The Euahlayi Tribe

A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia

by

K. Langloh Parker

CONTENTS

 INTRODUCTION I. INTRODUCTORY II. THE ALL FATHER, BYAMEE III. RELATIONSHIPS AND TOTEMS IV. THE MEDICINE MEN V. MORE ABOUT THE MEDICINE MEN AND LEECHCRAFT VI. OUR WITCH WOMAN VII. BIRTH--BETROTHAL--AN ABORIGINAL GIRL FROM INFANCY TO WOMANHOOD VIII. THE TRAINING OF A BOY UP TO BOORAH PRELIMINARIES IX. THE BOORAH AND OTHER MEETINGS X. CHIEFLY AS TO FUNERALS AND MOURNING XI. SOMETHING ABOUT STARS AND LEGENDS XII. THE TRAPPING OF GAME XIII. FORAGING AND COOKING XIV. COSTUMES AND WEAPONS XV. THE AMUSEMENTS OF BLACKS XVI. BUSH BOGIES AND FINIS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

By one of the Euahlayi Tribe (Omitted from etext)

 A NATIVE CARRYING A MESSAGE-STICK TWO NATIVES READY FOR A CORROBOREE THE FUNERAL OF A NATIVE. A BARK COFFIN A NATIVE SINGING TO HIS OWN ACCOMPANIMENT A NATIVE GRINDING GRASS SEED ON A DAYOORL-STONE A NATIVE WITH SHIELD AND WADDY IN FRONT OF HIS CAMP

INTRODUCTION

No introduction to Mrs. Langloh Parker's book can be more than thatsuperfluous 'bush' which, according to the proverb, good wine does notneed. Our knowledge of the life, manners, and customary laws of manyAustralian tribes has, in recent years, been vastly increased by theadmirable works of Mr. Howitt, and of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen. ButMrs. Parker treats of a tribe which, hitherto, has hardly beenmentioned by anthropologists, and she has had unexampled opportunitiesof study. It is hardly possible for a scientific male observer to beintimately familiar with the women and children of a savage tribe. Mrs. Parker, on the other hand, has had, as regards the women and childrenof the Euahlayi, all the advantages of the squire's wife in a ruralneighbourhood, supposing the squire's wife to be an intelligent andsympathetic lady, with a strong taste for the study of folklore andrustic custom. Among the Zulus, we know, it is the elder women who tellthe popular tales, so carefully translated and edited by BishopColenso. Mrs. Parker has already published two volumes of Euahlayitales, though I do not know that I have ever seen them cited, except bymyself, in anthropological discussion. As they contain many beautifuland romantic touches, and references to the Euahlayi 'All Father, ' orpaternal 'super man, ' Byamee, they may possibly have been regarded asdubious materials, dressed up for the European market. Mrs. Parker'snew volume, I hope, will prove that she is a close scientific observer, who must be reckoned with by students. She has not scurried through theregion occupied by her tribe, but has had them constantly under hereyes for a number of years. 

My own slight share in the book as it stands ought to be mentioned. After reading the original MS. , I catechised Mrs. Parker as to heramount of knowledge of the native language; her methods of obtaininginformation; and the chances that missionary influence had affected theEuahlayi legends and beliefs. I wrote out her answers, and she read andrevised what I had written. I also collected many scattered notices ofByamee into the chapter on that being, which Mrs. Parker has read andapproved. I introduced a reference to Mr. Howitt's theory of the 'AllFather, ' and I added some references to other authorities on theAustralian tribes. Except for this, and for a very few purely verbalchanges in matter of style, Mrs. Parker's original manuscript isuntouched by me. It seems necessary to mention these details, as Ihave, in other works, expressed my own opinions on Australian religionand customary law. [MAKING OF RELIGION, second edition; MYTH, RITUAL, ANDRELIGION, second edition. ] These opinions I have not, so to speak, editedinto the work of Mrs. Parker. The author herself has remarked that, beginning as a disciple of Mr. Herbert Spencer in regard to thereligious ideas of the Australians--according to that writer, meredread of casual 'spirits'--she was obliged to alter her attitude, inconsequence of all that she learned at first hand. She also explainsthat her tribe are not 'wild blacks, ' though, in the absence ofmissionary influences, they retain their ancient beliefs, at least theold people do; and, in a decadent form, preserve their tribalinitiations, or Boorah. How she tested and controlled the evidence ofher informants she has herself stated, and I venture to think that shecould hardly have made a better use of her opportunities. 

In one point there is perhaps, almost unavoidably, a lacuna or gap inher information. The Euahlayi, she says, certainly do not possess theDieri and Urabunna custom of Pirrauru or Piraungaru, by which married, and unmarried men, of the classes men and women which may intermarry, are solemnly allotted to each other as more or less permanent paramours. [See Mr. Howitt's NATIVE TRIBES OF SOUTH-EAST AUSTRALIA, and mySECRET OF THE TOTEM, chapter iii. ] That custom, for some unknown reason, is confined to certain tribes possessing the two social divisions with theuntranslated names MATTERI and KIRARU. These tribes range from Lake Eyresouthward, perhaps, as far as the sea. Their peculiar custom is unknown tothe Euahlayi, but Mrs. Parker does not inform us concerning any recognisedlicence which may, as is usual, accompany their Boorah assemblies, ortheir 'harvest home' of gathered grass seed, which she describes. 

