Published in Message Stick

Canberra.

The feeling of dry gum leaves and strips of curled bark crunching under my bare feet as I walked reminded me of home. The overwhelming midday heat and the deafening chirp of crickets had a numbing effect on me. I slowly wandered through the dry bush, waving the flies off my face. But then came the sound of a busy highway somewhere near. 'Still

in Canberra,' I thought. Slowly and reluctantly I walked back to the road. When I got to the end of the reserve, I saw a dead kangaroo. It was lying on the roadside. Kangaroo claws make beautiful necklaces and this big fella had very good strong claws. So I pulled out my pocket knife and

began to carve them out. I'd make a necklace for Paula, my girlfriend. I had not long started when I heard a sudden brake and a ranger's

four-wheel drive pulled right up next to me. 'Stop!' yelled the cop-like ranger, an 'I gottya' look on his face as he hopped out of his vehicle. As I tried to find his eyes, all I could see was my black body and green shorts reflected in his sunglasses. I listened in silence as he gave me two reasons why I couldn't take the claws off the kangaroo: the first, a driver had rang up to report me as 'unsightly', and the second, that the kangaroo is a native animal and therefore protected as a wildlife species, alive or dead. 'Unsightly' I had been called, and the kangaroo 'protected'. 'Wasn't very protected, I thought. I tried my best to make the man understand. 'You know? I'm an Aboriginal. What if I want to take his guts out, make a fire, and cook him right here?' 'Look, Aboriginal or not, it applies to everyone. You are in the ACT, and within the ACT you have to act under the legislation of the ACT. 'Now, if you don't move, I'll have to call the police to get you out,' he said as he adjusted his hat. I responded in a high pitched, but controlled voice, 'But, I only want to take the claws off him!'

Look, the only way you can do this is if you have a licence. You can give me a ring and i'll tell you what to do to get one.

'But, I don't need a licence, l've always done this, I'm an Aboriginal.'

'What's your name?' he asked.

"Roy Morris.'

'And address?'

"I don't have one, I'm from the bush, from Far North Queensland.' 'But, this is not your tribal land,' he quickly replied. 'If you want, you can call the Aboriginal Ngunnawal Land Council for the ACT. The elders there will tell you the same thing.' With that, the ranger asked me to help him carry the kangaroo across the road to the long grass. So I did, and with a warning of 'not to try it again, he left me there, sitting next to the dead kangaroo in the long grass, head down under the sun, where no one could see us. Tlooked at the roo and said, 'Funny what protection does to us, hey!' After a while I pulled out my pocket knife and, one by one, I started taking his claws off. There were flies buzzing around my face, but they didn't bother me. When I finished, I went to the white house at the end of the road. My ginfriend lived there. I rang the Ngunnawal Land Council, as the ranger suggested, and spoke to a tribal elder for the region about the incident. The ranger had stopped me from taking the claws because this was not my tribal land, I told him. Well' the elder said. "You still got tribal feet, hey brother! He can't stop you from having tribal feet.'

Kuranda

Colourful people gather around the market's main fruit juice stall — decorated with palm leaves and painted in bright green, red and yellow, coconuts, mangoes and bananas are everywhere. Mellow reggae rhythms mingle with the cacophony of rainforest birds. It's a busy market day in Kuranda and a group of American tourists gather around me as I play

the didgeridoo. 'Look, Martha, come over here. There's an Aboriginal playing the didgeridoo!' yells the big bellied American with the bright cap and ironed shorts. But I'm listening to the man next to me, he owns the didge stall at the markets, he's talking to Paula.

'Yep, three gran, I make an average of three gran in one week..?

'What selling didges?' Paula asks. 'Yep, it's basically cut them, paint them, sell them - tax free -

no worries.

'But where do you cut them from?'

'Anywhere, they're everywhere.'

'Right.

Mt Carbine

Didge trees cut down from the stem. Dry land, drier than ever. Bird calls, long and painful. All those young trees cut down. Many left there to rot. That day, the feeling of dry gum leaves and strips of curled bark crunching under my bare feet as I walked reminded me of Canberra. And the trees were dead, like the kangaroo in Canberra, 'protected' but killed. Then I heard a chainsaw. I walked towards the sound till I reached its source. Two men cutting down more didge trees and loading them up onto a truck. I walked towards them and said:

'Stop, you can't do that."

They looked at me dumbfounded.

'Why?' they asked. Because these trees are a protected species and this is not your tribal land, and within our land you've got to stop and act under the laws of our land, I said.

'Yeah, right, they laughed. looked down at my black bare feet. The chainsaw was back on, and I walked away waving the flies off my face.