An autobiographical account of an Australian aborigine, brought up in an orphanage and sent to work in a rich white family's house where she is treated virtually like a slave.
Surveys the history, tribal groups, social life, customs, and gradual assimilation of the Australian aborigines and discusses their struggle to retain their racial identity while fighting for their rights.
Despite the precautions of the old aborigine woman she calls Granny, fourteen-year-old Jo falls under the spell of a secret thing in the Australian hills, a girl endlessly alive and crying for the death that will not take her.
After suffering from misfortune and being mistreated by the people of their tribe, Gidja and his wife and daughter become the moon, the Morning Star, and the Evening Star.
A battle to the death between two enemy tribes in the Dreamtime leads to the appearance of the bats known as flying foxes and subsequently to the rise of all kinds of birds.
