Sister Moon kissed brother Sun as he rose to light a new day. The call of the Whip bird awakened the Jandawarra tribe. They rubbed sleep from their eyes and slowly started to pack their belongings. Today was the day to move to a new camp, and new billabong.
The elders had decided that the tribe must seek another campsite close to water - the long winter drought had sent the animals away from the dying billabong and the tribe had to trek miles to find game to hunt. The water level in the old billabong was low and the water brackish.

Men, women and children busied themselves packing up their small bundles of hand-made belongings. Essential digging tools, used for finding Kumara, sweet potato - tubers, found underground. The women's digging sticks were also used for scraping out witchetty grubs living in the bark of trees.
The grubs are a delicacy toasted over the fire or popped in the mouth -- eaten whole. Forked sticks are used for catching snakes. Snake is popular, roasted over the fire -- tastes like chicken.
The men bundled their spears including their woomera, and boomerang, wrapped them in kangaroo skins and slung them over their shoulders.
The youngest boy and girl twins, Mararee and Kirrawee were excited to be moving to a new home. They were the most favoured twins in the tribe. Twins were special - revered by families.

Kookaburra laughed at the people scurrying around below his perch in the ghost gum tree. He could fly to find water -- unlike the humans who relied on the billabong. Still, pickings had been lean since the old billabong had almost dried up. Snakes, and small marsupials were not so abundant now. Kookaburra thought he just might follow the Jandawarra tribe, they were happy people and he liked laughing at the children's antics.

As the sun rose high in the sky, the tribe arrived at the new billabong. The journey had been long and arduous - litters carried the old people. Men had made them from saplings and Kangaroo skins lashed together.


The children laughed and splashed water at each other, dove and beckoned to their parents to follow them -- time would tell how long this campsite would suit the Jandawarra tribe. The new billabong was dark and deep. Alive with fish and water-snakes. Water-fowl with their broad feet walked the lily-pads.

The billabong is a great source of food for the people; wading birds walking on huge lily pads, roots of the lilies are used for weaving baskets; dilly-bags are used by the women to collect their kumara to roast over the fire; sometimes ground to a paste to make a type of bread. The cool, clean waters attract a multitude of animals such as wallaby, kangaroo, native birds and the wild dog called Dingo; coming to drink in the cool of the evening.

"Ah, this is a nice tree," cackled Kookaburra "many juicy snakes and mice for me to eat, I see a good life here."

Game was plentiful and every animal came to drink from the cool, green waters. Whilst the men were hunting, the women dug for kumara or waded into the water to gather reeds for plaiting. The children played games amongst the lily pads. Life was good until Kurria arrived.

Kurria was a huge salt-water crocodile that decided to take up residence in the billabong. All sorts of measures were taken to try and scare him away. He was much too clever to be caught and so the men tried to scare the animals away so he would move on - they reasoned, with no food, Kurria would leave them in peace. The animals wouldn't leave the billabong and men couldn't catch Kurria. The tribe was in trouble. Kurria controlled both the tribe and the hunting grounds. He wasn't about to leave his source of food.

Jandawarra elders told the children they must stay away from the billabong. Still, children will be children, sneaking a look at Kurria wouldn't hurt. All the children were horrified at the size of the giant crocodile and scared enough to stay out of the water - all, that is, except the twins.

Mararee and Kirrawee had decided to pay back Kurria for taking their fun away, not being able to swim in the billabong. They watched as he slept in the sun and ran to the other side of the waters, splashing and calling out. Kurria was old and didn't care much for children's games - he slept on with one eye open.

Still, the twins didn't give up teasing the old crocodile, running to the water's edge and then jumping out of Kurria's way. The old man crocodile had had enough of their teasing - he used to be the fastest crocodile at catching game, now he was laughed at and losing his self-esteem!

"Watcha think you doing?" Kurria opened his large toothless jaws at the twins.
"You too old to catch us kids," the twins replied.

Kurria had had enough of the teasing, he slowly crept out of the beautiful billabong and waddled away to find another place where he would find peace in his old age - no one to tease him and he could spend his days fishing and sleeping.

The twins had been cruel to tease old-man Kurria and what they didn't know, every bad deed has a payback. They had disobeyed the elders and been cruel to an animal.

Jayawah, the water-spirit, had been watching them for a long time, in the hope they would leave Kurria alone. Now, he realised that they wouldn't change their selfish ways and so he intervened - it would be a terrible lesson for the youngsters.

The twins ran to the cool waters to splash and play, they had no fear now that Kurria had left.
Jayawah had turned himself into the old-man crocodile. The children thought it was Kurria returning. They were unaware that it was a water-spirit. Jayawah swam towards them; trying to flee to the bank of the billabong - the twins, frozen with fear and unable to move, Jayawah swallowed them both.

The tribe looked for the twins and mourned their loss. Throwing ashes from the cold fires upon their heads as a sign of loss. The twins were never found and eventually, the tribe moved on.

Jayawah kept the twins in his belly for so long, when he finally released them, their people had grown old and forgotten the children.

"Don't you know us? We are Mararee and Kirrawee." They had finally found their long-lost tribe.

The tribe had grown old and long forgotten the children, they drove the twins away. The twins remained lost and alone. The rest of their lives were spent teaching children who visited their camp to obey their elders and show respect to all animals.