sailed south to find refuge in Arnhem Land after the Macassan Kingdom of Gowa was attacked by a joint Dutch-Bugis force in 1667. Yet elements of still earlier encounters seem to be embedded in these tales since what appear to be allusions to Islamic and Portuguese visits are also present in the myth cycle. For example, a moon-dwelling deity called 'Allah' is alluded to in funerary rites. Pre-Macassan men in 'mirrors' (shining armour) are said to have rallied troops on Dholtji's shore and the Warramiri clan elders referred to Dholtji as Mecca. Beneath these possible traces in myth suggestive of some pre-modern contact with South Asian traders, the Baijini strarum of legend, in this light, would appear to evoke specifically an older pre-Macassan order. One index of this is that Dholtji songs fail to mention precisely what the Macassan traders sought, trepang. The Birrinydji cycle speaks of a tall bearded people with a king, Luki, the admiral of Birrinydji's fleet Lela and his boat's captain Djammangi. Whatever the historical reality, McIntosh concluded, functionally in these Yolngu traditions, the contrast between a golden age of wealth, reciprocity and law-giving, and a subsequent period of seafaring Macassan trepang hunters, functions in counterpoise to mediate between two distinct realms, the sacred and profane spheres to enable thinking about their world's relationship with a foreign order. The contrast between the two modes would serve as a metaphorical system for negotiating forms of reconciliation between their traditional order with the exclusive land rights of clan territory underwritten by sacred stories of origins, and the modern world of the whites who seek purchase on their land and access to Arnhem Land resources. Recent mentions The Chinese origin hypothesis for the Baijini has been recently revived by the American journalist Louise Levathes. See also Makassan contact with Australia Trepanging, the act of collecting sea cucumber Patorani and padewakang, two types of perahu used for trepanging by Makassan Yolngu Notes Citations Sources Australian Aboriginal mythology History of Indigenous Australians History of the Northern Territory Mythological peoples Pre-1606 contact with Australia