Any reader of Mrs. Parker's book who has not followed recentanthropological discussions, may need to be apprised of the nature ofthese controversies, and of the probable light thrown on them by thefull description of the Euahlayi tribe. The two chief points in disputeare (1) the nature and origin of the marriage laws of the Australians;and (2) the nature and origin of such among their ideas and practicesas may be styled 'religious. ' As far as what we commonly call materialcivilisation is concerned, the natives of the Australian continent areprobably the most backward of mankind, having no agriculture, nodomestic animals, and no knowledge of metal-working. Their weapons andimplements are of wood, stone, and bone, and they have not even therudest kind of pottery. But though the natives are all, in theirnatural state, on or about this common low level, their customary laws, ceremonials, and beliefs are rich in variety. 

As regards marriage rules they are in several apparently ascendinggrades of progress. First we have tribes in which each person is borninto one or other of two social divisions usually called 'phratries. 'Say that the names of the phratries mean Eagle Hawk and Crow. Eachborn Crow must marry an Eagle Hawk; each born Eagle Hawk must marry aCrow. The names are derived through the mothers. One obvious result isthat no two persons, brother and sister maternal, can intermarry; butthe rule also excludes from intermarriage great numbers of persons inno way akin to each other by blood, who merely share the common phratryname, Crow or Eagle Hawk. 

In each phratry are smaller sets of persons, each set distinguished bythe name of some animal or other natural object, their 'totem. ' Thesame totem is never found in both phratries. Thus a person marrying outof his or her phratry, as all must do, necessarily marries out of hisor her totem. 

The same arrangements exist among tribes which derive phratry and totemnames through the father. 

This derivation of names and descent through the father is regarded byalmost all students, and by Mr. J. G. Frazer, in one passage of hislatest study of the subject, as a great step in progress. ['The Beginningsof Religion and Totemism among the Australian Aborigines, ' FORTNIGHTLYREVIEW, September 1905, p. 452. ] The obvious result of paternal descent isto make totem communities or kins local. In any district most of thepeople will be of the same paternal totem name--say, Grub, Iguana, Emu, or what not. Just so, in Glencoe of old, most of the people were MacIans;in Appin most were Stewarts; in South Argyll Campbells, and so on. 

The totem kins are thus, with paternal descent, united both by supposedblood ties in the totem kin, and by associations of locality. This iscertainly a step in social progress. 

But while Mr. Frazer, with almost all inquirers, acknowledges this, tenpages later in his essay he no longer considers the descent of thetotem in the paternal line as necessarily 'a step in progress' fromdescent in the maternal line. 'The common assumption that inheritanceof the totem through the mother always preceded inheritance of it throughthe father need not hold good, '[IBID. P. 462. ] he remarks. 

Thus it appears that a tribe has not necessarily made 'a great step inprogress, ' because it reckons descent of the totem on the male side. Ifthis be so, we cannot so easily decide as to which tribe is sociallyadvanced and which is not. 

In any case, however, there is a test of social advance. There is anacknowledged advance when a tribe is divided into, not two, but four oreight divisions, which may not intermarry. [IBID. P. 454] The Euahlayi havefour such divisions. In each of their intermarrying phratries are two'Matrimonial Classes, ' each with its name, and these are so constitutedthat a member of the elder generation can never marry a member of thesucceeding generation. This rule prevents, of course, marriage betweenparent and child, but such marriages never do occur in the pristinetribes of the Darling river which have no such classes. The four-classarrangement excludes from intermarriage all persons, whether parentsand children or not, who bear the same class name, say Hippai. 

Among the central and northern tribes, from the Arunta of theMacdonnell hills to the Gulf of Carpentaria, the eight-class ruleexists, and it is, confessedly, the most advanced of all. 

In this respect, then, the Arunta of the centre of Australia arecertainly more advanced than the Euahlayi. The Arunta have eight, notfour, intermarrying classes. In the matter of rites and ceremonies, too, they are, in the opinion of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, moreadvanced than, say, the Euahlayi. They practise universal 'subincision'of the males, and circumcision, in place of the more primitive knockingout of the front teeth. Their ceremonies are very prolonged: in Messrs. Spencer and Gillen's experience, rites lasted for four months during agreat tribal gathering. That the Arunta could provide supplies for soprolonged and large an assembly, argues high organisation, or a regionwell found in natural edible objects. Yet the region is arid and barren, so the organisation is very high. For all these reasons, even if we do notregard paternal descent of the totem as a step in progress from maternaldescent, the Arunta seem greatly advanced in social conditions. 

Yet they are said to lack entirely that belief in a moral and kindly'All Father, ' such as Byamee, which Mrs. Parker describes as potentamong the less advanced Euahlayi, and which Mr. Howitt has found amongnon-coastal tribes of the south-east, with female descent of the totem, but without matrimonial classes--that is, among the most primitive tribesof all. 

