My Great, great, great – a lot of ‘greats’ – Grandpa, Emperor Marinus arrived in Australia in 1935, following the decision by North Queensland cane growers to engage his expertise and experience with the Cane Scarab beetle. I think it was seven generations ago that Great Granpa participated in the trial.
He received a one-way ticket on a tramp-steamer, travelling from Hawaii to Cairns. He recorded that it was top shelf travel all the way, plenty to eat and drink, and although not seen, he noted the unmistakable odour of females, also on the boat! He was travelling with two other guys, each selected for their strength and agility, good looks and anticipated breeding prowess!
He used to laugh at this lastly-listed selection criteria, quietly revealing to subsequent family members that he was a virgin when he boarded that boat! But upon arrival, his capacities were quickly engaged. He met thirty young breeding females.
His first offspring arrived on cue. He was then kept in isolation from his fellow male travellers, while one of the guys was selected and encouraged to mate with the emerging second generation of his offspring.
Emperor related in some detail those early days in Far North Queensland. Each of the three males arriving from Hawaii was manipulated, in terms of access to the female offspring. He thought it might be to do with jealousies between the males, but he was never able to pin this down.
Within a year, they moved, one to Innisfail, another quartered at a Gordonvale cane farm, while he went to Ayr. There was a bevy of females stationed with the guys, he thought about forty in Ayr. You can imagine the goings-on!
The chronicles noted that Emperor had died, but that his Grandson, Caesar Marinus was now primarily outside of the ‘program’, free to wander into the creek systems off the Great Divide. Caesar recorded that by 1955, he and his harem had conquered the mountains, adapting diets to forage the drier tablelands better. He chronicled the delights of gorging on dung beetles, on good days sometimes eating hundreds at a sitting.
He and the family also learnt to adapt their defences, noting the insects and animals that would be poisoned by their toxins, educating younger family members about the pesky meat ant colonies immune to their poison. He also noted that they were growing much bigger and stronger than their earlier kin!
The onset of the rainy season was a time for moving forward to new estates. It was Caesar’s great-grandson who crossed into the Northern Territory, at Wollogorang. Tsar Marinus reported a young station boy with a penchant for using a golf stick! Thwack, thwack, thwack – a nasty ending for some!
Tsar continued to chronicle the family’s travels as the hugely expanded empire moved up along the Gulf. Moving forward was no longer a simple logistical instruction, but dependent upon scouting parties out ahead, bringing seasonal intelligence back on terrain, water and food resources.
The delights of the Roper, the rocky uplands of Arnhem Land, the raging wet season torrents and the myriad shelters with the ochred walls of other occupiers. Rex Marinus recalled contemptuously efforts to build an “exclusion-wall” across the Cobourg Peninsula. Rex was the first to broach that barrier.
The many branches of the family were now unstoppable. They crossed the coastal wetlands adjacent to the Arafura Sea. They moved past Darwin in a couple of wet seasons, continuing to devastate wildlife as they moved down around the Bonaparte Gulf.
My father, Premier Marinus took the army across into Western Australia. It was somewhere near Kununurra that I was born and later called to lead the nation. I, President Marinus led the horde magnificently into Broome.
The next forward movement will consolidate our position as the Greatest Blight of all time – “all hail, the greatest, ever President Marinus”. A rump sticker, emblazoned “the great President Marinus” has been printed and distribution continues.