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The devil dingo

AT THE HEART OF CENTRAL AUSTRALIA is a gigantic rocky protrusion. Uluru, or Ayers Rock, as it was known to the early white settlers, is an imposing sight. The sheer size is breathtaking. It is nearly nine kilometres around the base, and towers 348 metres above the red, sandy plain. Yet even that is only the tip of the iceberg. The rock extends some six kilometres down into the ground. If a capricious giant were to break it loose from the surrounding bedrock, dig it up and stand it on its base, it would be three-quarters the height of Mount Everest.

This mammoth stone dominates the surrounding plain absolutely, as though lesser stones had fled from its presence. To the Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara people who are the traditional owners, it is a place of deep religious significance, its perimeter dotted with sacred sites now closed to white tourists. It bears the scars of savage violence perpetrated by fearsome creatures and spirit people of the Dreamtime. The resulting features serve as a reminder of these events and of the ancestral beings who shaped them. They also contain the spiritual power of these beings, some of whom were creatures of unsurpassed malevolence. To the initiated, the very names of these features evoke images of titanic conflicts.

Even the cynical white man finds it hard to dismiss the monolith as an interesting but random concatenation of atoms. It is too massive, too redolent of some mysterious brooding evil. This impression is heightened by the incredible variations in colour which make it seem as though it were pulsating with some inner life of its own. As John Williamson sings, ‘Uluru has power!’

It was to see this awesome sight that the Chamberlains came in August 1980.

Legend has it that the Mala or hare-wallaby people came from the north to an area on the northern side of Uluru known as Katjitilkil. There they formed two camps, one for the men and one for the women, and began to dance. Whilst they were dancing, Panpanpanala the bellbird brought an invitation from the Wintalka men to come to their dances at Kikingkura near the Docker River. The Mala refused to come, so the Wintalka men decided to send a mamu, or evil spirit, to punish them for spurning their invitation. This malevolent being was the devil dingo, Kurrpanngu, or Kulpunya as it is also known.

Kurrpanngu picked up the scent of the Mala people and followed them to Uluru. He came upon the Mala women dancing at a place called Tjukutjapinya, but the women were able to drive him off. It is said that the hair skirts of these women were transformed into cones of rock at Tjukutjapi, an area now set aside as a sacred site and restricted to women. Having been repulsed at that location, Kurrpanngu continued around the base of the rock to Inintitjara, where the Mala men were sleeping. At the last moment, Lunpa the kingfisher woman called out a warning, but Kurrpanngu leapt into the camp and killed many of the Mala men. Lunpa is said to have been transformed into a boulder, and the paw marks of Kurrpanngu are said to be still visible in the deep caves that seem to have been scoured into the side of the cliff. The surviving Mala fled from Uluru, and Kurrpanngu pursued them into South Australia.

Some of the Anangu, as the local Aboriginal people are known, say that Kurrpanngu is one of the many Dreamtime creatures whose spirit lingers at Uluru. From time to time, his spirit inhabits the body of a living dingo, causing it to act with uncharacteristic malevolence and ferocity.

By August 1980, the rangers stationed at Uluru were becoming worried about the activities of local dingoes. Whilst Derek Roff, the chief ranger, had been on leave in June, there had been a number of attacks on children. His deputy, Ian Cawood, had investigated them and had shot a number of the offending animals. One of these attacks had been particularly serious. On 23 June 1980, young Amanda Cranwell, then two years of age, had been dragged from the front seat of a motor car whilst her parents were talking to one of the rangers nearby. Her father returned to snatch his child from the dingo’s jaws as it was in the process of dragging her away.

Dingoes are wild animals, and predators at that, and there had always been incidents in which they had growled or snapped at overly friendly tourists, but the attack on Amanda Cranwell seemed infinitely more serious. This was not the act of a dog demanding to be left alone, but the act of a predator intent on removing his prey. As if that were not enough, the other attacks raised the chilling possibility that this might not have been an isolated incident, but a newly emerging pattern of behaviour. As time went by, there were more attacks — none of them serious, but their frequency and boldness were unprecedented.