Here occurs a remarkable difficulty. Mr. Howitt asserts, with Mr. Frazer's concurrence, that (in Mr. Frazer's words) 'the same regions inwhich the germs of religion begin to appear have also made someprogress towards a higher form of social and family life. '['The Beginningsof Religion and Totemism among the Australian Aborigines, ' FortnightlyReview, September 1905, p. 452. ] But the social advance from maternal topaternal descent of the totem, we have seen, is not necessarily an advanceat all, in Mr. Frazer's opinion. [IBID. P. 462. ] The Arunta, for example, he thinks, never recognised female descent of the totem. They have neverrecognised, indeed, he thinks, any hereditary descent of the totem, though in all other respects, as in hereditary magistracies, andinheritance of the right to practise the father's totemic ritual, theydo reckon in the male line. By such advantage, however it was acquired, they are more progressive than, say, the Euahlayi. But, progressive asthey are, they have not, like the more pristine tribes of the south-east, developed 'the germs of religion, ' the belief in a benevolent or ruling'All Father. ' Unlike the tribes of the south-east, they have co-operativetotemic magic. Each totem community does magic for its totem, as part ofthe food supply of the united tribe. But the tribe, though so SOLIDAIRE, and with its eight classes and hereditary magistracies so advanced, hasdeveloped no germs of religion at all. Arunta progress has thus beensingularly unequal. 

The germs of religion are spoken of as the results of social advance, but, while so prominent in social advance, the Arunta have no trace ofreligion. The tribes northward from them to the sea are also veryadvanced socially, but (with one known exception not alluded to by Mr. Frazer) have no 'All Father, ' no germ of religion. 

From this fact, if correctly reported, it is obvious that socialprogress is not the cause, nor the necessary concomitant, of advance inreligious ideas. 

Again, the influence of the sea, in causing a 'heavier rainfall, a moreabundant vegetation, and a more plentiful supply of food, ' with aneasier and more reflective life than that of 'the arid wilderness ofthe interior, ' cannot be, as is alleged, the cause of the germs ofreligion. [IBID. P. 463. ] If this were the case, the coastal tribes of theGulf of Carpentaria and of the north generally would have developed theAll Father belief. Yet, in spite of their coastal environment, and richerexistence, and social advance, the northern coastal tribes are notcredited with the belief in the All Father. Meanwhile tribes with nomatrimonial classes, and with female descent of the totem--tribesdwelling from five to seven hundred miles away from the southern sea--dopossess the All Father belief as far north as Central Queensland, noless than did the almost or quite extinct tribes of the south coast, who had made what is (or is not) 'the great step in progress' ofpaternal descent of the totem. 

Again, arid and barren as is the central region tenanted by the Arunta, it seems to permit or encourage philosophic reflection, for theirtheory of evolution is remarkably coherent and ingenious. The theory ofevolution implies as much reflection as that of creation! Their magicfor the behoof of edible objects is attributed to the suddenness oftheir first rains, [IBID. P. 465. ] and the consequent outburst of life, which the natives attribute to their own magical success. Butrainmaking magic, as Mrs. Langloh Parker shows, is practised withsometimes amazing success among the Euahlayi, who work no magic at allfor their totems. Their magic, if it brings rain, benefits their totemsat large, but for each totem in particular, no Euahlayi totem kin doesmagic. 

Again, agricultural magic has been, and indeed is, practised in Europe, in conditions of climate unlike those of the Arunta; and totemic magicis freely practised in North America, in climatic conditions dissimilarfrom those of Central Australia. 

For all these reasons I must confess that I do not follow the logic ofthe philosophy which makes social advance the cause of the belief inthe All Father, and coastal rains the cause of social advance. TheArunta have the social advance, the eight classes, the relatively highorganisation; but they have neither the climatic conditions supposed toproduce the advance, nor the religion which the advance is supposed toproduce. The northern coastal tribes, again, have the desired climaticconditions, and the social advance, but they have not the germs ofreligion found in many far inland southern tribes, like the Euahlayi, whose social progress is extremely moderate. We thus find, from thenorthern coast to the centre, one supposed result of coastalconditions, namely, social progress, but not the other supposed resultof coastal conditions, namely, the All Father belief. I do not say thatit does not exist, for it is a secret belief, but it is not reported byMessrs. Spencer and Gillen. On the other hand, among tribes of thesouth-east very far from the coast, we find the lowest grades of socialprogress, but we also find the All Father belief. I am ready, ofcourse, to believe that good conditions of life beget progress, socialand religious, as a general rule. But other causes exist; speculationanywhere may take crudely scientific rather than crudely religiouslines. Especially the belief in ancestral spirits may check or nullifythe belief in a remote All Father. We see this among the Zulus, wherespirits entirely dominate religion, and the All Father is, at most, theshadow of a name, Unkulunkulu. We may detect the same influence amongthe northern tribes of Australia, where ancestral spirits dominatethought and society, though they receive no sacrifice or prayer. Meanwhile, if we accept Mrs. Parker's evidence, among the Euahlayiancestral spirits are of no account in religion, while the All Fatheris obeyed, and, on some occasions, is addressed in prayer; and may evencause rain, if property approached by a human spirit which has justentered his mansions. Clearly, climatic causes and natural environmentare not the only factors in producing and directing the speculativeideas of men in early society. 

