My Clan and its mysteries have been kept out of common knowledge and history in my homeland of Australia: the Island continent you may know as that brown land down-under. This is the Clan way. To succeed in their duty, secrecy is a prerequisite to safeguard mission and warrior. With the coming of the pale-skinned Ghosts – a little over 200 years ago – and their written language, we now have a means to reveal the intriguing history of our covert Clan, to other Australians and to those many new people’s that now call this majestic land home. Our Elders’ also gift them to the modern world at large. If you were born in Australia you may have heard such stories told around campfires and family meals; about the Australian Aboriginal magic man or Kadaicha – the soft-foot clever-man – as our people named our Clan sundry years ago.

During these chronicles, you will find that our warriors use a form of mystical travel and have no need of Shank’s Pony, as the act of walking is often called in Australia. In times of need for speed, these relentless spectres walk the ancient Dreamtime ‘creation-song-lines’ that cross every sacred feature of our wide red-brown land: out of Space and Time as we know such. Across 50,000 years of reinforced superstition, fear and awe, the Clan became known as The Fethafoot: half-human half-spirit beings that could come and go at will leaving no trace… Kadaicha spirit-warriors… Shape-shifting spies that transform as required into Judge Jury and Executioner. Unknown to the majority and, a great boon to our work, many of these enigmatic warriors arise from that innocuous and delicate gender of the language-creatures.

This pithy glimpse will give you some idea of the enigmatic Clan. You will discover a more intricate use of their unique gifts and talents as you read the chronicles and, as the need for their unique individual skills occur. Please – enjoy my people’s pleasure in the telling of these chronicles. Although they are not in chronological order, they have been recorded as passed down for all to enjoy: to example the many unknown vibrant treasures of our first people and our ancient lands vibrant past. A journey will take you into the mostly unknown, moral and ethical heart of my people, from Dreamtime to today.

A huge thanks and wholehearted recommendation must go to Paul Vander Loos who so capably edited and proofread The Fethafoot Chronicles.

Read the review of ‘Nyarla and the Circle of Stones’ on Readers’ Favorite

BOOK 1:

Nyarla and the Circle of Stones

Australia, 1360: A cunning and foul being has claimed several lives around the Heart-rock peoples’ great namesake – Uluru – the Heart-rock. The locals are scared to leave their camps. Ceremony has stopped. Initiations, weddings, betrothals are on hold. A bold young warrior, Nyarla has been sent by Clan elders to look into the matter and; has been given the authority to act if needed.

BOOK 2:

Guluya and the Lake Mungo Mystery

Australia, around 39987BP (Before the Present): this chronicle comes alive from the legend of a great sweeping saga, which covered of the lives of four Australians who lived and died numerous generations ago. Their meeting and lives together left an archaeological puzzle that stands even today. In those times – the chronicle reveals – Mega-fauna: the giant-sized animal ancestors of our unique modern day fauna yet roamed across our lands. The stage is set; the lights drop, the curtain rises – and when the lights come back up at the scene of a ‘dig’ on the shores of Lake Mungo, two Australian archaeologists have uncovered two sets of ancient bones; both buried with particular ceremony previously unheard of for people from those times.

BOOK 3:

The Contest

Australia, approximately 2020BP: this year’s annual fishing contest heralded the start of the celebrations for the tri-annual Bunya-nut harvest. People came from all over the east coast to meet old friends and extended family and to compete. Walking south from Darumbal lands along the coastline of present day Queensland, Jundabara, his wife Niyola and Wogwun arrive to find that all is not as it seems on the surface. After several outlandish confrontations with shameless, the family must decide what is most important to them: their family, the contest, or resolving several major dangerous issues for the local elders that manage the huge gathering.

BOOK 4:

The Ancient Omen: The Arrival

Australia, around 240BP: the ancient legend of forewarning, maintained by the infamous clan since the Dreamtime gave way to the present Dreaming has reached its maturity in Yungurra-bih-Mah’s lifetime. It tells of the arrival of a colossal tribe of pale-skinned Ghost-people: a long-lost people that had disappeared from their Dreaming cycle many, many generations earlier. This chronicle begins with this legendary warrior’s mission to Eora lands – to where the present-day city of Sydney sprawls – there, to meet with his uncle and clever-man: the infamous Pemulwuy, of the Bidjigal people. What they discover will change the people and the sacred Heart-rock lands forever.

