"We're named after everything that God gave us... All these things, the plants and the trees, the mountains and the hills and the stars and the clouds, we represent them. Yes, and the frogs and the tadpoles and the fish... even the crickets... all kinds of things... we represent them! We represent everything that God gave us... or, as we Aboriginal people say, that Wandjina gave us..."

"We want our land back, the land they stole from us with their words and their guns and their laws and their lies. Not money. Just the land. The land, the ground, the sand, you know? That's all we want. Just to go back and live there, to sit down on the ground and be there, doin' whatever we like, listen to the wind, listen to the rain, listen to the stars... "

"I know lots of Dreamtime stories. People like to hear 'm. I write 'm down in my books. But they're not mine, those stories. They belong to my people, the Worrora people. They got--what you call it?--a copyright! Them stories, they're copyright by their own people. Nobody else... but their own people. "Just like the land, you know? The land... it's copyright, too. We black people got the copyright but Gadia [White Man], he went and stole it!"

"Not many white people come here, you know. They just pass by. They don't see us. We don't exist for them. They never say hello. "When you write your book, please tell them. Just be friendly and talk to us and stay with us. Just stop by and say hello to us. That's all we ask."

"Of The Great Mystery"

"That Old Man" spoke of his people and his tribal identity with a patriot's fervor, and of the mystery of existence with a mystic's visionary insight. To him, the land of Australia was a living being called Bandaiyan [bahn-DAI-yan], ruled over by the ancestral deities known as the Wandjina [WAHN-jin-uh], or Cloud-Beings. Across his chest and torso stretched a tapestry of raised tribal scars, and within his enigmatic eyes lurked a terrible sadness. "Words carry the spirit," he told me. "That's about all we Aboriginal people have left to give the world... Spirit... but that's a lot, and we're always glad to share it."

"What's important is beyond all understanding. That's the first thing you must remember." "Ask me questions if you like... but, remember, the same question's got different answers for different people. Maybe they're true for you, or maybe not. And never forget--everything's a mystery anyway. Once it stops bein' a mystery it stops bein' true."

"I know who I am. I have my identity. I'm a Ngarinyin man. My Dreaming is hibiscus. That's my symbol, a beautiful flower. And this, too, is my identity." He pulled open his shirt to reveal a chestful of raised tribal scars. "These scars are my brand, my identity. We have to spill our blood on the earth to make it ours. Once we spill our blood there, we belong to that country. Another Aboriginal looks at these scars and he knows where I'm from, what my country is, who I am. He knows my identity and I can look at him and know his. "That's my work, my life... teaching Aboriginal people our own identity. White man stole it, our identity. But now we're finding it again. And this time we'll never let it go. If a man doesn't know who he is, where he's from, where his boundaries are, then he's no one, nobody, nowhere. Everybody needs to know their place and where their border is."

"Wayrrull--it can't be explained. It's a mystery. It's the power of the Wandjina. Wayrrull is the power that lets you speak. Wayrrull is the power of the motorcar. When a jet airplane roars and takes off, you can hear the power of Wayrrull. Wayrrull is the thrust behind things. Wayrrull is in the grass, in the tree, in the river, in the mountain. Wayrrull is in all creation. Wayrrull--it's the power in everything. It doesn't matter where we walkabout, Wayrrull is there. When we walk by a tree, that tree has this power--Wayrrull. We see that tree because its Wayrrull--its Power--contacts our eye. Wayrrull lets that tree talk to us, tell us its story. Wayrrull lets us hear. We learn from Wayrrull. It guides us. "No, you can't understand it. No one can understand it. It's Wayrrull. It can't be explained. It's beyond all understanding. That's how the Creator Wandjina made it for us. He made Wayrrull and he made it a mystery."

"God and Wandjina, they're the same. We all talk about one Creator. He created everything there is. In white man's lingo he's God. We call him Wandjina. But you can't explain Wandjina just like you can't explain God. Your anthropoligists say Wandjina was just an Ancestor Being. That's wrong. Wandjina comes before all explanations. Wandjina comes after all explanations. Wandjina is Wandjina."