We must also remember that the neighbours of the Arunta, northwards, who share certain peculiar Arunta ideas, possess, beyond all doubt, either the earliest germs of belief in the All Father, or that beliefin a decadent condition of survival. This is quite certain; for, whereas the Arunta laugh at all inquiries as to what went before the'Alcheringa, ' or mythic age of evolution, the Kaitish, according toMessrs. Spencer and Gillen, aver that an anthropomorphic being, whodwells above the sky, and is named Atnatu, first created himself, andthen 'made the Alcheringa, '--the mythic age of primal evolution. Ofmankind, some, in Kaitish opinion, were evolved; of others Atnatu isthe father. He expelled men to earth from his heaven for neglect of hisceremonies, but he provided them with weapons and all that theypossess. He is not TROS FERRO SUR LA MORALE: he has made no MORAL laws, but his ritual laws, as to circumcision and the whirling of thebull-roarer, must be observed as strictly as the ritual laws of Byameeof the Euahlayi. In this sense of obedience due to a heavenly fatherwho begat men, or some of them, punished them, and started them ontheir terrene career, laying down ceremonial rules, we have certainly'the germs of religion' in a central tribe cognate to the Arunta. 

Mr. Frazer detects only two traces of religion in the centre, omittingthe Kaitish Atnatu, ['The Beginnings of Religion and Totemism among theAustralian Aborigines, ' FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW, September 1905, p. 452, Note 1. ] but I am unable to see how the religious aspect of Atnatu, non-moral as it is, can be overlooked. He is the father of part of thetribe, and all are bound to, observe his ceremonial rules. He accounts forthe beginning of the beginning; he is the cause of the Alcheringa; men oweduties to him. We do not know whether he was once as potent in theirhearts, and as moral as Byamee, but has DOGRINGOLO under Aruntaphilosophic influences; or whether Byamee is a more highly evolved form ofAtnatu. But it is quite certain that the Kaitish, in a region as faralmost from the north sea as that of the Arunta, and further from southerncoastal influences than the Arunta, have a modified belief in the AllFather. How are we to account for this on the philosophic hypothesis ofOceanus as the father of all the gods; of coastal influences producing aricher life, and causing both social and religious progress?

Another difficulty is that while the Arunta, with no religion, and theKaitish, with the Atnatu belief, are socially advanced in organisation(whether we reckon male descent of the totem 'a great step inprogress, ' or an accident), they are yet supposed by Mr. Frazer to be, in one respect, the least advanced, the most primitive, of known humanbeings. The reason is this: the Arunta do not recognise the processesof sexual union as the cause of the production of children. Sexualacts, they say, merely prepare women for the reception of originalancestral spirits, which enter into them, and are reincarnated andbrought to the birth. 

If the women cannot accept the spirits without being 'prepared' bysexual union, then sexual union plays a physical part in the generationof a spirit incarnated, a fact which all believers in the human soulare as ready as the Arunta to admit. If the Arunta recognise theprior necessity of 'preparation, ' then they are not so ignorant asthey are thought to be; and their view is produced, not so much bystark ignorance, as by their philosophy of the eternal reincarnation ofprimal human spirits. The Arunta philosophers, in fact, seem toconcentrate their speculation on a point which puzzled Mr. Shandy. Howdoes the animating principle, or soul, regarded as immaterial, clotheitself in flesh? Material acts cannot effect the incarnation of aspirit. Therefore, the spirit enters women from without, and is not thedirect result of human action. 

The south-eastern tribes, with female descent of the totem, and with nobelief in the universal and constant reincarnation of ancestralspirits, take the 'schylean view, according to Mr. Howitt, that themale is the sole originating cause of children, while the female isonly the recipient and 'nurse. ' These tribes, socially less advancedthan the Arunta, have not the Arunta nescience of the facts ofprocreation, a nescience which I regard as merely the consequence andcorollary of the Arunta philosophy of reincarnation. Each Arunta child, by that philosophy, has been in being since the Alcheringa: his motherof the moment only reproduces him, after 'preparation. ' He is not a newthing; he is as old as the development of organic forms. This is theArunta belief, and I must reckon it as not more primitive than thepeculiar philosophy of reincarnation of ancestral spirits. Certainlysuch an elaborate philosophy manifestly cannot be primitive. It is, however, the philosophy of the tribes from the Urabunna, on Lake Eyre(with female descent of the totem), to the most northerly tribes, withmale descent. 

But among none of these tribes has the philosophy that extraordinaryeffect on totemic institutions which, by a peculiar and isolatedaddition, it possesses among the septs of the Arunta nation, and in alimited way among the Kaitish. 

Among all tribes except these the child inherits its totem: from themother, among the Urabunna; from the father in the northern peoples. But, among the Arunta and Kaitish, the totem is not inherited fromeither parent. According to the belief of these tribes, in everydistrict there is a place where the first human ancestors--in each caseall of one totem, whichsoever that totem, in each case, might happen tobe--died, 'went under the earth. ' Rocks or trees arose to mark suchspots. These places are haunted by the spirits of the dead ancestors;here they are all Grubs, there all Eagle Hawks, or all Iguanas, or allEmus, or all Cats. Or as in these sites the ancestors left each his ownsacred stone, CHURINGA NANJA, with archaic patterns inscribed on it, patterns now fancifully interpreted as totemic inscriptions. Suchstones are especially haunted by the ancestral souls, all desiringreincarnation. 

