No more kangaroo out on the plain,

Gone to other country where there was rain.

Couldn't find emu, couldn't find seed,

And the children all time cry for feed.

They saw great eagle come through the sky

To his big stick gunya in a gum near by,

Fine young wallaby carried in his feet:

He bring tucker for his kids to eat.

Big fella eagle circled slow,

Little fella eagles fed below.

‘Gwa!’ said Bwalla the hunter, ‘he

Best fella hunter, better than me.’

He dropped his boomerang. ‘Now I climb,

All share tucker in the hungry time.

We got younks too, we got need –

You make fire and we all have feed.’

Then up went Bwalla like a native cat,

All the blackfellows climb like that.

And when he look over big nest rim

Those young ones all sing out at him.

They flapped and spat, they snapped and clawed,

They plenty wild with him, my word,

They shrilled at tucker-thief big and brown,

But Bwalla took wallaby and then climbed done.

No More Boomerang

No more boomerang

No more spear;

Now all civilised –

Colour bar and beer.

No more corroboree,

Gay dance and din.

Now we got movies,

And pay to go in.

No more sharing

What the hunter brings.

Now we work for money,

Then pay it back for things.

Now we track bosses

To catch a few bob,

Now we go walkabout

On bus to the job.

One time naked,

Who never knew shame;

Now we put clothes on

To hide whatsaname.

No more gunya,

Now bungalow,

Paid by hire purchase

In twenty year or so.

Lay down the stone axe,

Take up the steel,

And work like a nigger

For a white man meal.

No more firesticks

That made the whites scoff.

Now all electric

And no better off.

Bunyip he finish,

Now got instead

White fell Bunyip,

Call him Red.

Abstract picture now –

What they coming at?

Cripes, in our caves we

Did better than that.

Black hunted wallaby,

White hunt dollar;

White fella witch-doctor

Wear dog-collar.

No more message-stick;

Lubras and lads

Got television now,

Mostly ads.

Lay down the woomera,

Lay down the waddy.

Now we got atom-bomb,

End everybody.

Bora

Stone Age youth

Impatient for the testing

Waits command of elders

To face Bora ordeal.

Boyhood is over,

No more now

Playing with the children,

Keeping with the women;

Today at the Bora

Terrified but eager

Boy becomes man.

He will not dare

To cry when the stone knife

Shapes bleeding Bora marks

Of manhood and honour.

Deep scorn and anger

Should he fail the man test.

He will be given now

Woomera and firesticks,

Given balanced boomerang,

War shield and spear.

He will be tracker now

A tribesman, a fighter,

Sitting with the men now,

Dancing in corroboree;

Going with the hunters

To prove himself a man.

Proudly he'll return now

From his first stalking,

Flinging down his weapons,

Flinging down the kill.

The children he played with