This Afterword follows our three-part long-read about Isobel Peters’ 50,000-year-strong food system. Catch up on the first three parts here, here and here.
Neil Maru Jnr, or Winjaryin, Isobel Peters’ son, tells us the tale about the masked owl, the Dumbi.
One day, a father with two sons went hunting and they saw the owl. The father said, “Don’t touch the owl because he is the son of the Wanjina.”
But the sons didn’t believe him and started sticking spinifex into him and plucking feathers out of the owl. Then they started throwing the owl into the air and saying, “if you are really the son the Wanjina then fly up into the sky”. And the third time they threw him up he flew to the Wanjina.
The Wanjinas were angry so they flooded the earth. Two children saw a hill kangaroo and they knew that it would take them to high ground where they would be safe from the flood. So they both grabbed on to the tail. And they are the two who started this generation or era of people.