When a woman becomes aware of the life of the child she bears, amongthe Arunta and Kaitish, she supposes that a local spirit of the localtotem has entered her, and her child's totem is therefore the totem ofthat locality, whatever other totems she and her husbands may own. Thestone amulet of the ancestral spirit, WHO IS THE CHILD, is sought; ifit cannot be found at the spot, a wooden CHURINGA is made to representit, and it is kept carefully in a sacred storehouse. 

Even in the centre and north, where the belief in reincarnationprevails, this odd manner of acquiring totems is only practised by theArunta tribes and the Kaitish, and only among them are the inscribedstones known to exist as favoured haunts of ancestral spirits desiringincarnation. The other northern tribes believe in reincarnation, butnot in the haunted sacred stones, which they do not, north of theWorgaia, possess; nor do they derive totems from locality, but, asusual, by inheritance. 

It thus appears that these Arunta sacred stones are an inseparableaccident of the Arunta method of acquiring the totem. How they and thefaith in them cause that method is not obvious, but the two things--thehaunted sacred stone, and the local source of totems--areinseparable--that is, the former never is found apart from the latter. Now such stones, with the sense and usage attached to them, cannot wellbe primitive. They are the result of the peculiar and strictly isolatedArunta custom and belief, which gives to each man and woman one ofthese stones, the property of himself or herself, since the mythicalage, through all reincarnations. 

One cannot see how such an unique custom and belief, associated withobjects of art, can be reckoned primitive. Yet, where such stones donot exist, the usage of acquiring totems by locality does not exist;even where the belief in reincarnation and in local centres haunted bytotemic spirits is found in North Australia. [For an hypothesis of theorigin of the CHURINGA NANJA belief, see my SECRET OF THE TOTEM, chapter iv. ]

On these grounds it appears that the hereditary totem is the earlier, and that the Arunta usage is the result of the special and inseparablesuperstition about the sacred stones. It may be a relatively recentcomplication of and addition to the theory of reincarnation. Meanwhile, the belief and usage produce an unique effect. The Arunta and Kaitish, we saw, are so advanced socially that they possess not two, or four, but eight matrimonial classes. The tribe is divided into two sets offour classes each, and no person in A division (nameless) of fourclasses may marry another person of any one of these four, but mustmarry a person of a given class among the four in B division(nameless). The succession to the class is hereditary in the mate line. But any person among the Arunta, contrary to universal customelsewhere, may marry another person of his or her own totem, if thatperson be in the right class of the opposite division. Nowhere else cana person of division A and totem Grub find a Grub to marry in theopposite division B. But this is possible among the Arunta and Kaitish, because their totems are acquired by pure accident, are not hereditary, and all totems exist, or may exist, in division A and also in division B. 

Mr. Frazer argues that the Arunta is the earlier state of affairs. Hesupposes that men acquired their totems, at first, by local accident, before they had laid any restrictions on marriage. Later, they dividedtheir tribe, first into two, then into four, then into eight classes;and every one had to marry out of his class, or set of classes. Allother known tribes introduced these restrictions after totems had beenmade hereditary. On passing the restrictive marriage law, they merelydrafted people of one set of hereditary totems into one division, allthe other totem kins into the other division. But the Arunta had notmade totems hereditary, but accidental, so all the children of onecrowd of mothers were placed in division A, all other children indivision B. The mothers in each division would have children of all thetotems, and thus the same totems now appeared in both of the exogamousdivisions. If a man married into his lawful opposite class, the factthat the woman was of the same totem made no difference. 

I have offered quite an opposite explanation. Arunta totems were, originally, hereditary among the Arunta, as everywhere else, and nototem occurred in both exogamous divisions. The same totems, later, gotinto both divisions as the result of the later and isolated belief inreincarnation PLUS the sacred haunted stones. That superstition hasleft the Kaitish PRACTICE of marriage still almost untouched. A KaitishMAY, like an Arunta, marry a woman of his own totem, but he scarcelyever does so. The old prohibition, extinct in law, persists in custom;unless we say that the Kaitish are now merely imitating the usualpractice of the rest of the totemic races of the world. 

Moreover, even among the Arunta, certain totems greatly preponderate ineach of the two exogamous intermarrying divisions of the tribe. Thismust be because the present practice has not yet quite upset theancient usage, by which no totem ever occurred in both divisions. Thereis even an Arunta myth asserting that this was so, but it is, ofcourse, of no historical value as evidence. Here it is proper to giveMr. Frazer's contrary theory in his own words:--

