Indigenous Australian Dreamtime Legend.
When the world was young and the hills shook in their sleep, the Sky was still mourning for her lover. Days would turn dark as she screamed, searching for him — her hair a shrieking wind that trailed after her as she ran and kicked up red dust.
In this land, a party of hunters had stopped to find a new trail when the Sky wailed past them. Caught in the storm of her wake, they cowered as the wind tore up the earth; the grass roaring as it scarred the bruised clouds above. In her agitation, the Sky tore at her hair and clumps of it mixed with the red dust and grass to form curious animals that swirled in the storm above. Never had the hunters seen such animals — their small heads and tiny arms, large bodies and tails flailing in the wind.
The animals tried to reach the ground but they were constantly swept away by the force of the storm and the fury of the Sky. The animals, weeping, tucked their children in the seams of their bellies as they sought a way down to the Red Dirt. Their tails grew large to stabilise them; their legs grew long and massive as they stretched to reach the ground — but still, the wind took them.
A grass tree saw this and took pity on the animals. She grew a flower spike far into the sky to pierce the storm. The creatures tethered themselves to the spike and quickly pulled themselves down, their toes touching land. But the Sky was unwilling to part with her companions, and whipped up a storm so fierce it almost uprooted the grass tree.
The creatures cried out in fear.
The Sky relented, making the animals promise to always hop when they finally reached land, that she might hold and be with them in the moments when their feet were off the ground.
And that, my dear Dylan, is the story of the first kangaroos. It's also why Australians like big butts and we cannot lie, them other fella's can't deny...
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So this tale is inspired by one of my favourite stories from Ainslie Roberts and Charles Mountford's 'Legends of the Dreamtime'. It's one of the few books that has accompanied me everywhere- and was given to my family by a 'George and Boba' in September 1982.
