Red Kangaroo, sitting high up on Booroobil Rock and gazing down with troubled brow upon the Sacred Grounds of Baia-me, pondered upon the Bora, and how deeply its unbreakable bonds held and shaped the whole life of his tribe, from far back in the Dream Time right to this present, sunlit day. Even those who gave up the struggle and wished to return to Baia-me before their time were guided by its power. For it was to this place that a deeply troubled warrior or, more often, a broken-hearted woman or girl, sometimes stole away from the tribe, to stand on the rock and gaze a moment far down upon Baia-me’s Ground—then jump.

Red Kangaroo was gazing down at the giant figure of a man lying flat out in the very centre of the Bora Ground. The figure had been modelled of sticks, bark, and bushes, then carefully covered with earth. As the earth settled down more had been added until the giant figure stood out in relief well above the perfectly levelled ground. The figure was twenty-five feet long, the outstretched arms twelve feet from hand to hand, the body four feet broad. Stretching out from the figure right to the giant trees that almost encircled the ground were carefully graded lines and laneways of stones ochred in different colours, with broad geometrical patterns here and there, all with deep symbolical meaning. Carved in the bark of one hundred and fifty great trees were the totems, animals, snakes, and birds, stretching twenty feet and more up the trunks. There were other carvings, too, of regular patterns, or eccentric curves, or simple angles, and carvings of the tracks of men and women and wild creatures. Stretching out towards the figure in the centre was a huge, leaning tree, bent so low to the ground that surely, many years ago—a hundred, two hundred, probably hundreds of years ago—it must have been trained to grow that way. Along this were deeply cut by tomahawk emu tracks. During one part of the ceremonies the initiates must lie under this tree in the posture of the giant figure while the old Emu Man with the stuffed emu walks along the tree over them, as if the emu were sedately stepping upon and over their line of bodies. Where the tree branches came to the ground the emu emblem steps down and, solemnly followed by other totem figures and the circle of seven walk round a circular path away out from the initiates—every figure, every sign, every movement, every chant holding meaning.

Mounds of various designs, some strangely like altars such as the prophets and Moses might have built out in the wilderness, stand here and there upon the Grounds. Other things and signs and designs also, all with a deep symbolical meaning merging into the whole. Deep indeed was the meaning of the Bora and its ceremonies and laws throughout all aboriginal life.

Red Kangaroo sighed, picked up his shield, and came back to daily life, the life that is but a span. Long and thoughtfully he gazed at the lower end of the shield. He was very proud of his shield; it had stood the test in many a hard fight. It had been his father’s father’s shield. When his father had at last been killed in fight, Red Kangaroo’s uncle, Tulumi, by tribal etiquette, had gravely presented the lad with the shield.