'This [Arunta] mode of determining the totem has all the appearance ofextreme antiquity. For it ignores altogether the intercourse of thesexes as the cause of offspring, and further, it ignores the tie ofblood on the maternal as well as the paternal side, substituting for ita purely local bond, since the members of a totem stock are merelythose who gave the first sign of life in the womb at one or other ofcertain definite spots. This form of totemism, which may be calledconceptional or local to distinguish it from hereditary totemism, maywith great probability be regarded as the most primitive known to existat the present day, since it seems to date from a time when bloodrelationship was not yet recognised, and when even the idea ofpaternity had not yet presented itself to the savage mind. Moreover, itis hardly possible that this peculiar form of local totemism, with itsimplied ignorance of such a thing as paternity at all, could be derivedfrom hereditary totemism, whereas it is easy to understand howhereditary totemism, either in the paternal or in the maternal line, could be derived from it. Indeed, among the Umbaia and Gnanji tribes wecan see at the present day how the change from local to hereditarytotemism has been effected. These tribes, like the Arunta and Kaitish, believe that conception is caused by the entrance into a woman of aspirit who has lived in its disembodied state, along with other spiritsof the same totem, at any one of a number of totem centres scatteredover the country; but, unlike the Arunta and Kaitish, they almostalways assign the father's totem to the child, even though the infantmay have given the first sign of life at a place haunted by spirits ofa different totem. For example, the wife of a snake man may first feelher womb quickened at a tree haunted by spirits of goshawk people; yetthe child will not be a goshawk but a snake, like its father. Thetheory by which the Umbaia and Gnanji reconcile these apparentlyinconsistent beliefs is that a spirit of the husband's totem followsthe wife and enters into her wherever an opportunity offers, whereasspirits of other totems would not think of doing so. In the examplesupposed, a snake spirit is thought to have followed up the wife of thesnake man and entered into her at the tree haunted by goshawk spirits, while the goshawk spirits would refuse to trespass, so to say, on asnake preserve by quartering themselves in the wife of a snake man. This theory clearly marks a transition from local to hereditarytotemism in the paternal line. And precisely the same theory could, MUTATIS MUTANDIS, be employed to effect a change from local tohereditary totemism in the maternal line; it would only be necessary tosuppose that a pregnant woman is always followed by a spirit of her owntotem, which sooner or later effects a lodgement in her body. Forexample, a pregnant woman of the bee totem would always be followed bya bee spirit, which would enter into her wherever and whenever she felther womb quickened, and so the child would be born of her own beetotem. Thus the local form of totemism, which obtains among the Aruntaand Kaitish tribes, is older than the hereditary form, which is theordinary type of totemism in Australia and elsewhere, first, because itrests on far more archaic conceptions of society and of life; and, secondly, because both the hereditary kinds of totemism, the paternaland the maternal, can be derived from it, whereas it can hardly bederived from either of them. '

This argument appears to take for granted that the conception of primalancestral spirits, perpetually reincarnated, is primitive. But, infact, we seem to know it, among Australian tribes, only in these whichhave advanced to the possession of eight classes, and have made 'thegreat step in progress' (if it is a great step), of descent of thetotem in the paternal line. The Urabunna, with female descent of thetotem, have, it is true, the belief in reincarnation. But theyintermarry with the Arunta, borrow their sacred stones, and practisethe same advanced rites and ceremonies. The idea may thus have beenborrowed. On the other hand, the more pristine tribes of thesouth-east, with two or four exogamous divisions, and with femaledescent of the totem, have no known trace of the doctrine ofreincarnation (except as displayed by the Euahlayi), and have no doubtthat the father is the cause of procreation, save in the case of theEuahlayi, who believe that the Moon and the Crow 'make' the newchildren. 

It would thus appear that the central and northern belief in perpetualreincarnation of primal spirits is not primitive, yet the Arunta methodof acquiring totems does not exist save by grace of this belief, PLUSthe isolated belief in primal sacred stones. 

I am obliged to differ from Mr. Frazer when he says that 'it is easy tosee how hereditary totemism, either in the paternal or in the maternalline, would be derived from' the Arunta belief and practice, whereas'it is hardly possible that this peculiar form of local totemism[Arunta], with its implied ignorance of such a thing as paternity atall, could be derived from hereditary totemism. '

I do not know whether the other northern tribes share the Aruntanescience of procreation, or not. Whether they do or do not, it was aseasy for them to e plain all difficulties by a reconciling myth--aspirit of the husband's totem follows his wife--as for a white savant toframe an hypothesis. The Urabunna, with female descent of the totem, have quite another myth--to reconcile everything. 

Nothing can be more easy. Supposing the Arunta to have begun, as in mytheory, with hereditary totemism, the rise of their isolated belief inspirit-haunted sacred stones, encroached on and destroyed thehereditary character of their totemism. The belief in CHURINGA NANJA isan isolated freak, but it has done its work, while leaving traces of anearlier state of things, as we have shown, both among the Kaitish andArunta. 

If I am right in differing from such a master of many legions as thelearned author of THE GOLDEN BOUGH, the irreligion of the Arunta andnorthern tribes (if these be really without religion) is the result oftheir form of speculation, wholly occupied by the idea ofreincarnation, while the Arunta form of totemism is the consequence ofan isolated fantasy about their peculiar sacred stones. Meanwhile theEuahlayi, as Mrs. Parker proves, entertain, in a limited way, notelsewhere recorded in Australia, the belief in the reincarnation of thesouls of uninitiated young people. They also, like the Arunta, recognise haunted trees and rocks, but the haunting spirits do notdesire reincarnation, and are not ancestral. Spirits of the dead go toone or other abode of souls, to Baiame, or far from his presence to aplace of pain. So limited is human fancy, that here, as in Beckford'spicture of hell in VATHEK, each spirit eternally presses his handagainst his side. Were this a Christian doctrine, the Euahlayi would besaid to have borrowed it, but few will accuse them of plagiarising fromBeckford. These myths, like all myths, are not consistent. Baiame maychange a soul into a bird. 

