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MIRRABOOKA: DREAMTIME
The story begins in the encampment of an aboriginal boy, Mirrabooka (namesake: Southern Cross). One of the older boys of the tribe, Mirrabooka is about to participate in the initiation ceremony (“bora”). The tribal elders give him and his adult brother Minjarra (namesake: a native Australian bush) 3 tasks to complete in preparation for the bora: practising with weapons to hunt for food, collecting ornamental materials, and learning to play musical instruments.
Between the tasks, when Mirrabooka returns to the campsite at night, he will join other young people by the bonfire and listen to the elders who tell them Dreamtime stories and ways of navigation by the stars. One night, Mirrabooka sees the Rainbow Serpent in a trance as he gazes upon the stars and witnesses the creation of the world with himself riding on top of the Serpent, which excites him greatly.
During this time, Mirrabooka grows increasingly fond of an independent and capable girl called Alinta (namesake: fire), and she accepts his friendship with joy, prompting Mirrabooka’s family to prepare gifts to Alinta’s parents. Due to Mirrabooka’s young age, he can’t marry Alinta before the bora. Unbeknownst to them, Minjarra has developed a crush for Alinta too, and wants to take her as his second wife.
The tribe eventually reaches the vicinity of the bora site, where the initiation ceremony will start shortly. Mirrabooka and other participants leave for their sacred bora ground as most women and children remain behind at the camp. With the elders presiding over the ceremony, Mirrabooka and other boys sing the songs and dance, before listening to the ancient stories told by the elders. After the circumcision and the smoking ceremony, the boys are given real spears and shields and declared men of the tribe. Just then, they hear cries and shouts from afar, and the newly christened young men scurry in the direction of the women and children. Midway they encounter a woman from their tribe who tell them that the camp is attacked by an enemy tribe and many are taken prisoner. Mirrabooka tries to follow the others as they run through the bushes, but becomes separated due to the darkness. When he arrives at the camp, he sees nothing but the messy aftermath of the enemy raid, and finds no one, friend or foe alike.
Mirrabooka uses his knowledge in the stars to keep moving southward, until he runs into a silhouette resembling the Rainbow Serpent, which further leads him to a strong enemy warrior. Upon being challenged, the man is indifferent as he believes that Mirrabooka is still a boy without being initiated, but the indifference soon turns into a rage when Mirrabooka insists on a duel. Mirrabooka manages to evade the stronger warrior’s attacks unscathed, though he can’t stop the enemy from leaving. Soon after, Mirrabooka returns to his camp without finding anyone else.
Upon his return, Mirrabooka learns that Alinta is among the women taken during the raid. He requests to be appointed as the envoy to their enemies, with the task to deliver a message stick demanding the return of the hostages on the threat of war. The elders grant the request after some discourse. Before Mirrabooka’s planned departure, the Rainbow Serpent visits him again in his sleep, promising to help him navigate the land if the clouds ever block the stars or whenever he feels lost, because he is a son of the “Country”. Mirrabooka is then taught meditation so that he can see the spiritual Rainbow Serpent guiding his way.
Subsequently, Mirrabooka transits through neutral territories in a short cut. En route he rests by a water hole, where during another trance he witnesses the story of the dreamtime giant frog Tiddalik. When Tiddalik drinks all the water in the world and turns it into an arid barren, Mirrabooka is approached by the thirsty animals for help. Tasked with finding an animal who can tell the funniest story, Mirrabooka visits various parts of the dreamtime realm, fighting back against evil spirits with his martial skills and bringing back different animals to tell their story. None of these are enough to make Tiddalik laugh, but Mirrabooka soon learns of a comical eel, held prisoner by some evil spirits. Mirrabooka braves the lake occupied by them and frees the eel, who proceeds to perform a weird dance before Tiddalik, making him laugh and throw out all the water. Then, the trance breaks.
Afterwards he is caught in a heavy rainfall, and trudges his way through mud to find the enemy tribe, where he comes face to face with the warrior he has challenged in the night encounter, a veteran fighter named Jandamarra from their enemy’s allies. Mirrabooka delivers the message stick to the tribe’s elders, who refuse to return the hostages, claiming the recent raid is due to witchcraft performed by elders of Mirrabooka’s tribe against them, which results in the deaths of many women and children during a bushfire. Mirrabooka goes back to his tribe with the reply.
Afterwards, a punitive expedition is organized, in which both Mirrabooka and Minjarra takes part. Since war parties can’t traverse neutral territories as the messenger does, the expedition has to take the longer route. By the bank of a great river the war party rests, and Mirrabooka sees in his sleep the ancient spiritual water serpent who lives in this river. The serpent tells Mirrabooka the river is under its protection, and the war party must prove their worth to cross it. Mirrabooka then sees wave after wave of humanoid serpents surging from the river and attacking his fellow warriors. He readily joins the fray, fighting shoulder by shoulder with his brother. As the battle progresses, the rest of the war party disappear one by one, leaving only Mirrabooka and his brother. As the great water serpent itself attacks, Minjarra runs for his life, but Mirrabooka stays and fights. The great serpent nearly kills Mirrabooka, but is moved by the young man’s determination to save his lover at all costs. It decides to let Mirrabooka pass, but not before warning him that the river must be crossed with the blessing of an elder, lest the local evil spirits take them away. Mirrabooka knows there are no elders in his group but swears to cross it anyway.