BOOK 5:

The Vanishing: The Rainbow Serpent’s Dance

Australia, early 1800s: for more than 165 years the disappearance of the explorer Ludwig Leichardt has remained unsolved. On his second exploration of Australia in April of 1848, in the company of five white men, two Aboriginal guides, seven horses, 20 mules and 50 bullocks, the explorer left the Darling Downs area in southern Queensland bound for Western Australia some 4000 kilometres away across ‘virgin’ deserts; where our people lived. Shortly afterward, the entire party and all stock vanished without trace. From those terrifying harsh times for our own people – the Heart-rock people – the following chronicle reveals the tale of that journey through their ancient eyes.

BOOK 6:

The Bunya-nut Games: Booburrgan Ngmmunge

Australia, around 2014BP: the time of the great games of prowess – managed by the Kabi Kabi people of southeast Queensland. Jundabara – the Fethafoot warrior from FfC 3: The Contest – is attending the significant event with his growing son Wogwun, and his practical, often short-tempered wife Niyola. Both adults have entered one of the demanding physical contests and local kin are looking forward to the events. Between the various rough and ready competitions, including a game of full-contact Burionjin with the huge hairy-man Grok; and being surreptitiously attacked by his tiniest enemy ever – Jundabara knows that he will need every bit of training and patience to keep the peace and see his own small family group safely through the great event.

BOOK 7:

To Save a King

January 7, 1811, Orleans County, Louisiana, United States of America: the man ran as fast as the swampy terrain, the foggy night and his laboring breath would allow. Simon: bonded slave; descendant of Haitian Kings and a sharp intelligent young mind was on the run from his Plantation manager’s grown son. When he met the strange black-skinned warrior from Australia that fateful night, everything he thought he knew about his own life: life in general, and the world around suddenly altered. That incredible night – the Fethafoot Nhompo – dispersed the power of fear that he’d lived under all of his life – and along with his timely appearance he brought the first scent of hope that young Simon had ever known.

BOOK 8:

Galku’s Revenge

Australia, modern-day: when Detective John Pomeroy’s wife Lalaili, asked him to look into the mysterious death of young Jimmy Jungarai; an Aboriginal youth from a remote Aboriginal community in the middle of Australia’s dry Desert country, the Detective began to understand just how large his home country really was. Before long, the Detective was wondering if it was only the land that was large? Since beginning this case, his own life had become large: with ‘out-a-the-box’ situations and events occurring much too frequently for his liking. During the international investigation, Detective Pomeroy began to expand his case notes and his mind; at any and every chance that presented itself.

BOOK 9:

Pale n Hora Nigrum: Pale Death at the Black Line

Tasmania (Trowena) 1830: identical twins Sonni and Bobbi were having the time of their lives. They were the youngest of a family of six and their parents were at an afternoon ceremony being held at the top of a thickly treed hill close by. On that day, their normal day’s playtime was shattered when the twins saw the rumored Ghosts for the first time. Right then, their slow-living harmonious lives began to change speeds forever. As within the nature of their Mother, they would adapt or die underfoot. The very flexible Fethafoot – Gyor-bun – is sent from Uluru to Trowena: where he discovers that even after horrendous calamity and loss of life – as in Nature – there always follows rebirth and new life.

BOOK 10:

The Seventh Veil

Earth, Australia, tomorrow: from all over the known world, wrinkle-skinned old sages – some from ancient sects unheard from for generations, have begun speaking out. Acquiescent with the fact that they will be ridiculed for the message they bring to the modern world, they step forward into the camera’s lights and give warning of a dream – a common dream-vision. Predictably, they are ridiculed.

In the land down-under – Australia, Pem Weeatunga is happy as a Pig in shit! Pem watches Space and its beautiful though lifeless citizens. Unknown to him, the Fethafoot Clan of his ancient people have supported his people to survive six major calamities over 50,000 years and will be asking for his help. The bright young Astrologer-scientist has a part to play in his people’s adaptation and survival of the 7th event. Caught up in a believe it not race through his country, Pem soon finds that travelling with a genuine Fethafoot, through a pre-apocalyptic down-under, toward a coming unstoppable worldwide catastrophe, is not the least of uncanny phenomena to occur when the enigmatic Clan are involved in the end of the world.