We may ask whether, with their limited belief in reincarnation, andwith their haunted Minggah trees and rocks, the Euahlayi have set up acreed which might possibly develop into the northern faith, or whetherthey once held the northern faith, and have almost emerged from it. Without further information about intermediate tribes and their ideason these matters, the question cannot be answered. We are also withoutdata as to whether the nearly extinct southern coastal tribes evolvedthe All Father belief, and transmitted it to the Euahlayi, to someQueensland tribe, with their Mulkari, and even to the Kaitish, orwhether the faith has been independently developed among the tribeswith no matrimonial classes and the others. Conjecture is at presentuseless. 

In one respect a discovery of Mrs. Parker's is unfavourable to mytheories. In THE SECRET OF THE TOTEM have shown that, when the names ofthe phratry divisions of the tribes can be interpreted, they prove tobe names of animals, and I have shown how this may have come to be thecase. But among the Euahlayi the phratry names mean 'light blood' and'dark blood. ' This, PRIMA FACIE, seems to favour the theory of the Rev. Mr. Mathews, in his EAGLE HAWK AND CROW, that two peoples, lighter anddarker, after an age of war, made CONNUBIUM and marriage treaty, whencecame the phratries. The same author might urge, if he pleased, thatEagle Hawk (about the colour of the peregrine) was chosen to represent'light, ' and Crow to represent 'dark'; while the phratry animals, Whiteand Black Cockatoo, were selected, elsewhere, to represent the samecontrast. But we need more information as to the meanings of otherphratry names which have defied translation. 

In many other things, as in the account of the YUNBEAI of the Euahlayi, their mode of removing the tabu on the totem in food, their magic, their 'multiplex totems, ' their methods of hunting, their initiatoryceremonies, their highly moral lullabies, and the whole of their kindlylife, Mrs. Parker's book appears to deserve a welcome from the few whocare to study the ways of early men, 'the pit whence we were dug. ' TheEuahlayi are a sympathetic people, and have found a sympatheticchronicler. 

A. LANG. 

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

The following pages are intended as a contribution to the study of themanners, customs, beliefs, and legends of the Aborigines of Australia. The area of my observation is mainly limited to the region occupied bythe Euahlayi tribe of north-western New South Wales, who for twentyyears were my neighbours on the Narran River. I have been acquaintedsince childhood with the natives, first in southern South Australia;next on my father's station on the Darling River, where I was saved bya native girl, when my sisters were drowned while bathing. I wasintimate with the dispositions of the blacks, and was on friendly termswith them, before I began a regular attempt to inquire into theirfolk-lore and customary laws, at my husband's station on the Narran, due north of the Barwon River, the great affluent of the Murray River. 

My tribe is a neighbour of that mentioned by Mr. Howitt as the'Wollaroi, ' 'Yualloroi, ' or 'Yualaroi. ' [Howitt, NATIVE TRIBES OFSOUTH-EAST AUSTRALIA, pp. 57, 467, 694, 769. ] I spell the tribal name'Euahlayi'; the accent is on the second syllable--'You-ahl-ayi'; andthe name is derived from the tribal word for the negative: EUAHL, orYOUAL, 'No, ' as in the case of the Kamilaroi (Kamil, 'No'), and manyother tribes. 

Mr. Howitt regards these tribes as on the limits of what he calls the'Four Sub-Class' system. The people, that is to say, have not only thedivision into two 'phratries, ' or 'exogamous moieties, ' intermarrying, but also the four 'Matrimonial Classes' further regulating marriage. These classes bear the Kamilaroi names, of unknown meaning, Ipai, Kumbo, Murri, and Kubbi; but the names of the two main divisions, or phratries, are not those of the Kamilaroi--DILBI and KUPATHIN. 

The Euahlayi language, or dialect, is not identical with that of thegreat Kamilaroi tribe to their south-east, but is clearly allied withit, many names of animals being the same in both tongues. A few namesof animals are shared with the Wir djuri speech, as MULLIAN, EagleHawk; Pelican, GOOLAYYAHLEE (Wir djuri, GULAIGULI). The term for thebeing called 'The All Father' by Mr. Howitt is also the term used bythe Wir djuri and Kamilaroi, 'Baiame' or 'Byamee. ' The Euahlayi, however, possess myths, beliefs, and usages not recorded as extantamong the Kamilaroi, but rather forming a link with the ideas ofpeoples dwelling much further west, such as the tribes, on Lake Eyre, and the southernmost Arunta of the centre. Thus, there is a limited andmodified shape of the central and northern belief in reincarnation, andthere is a great development of what are called by Mr. Howitt'sub-totems, ' which have been found most in a region of NorthernVictoria, to the south of the Euahlayi. There is a belief inspirit--haunted trees, as among the Arunta, and there is a form of theArunta myth of the 'Dream Time, ' the age of pristine evolution. 

The Euahlayi thus present a mixture of ideas and usages which appearsto be somewhat peculiar and deserving of closer study than it hasreceived. Mr. Howitt himself refers to the tribe very seldom. It willbe asked, 'How far have the Euahlayi been brought under the influenceof missionaries, and of European ideas in general?'

