In February, 1920, I was appointed a justice of the peace for South Australia, being the only woman at that time to hold such a commission in two Australian States at the same time. A few weeks later I was asked by the authorities to arrange a display of aborigines at Ooldea, in honour of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, who was to pass on the east-west railway on his tour of Australia.

There was excitement in the tiny outposts whose residents did their utmost to provide a worthy welcome at every stopping-place of the royal train in its passage of the desert. But the exhilaration of anticipation, the constant discussion of plans and the high enthusiasm found its reaction among certain strife-makers in the camps. I have said that the unrest of wartime was still in the air. Many of these men were unemployed, and found mischief and a certain type of humour in an attempt to stir up a rebellious spirit among whites and blacks. Soap-box oratory appealed to the scamps among the civilized natives. They listened with interest and mimicked it well.

It had been a trying summer, with temperatures for days at a time touching 120 degrees, and unending dust-storms and disappointments. The meat-supply of dingo and rabbit had failed. Little food remained in my store, and that was reserved for the delicate children, the ailing women and the old. A new mob was expected for an initiation ceremony, and the camps were hungry and disgruntled. As I went quietly about my work for the sick, I could hear the banging of boomerangs and clubs, and loud chatter of voices in the men’s camps, those of Nabbari, Dhanggool and Winnima, three of the most civilized, raised above the others. My only fear was for the safety of the newcomers. I never dreamed of anything so intense or so intelligent as an organized revolution among the world’s best communists, but I waited patiently for enlightenment.

In the afternoon of April 26, I was enjoying a cup of tea when one of the women, Comajee, sitting outside my breakwind, called a word of warning and, to my surprise, ran and hid among the trees. Down through the sandhills came an angry mob of about eighty men, not walking in single file, native fashion, but in a body, not a woman or child among them. I could see that something was seriously amiss. For the first and only time, I opened the breakwind and brought them in to sit round the fire before I would hear a word.

Ranging themselves according to their totems-kangaroo, dingo, eagle-hawk and mallee-hen-they took four fire-sticks from my fire, sign of blood-relationship. I then addressed myself to Nyimbana, one of the ring-leaders.

“Naa?”

“Black-fella king belong to this country!” shouted Nyimbana in English. “We don’t want waijela [Corruption of “White-fellow.”] here! This gabbi our gabbi! Chasem waijela long way!”

I spoke quietly. “Yaal wonga?” (Who has said this?).

“I wonga!” said Nyimbana threateningly. “We don’t want waijela king. We want our king.”

When Nyimbana had finished, Waw-wuri spoke, in his own language.

“White-fellows have frightened all our game away and taken our waters. The Kooga will come back when the white men goes. This is our country. White-fellows took it away, and brought their sheep, bullocky and pony to hunt our totem meat away. You send paper to Gubmint and tell them we don’t want white-fellow king. We want our own king and our own country!”

I remained silent for some minutes-silence in a tense moment terrifies the natives. Then:

Who will you have for your king?” I asked.

“Nabbari our king.”

Nabbari, a dingo man, was the most cunning in camp, an excellent beggar, one who ate his meat in secret and always had money to spend. It was his brother, Dhanggool, who had spoken. Nabbari was conspicuous in his absence.

“Sit down, boggali,” I said. They sat down. “Kabbarli understands you now. This country belongs to black-fellow, and you want your own king. You all like Nabbari to be king?”

Cries of “No!”, “Yes! Yes!”, “I don’t want him”, Nabbari king!”

Which of you owns the water of Yuldil?” I demanded.

“Yuldil orphan water. People dead.”

I turned, to the kangaroo men. “Will the men of the grey kangaroo sit down under a dingo at this water?” I demanded. There was no answer.

Then Draijanu, one of the oldest and normally one of the gentlest, stood up and faced me angrily. “This country black-fellow,” he shouted, inexact reproduction of the soap-box manner. “Waijela gubmint take dousand, dousand, dousand pound-close up five pounds! Wheat-amanning (taking wheat), potato-amanning, waijela stealem our country. We take back. Yuldil we take, Tarcoola we take, Port Augusta we take, plenty flour black-fellow all time. We kill waijela!” There were grunts and shouts of approval. The temper of the crowd was ugly. I knew that there were but fifteen white settlers, men and women, and no policeman nearer than Tarcoola, 170 miles away.

In their eyes was the fanaticism of initiation time, and nothing short of fire-arms and a posse of police would remove them from the district. It needed little encouragement to provoke serious trouble-a raid on the settlers’ cottages for the food there, with burning and violence; for all that the hungry black-fellow can think of is food, and these men, I knew, were hungry.

“Nyimbana, fill the big billy,” I said irrelevantly, and Nyimbana willingly went to do it, while a faint stir of ulterior interest ran through the mob. All were watching my face intently.

“Draijanu, Nyimbana, Dhanggool, Winnima there, hiding behind the bush, all boggali, you hear Kabbarli now,” I said. “This young white king come this country, my king, your king, too, father, grandfather, right back dhoogoor. Big flour-giver. He tells all his white men to be good to waddi. He tells me give you food.” (They knew that I had denied myself to give to them.) “When this young king comes, he will give you plenty flour, sugar, blankets, tobacco. But you don’t want that. You want to kill white-fella. When all the flour and tobacco that you take from the white men are gone, who will give you more? Who will plant wheat, who will build fences for nani and bullocky? Suppose you make Nabbari king, all right. Maadu queen. Our king’s wife we call queen, so Maadu your queen now.”

They all knew Maadu. A shrill little termagant, greedy and bad-tempered and ultra-civilized with a great command of black-fellow and white-fellow Bilingsgate and no mercy, Maadu was not popular. Their expressions changed. No aborigine will recognize the authority of woman. I knew that I had struck the right note, and went ahead in honeyed accents, selecting from the little crowd the ones that hated her most.

“When Maadu queen, Thanyarrie must build her breakwind. Dhanggool will bring her firewood. Maradhani will hunt for rabbits and snakes and mallee-hen’s eggs and bring them to Maadu, and Nyimbana will carry her gabbi. Everybody look out every day, plenty work, dig up ground, put up fences, grow wheat, make flour, and all will ‘eat behind,’ when Nabbari and Maadu have had enough. Everything Maadu say, you do. That good for Maadu when Nabbari king.”

There was a general scowl, and I heard mutterings and protests. The idea of raising the native woman to such a status appalled them.

“No Maadu!” shouted Draijanu.

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