Deutscher and Hackett

Didactic sheet attached verso states:

This large drawing depicts the devastation caused by bush cats (and possums) in the late 1920s and early 1930s in the country west and south-west of Papunya.

According to Tutama, "before there were whitefellas everywhere, a lot of bush cats changed them selves into devils. A man from the south 'sang' them because someone had killed his son."

The bush cats and possums killed many people in the sandhills. "At one camp," Tutama says, "a big mob of people had been sitting around, and these cats...came out of the bushes, making a lot of noise. Everyone who couldn't run climbed trees... but those cats chased them into the trees and killed them."

The poet, Billy Marshall-Stoneking, notes: "At first, I thought this might've been a *nguuntji* story " one that Tutama had merely made up for the sake of entertainment. However, upon investigation, I discovered that an influenza virus, carried by feral cats, had struck Central Australia shortly before the Lasseter expedition of 1930, and that many hundreds of tribal people were wiped out."

In the drawing, one can see the people and three *mamu* bush cats. The elongated shapes are the trees in which the people tried to hide. The eliptical shapes are discarded spear-throwers; the spears, long-since spent in a futile defense against the ravages of an invisible enemy. Drawn at Papunya Settlement, N.T. (November, 1979)