Since the first Palawa was created, Palle told her, they had walked many miles a day. Lean and fit and small of stature, they roamed from the bush to the sea and to the top of the mountains, carrying their food and tools and eating utensils in bags woven from grass. Smeared with a layer of seal grease to protect them from the wind and cold, they hunted kangaroo and wallaby and other beasts with spears honed with stone knives and with wooden clubs called waddies. From campsite to campsite they carried water in kelp vessels and smoldering coals in baskets made of bark. They ate abalone and oysters and used the sharp edges of leftover shells to cut meat.

Long ago, their country had extended across what were now the waters of the Bass Strait, but one day the rising sea sliced the island from the continent. Ever since, the Palawa had lived on Lutruwita in splendid isolation. There was usually enough to eat; the water was fresh and wildlife plentiful. They built domed huts out of tree bark and twisted wide strands of bark into canoes. They crafted long necklaces, like those Mathinna’s mother made, from vivid green Mariner shells the size of baby teeth and wore ceremonial red ochre in their hair. Many tribesmen wore raised scars shaped like suns and moons on their shoulders and arms and torsos, carved into their skin and filled with powdered charcoal. Their stories, spoken and sung, were passed from one generation to the next.

Unlike the British, Palle said, spitting on the ground with contempt, the Palawa did not need brick structures or constricting costumes or muskets to feel content. They coveted nothing and stole nothing. There were twelve nations, each containing half a dozen clans, each with a different language, and there was no word for property in any of them. The land was simply part of who they were.

Or perhaps more accurately, he said, they were part of the land.

It had been two hundred years since the first white men came to their shores—strange-looking creatures with freakishly pale skin, like white worms or ghosts out of legends. They appeared as soft as oysters, but the spears they carried roared with fire. For many years the only white people hardy enough to remain through the winter were the whalers and sealers, many of whom were so crude and vicious they seemed to the Palawa half man, half beast. Even so, over time, a bartering system developed. The Palawa traded crawfish and muttonbirds and kangaroo skins for white sugar, tea, tobacco, and rum—vile substances that took root in their brains and stomachs, Palle told Mathinna, fueling cravings and dependence.

Since the day the invaders arrived on—and named—Van Diemen’s Land, they were as relentless as a rising tide. They seized the land and pushed the Palawa farther and farther into the mountains. The grasslands and open bush, their kangaroo and wallaby hunting grounds, became grazing pastures for sheep, penned in by fences. The Palawa loathed these stupid bleating animals that clogged their routes and pathways. They refused to eat their stinking meat and burned the fences that impeded their movements. Fearing the shepherds who had no qualms about killing them when they came near, they fought back the only way they could, with ambush and subterfuge.