trail links grew thin and weak.

  In a short, sharp epiphany, Leichardt abruptly understood that it was his own people who were obstructing the native believers from doing this maintenance – and, why the maintenance of these great web-strong pillars of balance between heaven and earth, were so important to every man’s spiritual contentment - and harmony with each other. He knelt and wept, comforted only by the lightest of touches on his shoulder.

  “The Dreaming laws will never die out altogether, man of sadness – do not fear – the powerful secretive clan we created will survive and one day, it will rise in this land and take its place in the highest order of things – and once more the balance will even out. This is foretold and cannot be changed,” the Serpent’s voice proclaimed. Leichardt took courage from the truth and pragmatism he heard in the spirit’s rumbling voice and stood, again beholding the fantastic view, but now with a seed of growing hope inside.

  In another scene under him, the goanna-man spirit blew ancient customs, song-line language and hope into sleeping men’s minds, hoping they would awake and realise what was happening and act accordingly. However, the goanna spirit’s terrible groans and almost living angst, revealed that it was fighting a losing battle against the shame that the Ghost’s relentless violent power brought with it - at this time-period, at least, he thought hopefully…

  A being of power

  “It is good for you too see this situation from my people’s point of view, Ludwig Leichardt,” Takkan said, waiting for Ludwig to catch up to him. “However,” Takkan hissed, slowly becoming more spirit than man the further they walked, “it is not only this that I have brought you here to see.” He said, moving along, drawing the still goggle-eyed Leichardt in his wake. “As we come to the end of this path and once again close to the Mother, you will be able to see and watch every animal and their relationships to each other and to the lands they live and die in – including the language creature, man,” he said, with a sense of regret.

  “This is my gift to you – as a fearless seeker of knowledge and truth,” he said, issuing a genial hiss at Ludwig. “Only few in time have ever passed this way,” Takkan’s hissing voice sounded in his head, “while alive at least,” the voice said lightly, “and all who have come – asked and willingly – like yourself, have also had to decide what you wish to do after we part,” he empathised.

  He stopped and faced Leichardt, as he continued his explanation and advice. “You are now a being of power and can either stay in the Dreaming, where we now stand,” he said, opening those great arms wide, “or you can use your power unseen in the land below and perhaps guide your fellow Ghost people back to the pathway, and the much needed maintenance between the Heavens and the Earth,” he said.

  “I would urge you to follow that latter pathway, man of friendship,” he placed one massive hand on Leichardt’s shoulder, “without that connection, man has no future on The Mother – She will simply cast him off from her,” he said simply. “At present, the Ghosts are doomed to the vacuum of material over spiritual, life over death – bound with fear and ignorant arrogance that will eventually destroy them – without change,” the being explained.

  “I must take my leave and attend my own duties, even as you must decide yours,” Takkan said. “Your spirit-life is open and ready and I believe that you will always do the right thing with the power afforded you, spirit-healer,” he hissed. “I would urge you yet again, to open your spirit-heart and eyes and help us regain the bond of Dreaming law that makes everything and everyone equal,” he advised, beginning to move away from Leichardt.

  “Oh,” he hissed, sounding like an absent-minded grandfatherly serpent, as he turned his body to regard Leichardt again, “fear nothing here or in the world below, Ludwig of the Leichardt. Nothing can hurt you now, but again, be wary on the bridge of low spirits, Ludwig of the Dreaming. These low cunning things have been imprisoned here for some good reason and they would try to trick a new walker into swapping with them,” he repeated, ensuring that his newest spirit ally acknowledged the warning before they part…

  Chapter 14

  A new advocate of the Dreaming laws

  Takkan, the ancient Rainbow Serpent and warm old man whom Leichardt had already begun to love like a father, was gone. However, instead of feeling the hollow sadness that he’d imagined he would be feeling at so much loss: his old life, the terrible deaths of his relatives and men and the failed expedition, he found that his newfound friend’s departure saddened him most.

  Then, quite unexpectedly the slightly altered scientist and explorer realised that he actually felt quite wonderful. All of his senses were enhanced and his sense of sight, which had given him problems for all of his life, was pure and strong like never before. Each of his various aches and pains were gone and he felt invincible – as strong as a Mallee-bull – which was one of this country’s clichés that he’d heard often and now uniquely understood.

  As he began to descend the Rainbow Bridge, Leichardt surveyed the earth and it’s inhabitants still far below. He began to see the connections being validated in front of his new eyes. He saw and understoo
d the balance between the creatures of land and sea and the interconnectedness of every living thing, including the living Mother he would soon re-join. He easily identified man’s crude violent path, through what was once a wonderful balance and saw that perhaps he could change some ignorant attitudes through his newfound power and abilities. Perhaps he could sway the appropriate humans to see – and not just look unknowingly – the forgotten balances and connections of the physical and spiritual realms of existence…

  The vanished

  Ludwig Leichardt was a contented and excited man – or spirit – and he intended to influence each and every relevant language creature he encountered…

  An end and a beginning

  Here we leave Ludwig Leichardt – yet exploring, and now, in a place of magical power – able to explore the innate holistic physical mental and spiritual connections that he could now see clearly; as needing proper care and maintenance, as did the symbolic sites of this land’s carers, should this country and people have a future. He walks in the spirit now, astounded and happy as a child who has found the rainbow’s end and pot of gold there – on a Dreaming bridge he never imagined existed. He watches and learns, filled with joy at the intricate and beautiful creation, which he understands clearly now that he has been so especially chosen to play a part.

  Mr Leichardt and his party, their belongings, animals and tools, were never seen again in the Heart-rock land, and many a fanciful story was conjured out of lively imagination over the years following. However, for generations after the disappearance, Aboriginal clever-men and my Fethafoot clan speak of him – and the Rainbow Serpent’s acceptance of him – as if he were alive and still walking upon the silver Dreaming path today…