Australia: The Land Where Time Began

A biography of the Australian continent 

Kandju was a little lizard man that lived alone in an unknown place west of Uluru. When he was testing a new boomerang he had made it flew all the way to Uluru where it buried itself in the soft sand. When he reached Uluru he started digging in the sand looking for his boomerang until he found it. The holes he made are now the deep potholes and vertical chasms of Kandju Gorge on the western side of Uluru. Having found his boomerang he decided to camp there for a while, the Kandju waterhole being his dry weather camp. A black mark on the head of the gorge from the water running down is his beard. A small cave is his wet weather camp. In the Dreamtime there was a tree that Kandju like to rest under, this tree is now a large cave, the boulders at its mouth marks the places where Kandju slept. The place where he kept his spear thrower is now a horizontal rock column. Kendju rested his spear against the tree before he went to sleep, it is now a long curving, vertical cleft that goes from ground level to the summit. Variously shaped rocks hanging from the ceiling are the leaves of the tree. His hair has become the fig trees growing among the boulders.

After a time he moved to Tabudja on the northern side of Uluru where the Mala women were camped, where he was known as Linga. Mountford (1966) says the people believe that both names refer to the same individual. While camping here his only food was honey ants (Melophorus inflatus), the main source of sweet food for the Aboriginal People. After he dug out the honey-ant nest the worker ants followed him to his cave where they bit him until he left the cave. He moved to another cave but they followed him there and bit him till he moved again. There are now 4 large caves were he lived, moving from one to the next as the ants found him. He moved camp to some distance from the ants but they still found him, so he moved to southern face of Uluru.

He was unable to find any food around his new camp and was starving. After one unsuccessful search for food he found a sleeping young carpet snake girl in front of her wet weather shelter. He hit her across the neck with his digging stick, killing her instantly. Shallow depression on the pavement on the southern side of the rock are footprints he made as he crept up on the sleeping girl. Where he stood to strike her there are now a series of potholes. His digging stick is now a long stone column in a northerly cave. The Kunia girl's body is now an unusually shaped boulder at ground level. The wound in her neck is now a fissure near the top of the boulder, her wet weather shelter is now a series of small caves not far from the body.

Linga dragged the girl's body back to his camp where he laid it out while he prepared to cook her. A low rock ridge, extending from ground level to the summit of the rock is the track left by the dragging of the body. His camp is now a pile of large boulders on the top, the girl's body is a line of stones in the distance. The camp fire where he cooked her is now a circular rockhole on the summit. The shoulders and head of the girl are spherical rocks and the legs and body are long cylindrical boulders.

After eating the girl Linga's last known journey was to Junabidi on the southern side of the Musgrave Ranges

Mountford's book has photos of all the rock formations around Uluru that are connected with the various stories.

Sources & Further reading

1. Australian Dreaming: 40,000 Years of Aboriginal History, Ed. Jennifer Isaacs, New Holland Publishers
2. Charles P. Mountford, Ayre's Rock, Its People, Their Beliefs and their Art, Angus & Robertson, 1966