The Later Years

Abstract

We went out to where a dancing area had been cleared, where they'd collected firewood and built a screen, and waited for the evening. We took some of the young people who lived at Bidyadanga to the yaku ceremony, but other young men and women were afraid and had run away to Broome. They thought we were going to put them through the Law. Food was brought out for us, and when night fell we had dinner. They called us over and we went and waited behind the screen. The lead singer and other men began singing the introductory songs, then they called people from the camp over. Some of them were shy and fearful. That night all of us, men and women, performed the yaku ceremony, and we showed them how to dance in the way that, long ago, both old and young people had performed that ceremony. These days young people don't know the yaku ceremony, and women don't know how to keep time by beating on their thighs. The old men and women who lived there said they were pleased, as it was true that the younger people hadn't learned these things. They said, 'They watched you performing the yaku ceremony, and you showed them how to do it very well'.