Welcome Friends to the Dream Time
Where truer things happen than what happen to you or me.
I have no words for this story
for dream time stories occur in Every When
Not in the Future, Not in the Now
Not in the Past.
But here I speak a tongue not native to these stories
And so I cannot express dream time
So when I say a thing happened...
Just know, that it has happened
It is happening, and it will happen.
That dream time is parallel to our time,
and runs through our time.
So now, we enter the dreaming
*Cue intro*
There was a drought
One such as the people had never seen
The land was cracked and dry
The rivers were shrunken into tiny streams
And the bark of the people's huts had fallen off, and lay rotting on the ground for disuse.
For the people you see, [they] only slept in their huts when the rains came.
The young people began to grumble to themselves
The grass had withered to the point where it blew away in the wind,
and there were no seeds to grind for food.
The Kangaroo were dying
And the hunters had to go further and further a field
To find game for the hunt
Even the birds, the ducks and the swan
Had flown to far away lands where the rain still came
And the Emu, who couldn't fly
Even they had run far from this land
"We will die, and the tribe will be no more!"
The young people lamented
And as their laments went from whispers to open talk
People began to speak of Wirreenun, The Rainmaker
The old folks said he could make the rains come
So why, if he had this power, did he not bring them rain
Word of this reached Wirreenun
And he said nothing
But day after day, the young men saw him as they went out to hunt
Each day, he was observed at the shrunken watering hole
Placing in it a long stick
Adorned at the top with brillant white cockatoo feathers
And next to the stick, he put two great clear stones, that he usually secreted about his person
The young men spread the word
"Something must be up if Wirreenun is taking out his mystic stones in the open like that"
Then, on the third day, Wirreenun came to the young men and said
"Cut enough bark to make a hut for all the people!"
So the young men went out, and cut what bark they could find from the thirsty trees
At last when they had enough, they returned
And Wirreenun said to them, to build a mound for the great hut to stand on, and gather enough wood for a fire
And so this too, they did. And when they had done so
Wirreenun said to all of the tribe
"Now, come with me down to the watering hole!"
And when they got there, he jumped in and waved for them all to join him
So the whole tribe waded into the water
And swam, and cavorted, and played
And while they played
Wirreenun snuck up behind each of the young men
Leaned over them
And sucked a piece of charcoal out from the back of their heads
whaaaaaaaaaaaaat?
Each time he did this
He spat it into the water
And just as he had reached the last young man
And prepared to get out of the water, he was noticed
And the young man threw him back into the pool
They demanded to know what he was doing
But he said it was all part of the ritual, and told the young people it was time to go into the large hut they had built
So the young people all went in
While Wirreenun, and some of the old folks of the tribe, stayed outside
Eventually, the young people had fallen asleep
When suddenly, Wirreenun burst in
And told them to get all of their things, and put them in the great hut, for there was no time to lose
As they went out to collect their possesions, they looked to the sky
And saw a dark with grey clouds, racing through the heavens
They had barely gotten all their things inside
When a GREAT crack was heard, as if the sky itself was tearing apart
The whole hut shook
And soon the young people cried out with fear
Children started to wail
And dogs began to bark
One of the women shouted
"We shall all be killed!"
But Wirreenun turned to them and said fearlessly
"I shall go out and stand in the path of the storm.
The lightning will come no nearer."
And so he left the hut
Disrobed in the great storm, and started chanting
The rain beat against his body
And the lightning flashed
But the thunder came no nearer to their camp
Soon the storm began to abate
And for a moment, a slight breeze rustled the air
Then a total silence fell
For one long breath, all was still
Then the real rain began
For days it poured and poured
And the old people went out to check on the clouds
While Wirreenun went to the watering hole, to retrieve his stick and his stones
At last the rain ends
And the people emerged from their hut to see a land green and teeming with life
They danced and sang his praise
But Wirreenun shrugged it off lightly
For he had one last greater trick
He called upon a fellow rainmaker from a near by village
And they consulted, heads down, for sometime
Then they called both tribes out to the barren plain
Where skeletal trees stood solem in the waste
And together, the rainmakers called a great rain
Which extended over the plain, but nowhere else
Soon the plain had become a lake
And Wirreenun turned to the tribe and said
"Getch your nets and cast them into the water."
And so the young men moved off, skeptical that this new lake could have any fish
But they got their nets, and cast them anyway to please the man who had just saved them
And when they hauled in their nets
They found that they were overflowing with aquatic life
And so they celebrated again
The land had been reborn and so had the tribe
Thanks to Wirreenun, the ceremony to turn young boys into men could at last be held
And the next generation could truly begin
*Thunder and rain*
Narrator: *Laughs*
Narrator: I could get used to this tree time
*cue lovely music*
"Legendary thanks to patron, Kyle Murgatroyd"