This story is set at least five thousand years ago. Coconuts probably hadn’t been brought to the islands north of Australia at that stage — and certainly not to the mainland. Millet doesn’t seem to have been gathered yet and sails still weren’t used in this part of the world.
The coastline was very different too. It’s likely that the land Loa set out from, and the place he landed, are underwater today. The swamps and to some extent even the river systems would have been different too. None of the places in this book are based on any specific area that exists now.
Loa’s knee
Loa didn’t break his leg when the canoe crashed. Instead he tore his medial collateral ligament — the same injury I had while I wrote the book. The medial ligament holds the kneecap in place. It can be agonisingly painful, as when the kneecap moves it tears more flesh and ligaments, but if you keep the knee immobilised — and you’re lucky — it does heal. (I tore my knee climbing down a cliff without a rope to look at what I thought might be a rare plant. It wasn’t — and I was silly and careless. And many thanks indeed to Nicol for helping my knee heal much faster and less painfully than Loa’s.)
With all the benefits of modern health care, I knew my knee would eventually heal. Loa would have feared that he’d be a cripple forever.
The dog’s name
Most of us give human names to the animals we are close to, but this wasn’t always so. It would probably never have occurred to Loa to name the dog. It may have taken many generations of dogs and humans living together for humans to realise that a dog could learn a particular name, and come or obey when that word was used.
Many humans who are close to an animal still don’t give their animal friends a human name. I’ve known farmers and bushies who just call their companion ‘Dog’ or ‘Hey You’. I call one of the wombats who shares my life ‘Wombat’, although to others she is known as ‘Mothball’.
Names are human devices, not animal. Animals just learn — sometimes — what we mean when we use them. But sharing your life with an animal — whether it is a dog, cat, horse or wombat — is one of the greatest joys and privileges a human can have.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It is difficult to know where to start with thanks for a book like this. Its existence is owed to the many researchers in ethnobotany, anthropology, zoology and many other disciplines that enabled me to recreate the world of so long ago, as well as the dedication and empathy of the many people who have worked with and studied dingoes. Thanks are due not just for the research this book is based on, but for opening the ever-fascinating complexities of the world to others.
As always, enormous thanks to Lisa Berryman, for giving me the freedom to follow my inspiration, even when it isn’t for the book that was on the schedule, and for her ever-wonderful assessments, encouragement and insistence that each manuscript reach its highest possible potential.
Kate Burnitt has worked and reworked this book, picking up errors and inconsistencies. If Loa no longer gets into a canoe twice without getting out of it — and many similar mistakes — it is entirely due to Kate, with her endless perfectionism and patience.
Angela Marshall as always performed the miracle of turning what many might find gibberish into a properly spelled manuscript, as well as giving her own extraordinary depth of knowledge both to Loa’s world and the intimacies of canine behaviour. Again — and again — much love and so many, many thanks. I hope that your students will find that this book speaks to them too.
To my husband Bryan, who probably will read neither these acknowledgements nor the book (he prefers books with diagrams, and preferably submarines), my love and gratitude always, for letting me expound my theories of the ancient world while you pretend to listen, your eyes almost imperceptibly flicking over your New Scientist or computer screen.
And finally — this book, and at least two others, wouldn’t have been written without the loving inspiration of Hank Huffington, to whom this book is dedicated.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jackie French is a full-time writer and wombat negotiator. Jackie writes fiction and non-fiction for all ages, and has columns in the print media. Jackie is regarded as one of Australia’s most popular children’s authors. She writes across all genres — from picture books and history to science fiction.
www.jackiefrench.com
OTHER TITLES BY JACKIE FRENCH
Historical
Somewhere Around the Corner • Dancing with Ben Hall
Soldier on the Hill • Daughter of the Regiment
Hitler’s Daughter • Lady Dance • The White Ship
How the Finnegans Saved the Ship • Valley of Gold
Tom Appleby, Convict Boy • They Came on Viking Ships
Macbeth and Son • Pharaoh • A Rose for the Anzac Boys
Oracle • The Night They Stormed Eureka
A Waltz for Matilda • Nanberry: Black Brother White
Pennies for Hitler
Rain Stones • Walking the Boundaries • The Secret Beach
Summerland • Beyond the Boundaries
A Wombat Named Bosco • The Book of Unicorns
The Warrior — The Story of a Wombat • Tajore Arkle
Missing You, Love Sara • Dark Wind Blowing
Ride the Wild Wind: The Golden Pony and Other Stories
Non-fiction
Seasons of Content • A Year in the Valley
How the Aliens from Alpha Centauri
Invaded My Maths Class and Turned Me into a Writer
How to Guzzle Your Garden • The Book of Challenges
Stamp, Stomp, Whomp
The Fascinating History of Your Lunch
Big Burps, Bare Bums and Other Bad-Mannered Blunders
To the Moon and Back • Rocket Your Child into Reading
The Secret World of Wombats
How High Can a Kangaroo Hop?
The Animal Stars Series
1. The Goat Who Sailed the World
2. The Dog Who Loved a Queen
3. The Camel Who Crossed Australia
4. The Donkey Who Carried the Wounded
5. The Horse Who Bit a Bushranger
6. Dingo: The Dog Who Conquered a Continent
Outlands Trilogy
In the Blood • Blood Moon • Flesh and Blood
School for Heroes
Lessons for a Werewolf Warrior
Dance of the Deadly Dinosaurs
1. My Dog the Dinosaur • 2. My Mum the Pirate
3. My Dad the Dragon • 4. My Uncle Gus the Garden Gnome
5. My Uncle Wal the Werewolf • 6. My Gran the Gorilla
7. My Auntie Chook the Vampire Chicken
8. My Pa the Polar Bear
Phredde Series
1. A Phaery Named Phredde
2. Phredde and a Frog Named Bruce
3. Phredde and the Zombie Librarian
4. Phredde and the Temple of Gloom
5. Phredde and the Leopard-Skin Librarian
6. Phredde and the Purple Pyramid
7. Phredde and the Vampire Footy Team
8. Phredde and the Ghostly Underpants
Picture Books
Diary of a Wombat (with Bruce Whatley)
Pete the Sheep (with Bruce Whatley)
Josephine Wants to Dance (with Bruce Whatley)
The Shaggy Gully Times (with Bruce Whatley)
Emily and the Big Bad Bunyip (with Bruce Whatley)
Baby Wombat’s Week (with Bruce Whatley)
Queen Victoria’s Underpants (with Bruce Whatley)
The Tomorrow Book (with Sue deGennaro)
Christmas Wombat (with Bruce Whatley)
A Day to Remember (with Mark Wilson)
COPYRIGHT
Angus&Robertson
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, Australia
First published in Australia in 2012
by HarperCollinsPublishers Aus
tralia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Jackie French 2012
The right of Jackie French to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
HarperCollinsPublishers
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10 East 53rd Street, New York NY 10022, USA
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
French, Jackie.
Dingo: the dog who conquered a continent / Jackie French.
ISBN: 978 0 7322 9311 6 (pbk.)
ISBN: 978 0 7304 9377 8 (epub)
Animal stars; 6.
For primary school age.
Dingo — Juvenile fiction.
A823.4
Cover design by Natalie Winter
Cover image: two men and a dog in a canoe by Oliver Strewe / Getty Images; boy aiming bow and arrow by Gavriel Jecan / Getty Images; all other images by shutterstock.com