Chapter 1 Summary

During the summer of 1900, Tabidgi, or Jackie Smolders as he is known to the white world, learns that his maternal nephew, Jimmie Blacksmith, has married a white girl. Jimmie is a "half-breed," a result of some white man's visit to the Brentwood blacks' camp. In an effort to protect Jimmie from his white marriage, Jackie sets out with Jimmie's initiation tooth, obtained during a ritual in which it was knocked out of his mouth by Mungindi elders when he was thirteen.

It is explained that as part of Jimmie's initiation in 1891, he'd been taken away from the camp. His mother had presumed him dead at the time, thinking that a great Lizard had swallowed him and would later give birth to a complete Mungindi man. Jimmie was gone for several weeks and during that time, the mission station superintendent, Rev. Neville kept asking...