The next day, in a hurry to save the hostages, the expedition begins to cross the river by swimming, but the torrents wash away many, including both Mirrabooka and Minjarra. The two brothers drift downstream, evading rocks and floating trees, until they land on a muddy bank.
A semi-conscious Mirrabooka sees a black serpent who asks him for help. The serpent wants to steal the venom sack of a dangerous goanna called Mungoon-Gali, but won’t be able to outrun the behemoth. Mirrabooka agrees to help it, constructing simple traps and distractions to slow the goanna down. Subsequently, the black serpent tricks the goanna into giving out its venom sack and immediately flees. Mirrabooka springs the traps into action, while fighting off minor lizards coming to the goanna’s aid. After Mirrabooka destroys a tree trunk serving as a bridge over a ferocious creek, the chase is over, and the black serpent gains the venom sack for itself. In return, the serpent teaches Mirrabooka how to identify the herbs that can heal wounds from serpent and goanna bites.
Mirrabooka regains full consciousness before long and finds a woman from the enemy tribe, who is also carried here by the river while out collecting food. What’s worse, she is bitten by a goanna. Mirrabooka doesn’t hurt the woman, and instead comforts her that the goanna doesn’t have venom, before setting out to collect herbs and food to help her recover. The woman becomes grateful and tells Mirrabooka that the hostages have been distributed among the raiders: Alianta and a few others are given to the allies who intend to take them back to their distant tribal areas, while most captives are taken further inland by the woman’s tribe. The two brothers then develop an argument: Mirrabooka hopes to save Alinta no matter what, but Minjarra deems it a lost cause and wants to take the injured woman prisoner and rejoin their expedition. Mirrabooka eventually talks Minjarra out of it and releases the woman, though not before Minjarra sets out to find the expedition alone. Mirrabooka continues his solo quest to find Alinta.
In his lonely journey to locate the enemy group, Mirrabooka relies on his survival skill set and navigation skills to stay alive and ventures deeper into uncharted territory. He offers the prey he hunts as gifts to nomadic tribesmen encountered en route, who share information about Alinta’s whereabouts. Following their leads, Mirrabooka finds various marks left behind by Alinta, which encourages him to keep searching.
The young man collects unique foods from the places he passes by, and continues to witness the Dreamtime stories told by the elders: first it is the birth of the fish under the rainbow serpent’s protection by a pond. On the second day, after the wind accidentally douses his bonfire, he sees the heavenly figures bringing the first fire to the dark land, and helps the mortals obtain the fire for themselves. On day three, under the Milky Way he runs into the ancient hunter brothers as the trio are surrounded by a raging bushfire, and the brothers turn into the pointer stars after they escape to a hilltop. Next, he develops wings in a dream, flies around the world, evades strong gusts and observes the color change of Waratah flowers following a tragic love story between a pair of pigeons.
On the fifth night, he encounters the ancient beautiful girl Brolga, who is running away from a dust devil, and despite Mirrabooka’s efforts to save her, Brolga transforms into a magnificent bird and flies away; the rainbow serpent then appears out of nowhere and warns him that the very next day will be his last chance to save Alinta, or she will vanish forever, just like the bird.
When the day dawns again, Mirrabooka follows a dust devil to find the enemy war band that holds Alinta prisoner, while also taking note of a newly started bushfire afar. Meanwhile, the enemy group disperses to forage for supplies, and Alinta manages to escape her captors on her own accord after some difficult maneuvers behind rocks and vegetation. Mirrabooka eventually meets up with Alinta, but on their way out they are discovered, and Jandamarra, to whom Alinta has been betrothed as his future wife, leads a pursuit. The fleeing duo utilize the terrain and improvised traps built by Mirrabooka to delay the enemy, but unwittingly run into the bushfire which is now much larger and expanding rapidly. Surrounded by heavy smoke, Mirrabooka again sees the Dreamtime brothers who gesture at a nearby mountain. He immediately takes Alinta there, and cuts down nearby trees for a controlled burning.
It isn’t long before Jandamarra’s group finds refuge here too, just as the controlled burning begins. This time, the more experienced fighter can see the marks on Mirrabooka more clearly and acknowledges him as a proper man, and proceeds to accept his challenge. In the duel, Mirrabooka tries to best his opponent through his agility and precise spear strikes. Even though Jandamarra knocks down his shield and snaps his spear, Mirrabooka manages to wound his forearm with the stump. Jandamarra’s companions hurry to his care, and one of them executes a tit-for-tat strike by wounding Mirrabooka’s forearm according to the fighting rules, before announcing the end of the duel with no grudge to be held. By then the bushfire has died down, Jandamarra and his party idly watch as Mirrabooka and Alinta walk off through the cinders and smoke.
When Mirrabooka returns to their camp with Alinta, they are greeted by the rest of the expedition including his brother. Those fighters have failed to locate their abducted kin, but succeeded in capturing some women and children from their enemy, and there are no casualties on either side.
The two tribes subsequently agree upon a time for a pitched battle, but the bloodshed is avoided after the elders secure a truce through face-to-face negotiations, during which Mirrabooka sees the Rainbow Serpent cruising in the sky, exactly as their first encounter. As a result, all captives will continue to live with their respective captors, making Alinta the only prisoner to return home. The two tribes resume their friendly relations, leaving no lingering resentment.
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