Red Kangaroo ordered his friends away to widely placed vantage points along the crest from which they could see the skyline of the range behind. He gazed far out over their tribal country in front, meanwhile attending to cooking the wallaby down in a deep crevice from which no prying eyes could see signs of smoke. Any enemies coming to raid the tribal lands from that direction would be spied by the watchers as they came creeping up over the crest.

Away back in the big ranges⁹ lived fierce tribes, such as those of Bundarra and Kingston,¹⁰ and the Goonoo Goonoo tribe eastward¹¹ under the fighting chief Ilpara. There were also the Barraba men to the north and the more peaceful Manellae or Manilla tribe to the nor’-east in the valley of the Manilla River under the chief Mooti, who, however, preferred peace to fighting. Other foes westwards were the Coonabarabran tribe under the warrior Kulki, their legendary enemies being the Walleri, the Big River tribes, and the Coombri tribesmen around Terri-Hi-Hi. And they had to be ever alert against woman-stealing raids by the Boggabri and Narrabri men to the north-east, and the Quirindi and Murrurundi men south-east. But their most dreaded foes, though they came but seldom, were the distant and dreaded Cassilis men, away over the range to the south.

Happily for the survival of the Gunn-e-darr tribe the fierce mountain tribes, in time snatched between their constant hunting and strict ceremonial periods, were ever watching, raiding, or fighting one another.

The Bundarra and Kingston tribes seemed never happier than when raiding the Goonoo Goonoo and Manellae, their pet enemies or prey as the case might be. It was the same with other tribes. Thus for long past they had only been able to spare time for an occasional lightning woman-stealing raid against the Gunn-e-darr tribe. Had the fierce tribes known how weak the Gunn-e-darr tribe now really was their tactics would have been very different.

Thus the life of the Stone Age aboriginal was more than one happy nomadic round of hunting from season to season. That was certainly part of it—during the good times, and during good seasons. But with it went the severest training for both hunting and warfare, a careful learning also of various ceremonies and age-old beliefs that made up their deep inner life—and ceaseless vigilance against both Nature and tribal enemies. So that these Stone Age humans were up against worries and problems strangely akin to our own. But then it has been ever so, since the Dream Time of all of us. How often have our own ancestors sat high upon a rock and watched and drowsed and pondered as Red Kangaroo was pondering!

Why did not the Kamilaroi tribes combine—the “mighty Kamilaroi” as they loved to call themselves? They believed they were one. The same language, the same beliefs, and every warrior among them proud to boast, “I am a warrior of the Kamilaroi!”

With its sub-tribes, the Kamilaroi tribe was the second largest in numbers and lands in all that big land which many years later white men were to call New South Wales. There was only one slightly larger tribe, or rather tribe of tribes, the Wiradjuri. The Kamilaroi lands included the great plains now known as the Liverpool Plains, of some ten million acres, and extended northward almost to where the Queensland border was to be. Their southernmost limits were roughly level with a point on the coast midway between the present cities of Sydney and Newcastle. These rich, well-watered lands were an animal, vegetable, and bird paradise; the waters, too, teemed with fish.