Arguably the main reason the two children stayed alive was an unexpected crossing with an aboriginal male, who ‘was ebony black and quite naked’. From appearance the aboriginal knew that the two white children “were harmless as a pair of tail-less kangaroos”, so the bush boy decided to help Peter and Mary, because “not only were they freakish in appearance and clumsy in movement, they were also amazingly helpless: untaught unskilled, utterly incapable of fending for themselves.”
The Bush Boy kept Peter and Mary alive by various methods of catching food (‘yeemara’) and water (‘arkaloola’) that only an aboriginal would know how.
These methods included that you scooped the water from the bottom of the pool when you drank, so the water tasted cold; or used a tube like instrument to drink clear water from the bottom of a murky pool, how to make a fire with ‘yacca-yacca’ and leaf, how to eat food like ‘worworas’, bustards, yams, and how to catch ‘yarrawa’ in a pool by throwing a rock in it, which stuns the fish. Mary and especially the keenness Peter both learnt survival techniques from the Bush Boy, and without him they would have almost certainly not survived.
The fact that Peter adapted his style in that of the Bush Boy and that he was prepared to learn the culture of survival was a major factor in that he and Mary managed to stay alive. After the Bush Boy’s death he made correct critical decisions – “The darkie said there’s water over the hills. We’ll move on.” This proves that the Bush Boy was a major influence in the attitude Peter developed as the story progressed.
The final important factor that kept Peter and Mary alive was the luck that they received when initially lost in the Aboriginal desert. Peter happened to luckily have a bar of barley sugar. Mary, being the dominant of the two, made sure that they ate the barley stick in rations “Don’t bite, suck.” Also, when searching for food they luckily came across some fruit that happened to be lying on a tree. When having no food for practically two days this was a vital factor of Peter and Mary’s survival. It was this time when Mary and Peter met the naked Aboriginal.
There were a number of important factors that contributed towards Peter and Mary’s survival-some were subtle – others were not so subtle, and some were even deceiving. So to summarise Peter and Mary’s survival in ‘Walkabout’ was due to having luck, making the right decisions under pressure, and also gaining physical strength and determination whilst becoming immune to the Aboriginal desert.