In July, Derek Roff posted warning notices around the toilet blocks, visitors’ centre office, and the various motel and store leases, warning people not to feed the dingoes. By this time the rangers had begun to fear that the local dingoes might have acquired sufficient familiarity with tourists and others to lose their usual inhibitions about approaching humans. Not only were the attacks continuing, but the dingoes were doing things which wild animals would never do: boldly invading the camping area, and even entering tents in search of food. On 4 August, Derek Roff wrote to ranger headquarters in Alice Springs describing the problem and suggesting the need for a visitor education program. At the same time, he submitted a design for a more permanent series of posters. He was later to report:

I was still concerned that if no action on control was taken we could experience a more serious attack and, having discussed the matter with Ian Cawood and other staff members, I radioed on 6th August 1980 to our headquarters requesting the issue of six packets of 0.22 Hornet ammunition for dingo control. This request was made at 8.30 a.m. through Carol. At 9.00 a.m. Robbie Smith, the storekeeper, advised that bullets could not be supplied as we had not been issued with a high-powered rifle … With regard to the high-powered rifle issue perhaps I should mention that Ian Cawood owns a Hornet rifle that has recently been licensed in the name of the Director, Parks and Wildlife, which possibly could be read as being issued.

After this refusal and still wishing to carry out some shooting as a control, I requested Bill Bickerton to buy some bullets for me. Bill tried, but none were available in Alice Springs.

In another report, he made a comment that was to prove strikingly prophetic. The dingo, he said, ‘is well able to take advantage of any laxity on the part of prey species and, of course, children and babies can be considered possible prey’.

In mid-August, a tourist named McGrath was woken by a dingo trying to force its way into his tent. It proved remarkably persistent — evidently, no one had taken the trouble to explain to the animal that dingoes always ran away when they were shouted at. He was able to drive it off only by hitting it with the butt end of his rifle.

On 15 August, another tourist, Mr Backhaus-Smith, reported that a wild dog had entered his tent, knocked over the central pole, and picked through his belongings. A ranger told him that dingoes had been entering tents and stealing food. On the same day, another tourist, Erica Letsch, was sleeping in her tent when a dingo snatched the pillow from under her head. Having successfully made off with that prize, the dingo waited until Ms Letsch settled down again, and then returned in an attempt to remove her sleeping bag.

During the course of the next day there were three separate incidents involving dingoes. Ronald Billingham was snapped at, Catherine West had her elbow seized while she was sitting in a chair reading, and Jason Hunter was bitten. Things were building to a crescendo.

It was on that evening, 16 August, that the Chamberlains arrived at Uluru. They knew nothing of the recent attacks by dingoes, and were given no warning that their children might be in danger. During the course of the next day, they were to read one of Derek Roff’s signs urging tourists not to feed the dingoes, but assumed that it was there for the dingoes’ protection — to prevent them from being shot if they became a nuisance. They had no inkling of the tragedy to come.

Whilst there were no cartographers in the Dreamtime to record with precision the route followed by Kurrpanngu in his relentless pursuit of the Mala men, the marks on the northern face of Uluru are, to an Aborigine, eloquent of his passing. And, incredibly, if one were to plot those positions on a map and follow his path to the south-east, one would come to an area which, in 1980, was set aside as the ‘top’ tourist camping area. It was there that the Chamberlains chose to pitch their tent. During the course of the next evening, a dingo was to take their daughter, Azaria, from the tent. She was never seen again.

Aboriginal elders were later to say that this was the act of Kurrpanngu, presumably a shocking retaliation for the sacrilege of white people who had heedlessly trespassed upon sacred sites and invoked the wrath of the spirit beings. To the rangers, it was simply the act of a predator emboldened by his familiarity with man. Whatever the cause, it was left to a tourist-bus proprietor, Richard Dare, to express the feelings of the locals. ‘It had to happen,’ he said simply.