The Fethafoot Chronicles

Australia, early 1800s: For more than 165 years the disappearance of the explorer Ludwig Leichardt, has remained unsolved. On his second exploration in April of 1848, in the company of five white men, two Aboriginal guides, seven horses, 20 mules and 50 bullocks, he left the Darling Downs in southern Queensland bound for Western Australia. Shortly after, the entire party vanished without trace. From out of those terrifying and harsh times for our own people: the Australian Aboriginal – the Heart-rock people - the following Fethafoot chronicle reveals the tale of that same journey, through their ancient eyes.

My Clan’s name and its mysteries, have been kept out of public knowledge and history in my homeland of Australia. It’s the way The Clan work. To achieve their goals, secrecy is a prerequisite to safeguard the work and people. I, am what some in the Clan call the favoured, because I now have the power - via the written word, to ensure that our efforts are remembered: and not just by the Clan, or those few they have made themselves known to. For the first time in our extensive, oral history, we have a means to reveal the long and intriguing history of our covert Clan to other Australians; to the many new people’s who now call this majestic land home – and to the modern world at large. If you were born in Australia, you may have even heard such stories told around campfires and family meals: about the Australian Aboriginal magic man – or Kadaicha, as our Clan were named by our people many years ago. We call ourselves: The Fethafoot.

Pem is a 63 year old indigenous man of Kabi Kabi Aboriginal and Sth Sea Islander Australian descent. The Kabi Kabi (Gubbi Gubbi), nation are caretakers of the mainland area from approximately – the Fraser to Moreton Islands area of the SE-Qld coast-line. Pem was born in Gladstone, Qld and worked for many years of his young life in the Qld Railways and construction industries in Queensland, moving to Aboriginal Health in his mid twenty’s and back to construction, until injuries forced him into trying an academic pathway in 1990. Pem began a BA – majoring in Literature and Aboriginal Studies at CQU in Central Qld at thirty-six years of age. He graduated ten years later while working for Central Qld Uni in the multi-media section. During this time Pem also gained a certificate in Film & Television production at AFTRS in Sydney. In 2004, after 14 years at a University Pem took his family to the Aboriginal community of Aurukun on Cape York, where he met Noel Pearson. Together with Tanya Major from Kowanyama, they created the Higher Expectations Program (HEP): a secondary scholarship, sponsored by Macquarie Bank’s philanthropic arm MGF, in an attempt to solve some of the huge social problems and high school dropout rate in the Cape’s indigenous remote communities. HEP is still working today and to date has 60+ university graduates – all ‘firsts’ from those remote communities. Currently Pem has had to stop work owing to several severe construction work injuries and lives in Far North Qld, where he is in the process of writing several more fiction-fantasy tales. He plays guitar, loves and photographs the holistic world, writes poetry and songs about his people and world events - and tries to sing occasionally. Pem has four uniquely wonderful children and six fan-bloody-tastic grandchildren, who will probably take over the world:) Thank-you for 'listening'. Pemulwuy Weeatunga (aka John M Wenitong)…