Cirrus@Austlit

Author's note: This story is set in Darwin within the Bagot Community in Larrakia country. Bagot was a compound, then a mission and it is now a community made up of Aboriginal people, who came from many of the tribes of the Top End of Australia. The climate is tropical with the dry season starting around April. The wet season starts in November when the humidity rises sharply making the place quite uncomfortable for human beings. They say this is the period that sends people troppo. The heavy rains usually start to fall after Christmas.

Though Uncle Bob had to wait till he was around twenty before he was taught to make the Yidiki by his dear friend Bill Neidjie, most young Aboriginal boys learn much earlier and often in a group as this story show.