The nearest missionary settlement was founded after we settled amongthe Euahlayi, and was distant about one hundred miles, at Brewarrina. None of my native informants had been at any time, to my knowledge, under the influence of missionaries. They all wore shirts, and almostall of them trousers, on occasion; and all, except the old men, mychief sources, were employed by white settlers. We conversed in a kindof LINGUA FRANCA. An informant, say Peter, would try to express himselfin English, when he thought that I was not successful in following himin his own tongue. With Paddy, who had no English but a curse, I usedtwo native women, one old, one younger, as interpreters, checking eachother alternately. The younger natives themselves had lost the sense ofsome of the native words used by their elders, but the middle-agedinterpreters were usually adequate. Occasionally there were disputes onlinguistic points, when Paddy, a man already grey in 1845, would marchoff the scene, and need to be reconciled. They were on very good termswith me. They would exchange gifts with me: I might receive a carvedweapon, and one of them some tobacco. The giving was not all on myside, by any means. 

My anthropological reading was scanty, but I was well acquainted withand believed in Mr. Herbert Spencer's 'Ghost theory' of the origin ofreligion in the worship of ancestral spirits. What I learned from thenatives surprised me, and shook my faith in Mr. Spencer's theory, withwhich it seemed incompatible. 

In hearing the old blacks tell their legends you notice a greatdifference between them as raconteurs--some tell the bare plot orfeature of the legend, others give descriptive touches all through. Ifthey are strangers to their audience, they get it over as quickly aspossible in a half-contemptuous way, as if saying, 'What do you want toknow such rubbish for?' But if they know you well, and know you reallyare interested, then they tell you the stories as they would tell themto one another, giving them a new life and adding considerably to theirpoetical expression. 

CHAPTER II

THE ALL FATHER, BYAMEE

As throughout the chapters on the customary laws, mysteries, andlegends of the Euahlayi, there occur frequent mentions of a superhumanthough anthropomorphic being named Byamee (in Kamilaroi and Wir djuri'Baiame'), it is necessary to give a preliminary account of the beliefsentertained concerning him. The name Byamee (usually spelled Baiame)occurs in Euahlayi, Kamilaroi, and Wir djuri; 'the Wir djuri languageis spoken over a greater extent of territory than any other tongue inNew South Wales. '[R. H. Mathews, J. A. I. , vol. Xxxiv. P. 284. ] The wordoccurs in the Rev. Mr. Ridley's GURRE KAMILAROI, an illustrated manual ofBiblical instruction for the education of the Kamilaroi: Mr. Ridleytranslated our 'God' by 'Baiame. ' He supposed that native term, which hefound and did not introduce, to be a derivative from the verb BAIA, orBIAI, 'to make. ' Literally, however, at least in Euahlayi, the word BYAMEEmeans 'great one. ' In its sense as the name of the All Father it is notsupposed to be used by women or by the uninitiated. If it is necessary tospeak to them of Byamee, he is called Boyjerh, which means Father, just asin the Theddora tribe the women speak of Darramulun as PAPANG, 'Father. '[Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 493. ] Among theEuahlayi both women and the uninitiated use byamee, the adjective for'great, ' in ordinary talk, though the more usual adjective answering to'great' is BOOROOL, which occurs in Kamilaroi as well as in Euahlayi. Theverb baia or biai, to make or shape, whence Mr. Ridley derived Baiame, isnot known to me in Euahlayi. Wir djuri has BAI, a footmark, and Byameeleft footmarks on the rocks, but that is probably a chance coincidence. 

I was first told of Byamee, in whispers, by a very old native, YudthaDulleebah (Bald Head), said to have been already grey haired when SirThomas Mitchell discovered the Narran in 1846. My informant said thathe was instructed as to Byamee in his first Boorah, or initiation. Ifhe was early grey, say at thirty, in 1846, that takes his initiationback to 1830, when, as a matter of fact, we have contemporary evidenceto the belief in Byamee, who is not of missionary importation, thoughafter 1856 Christian ideas may, through Mr. Ridley's book, have beenattached to his name by educated Kamilaroi. But he was a worshipfulbeing, revealed in the mysteries, long before missionaries came, as allmy informants aver. 

There has, indeed, been much dispute as to whether the Aborigines ofAustralia have any idea, or germ of an idea, of a God; anything morethan vague beliefs about unattached spirits, mainly mischievous, whomight be propitiated or scared away. Mr. Huxley maintained this view, as did Mr. Herbert Spencer. [ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS, p. 674. ] Both ofthese authors, who have great influence on popular opinion, omitted tonotice the contradictory statement of Waitz, published in 1872. Hecredited the natives, in some regions, with belief in, and dancesperformed in honour of, a 'Good Being, ' and denied that the belief andrites were the result of European influence. [Waitz, ANTHROPOLOGIE DERNATUR--V(tm)LKER, vol. Vi. Pp. 796-798. Leipzig, 1872. ] Mr. Tylor, admitting to some extent that the belief now exists, attributed it in partto the influence of missionaries and of white settlers. [Journal, Anthropological Institute, vol. Xxi. P. 292 ET SEQ. ] 'Baiame, ' he held, was a word of missionary manufacture, introduced about 1830-1840. Thisopinion was controverted by Mr. Lang, [MAGIC AND RELIGION, p. 25 SQ. MYTH, RITUAL, AND RELIGION, vol. Ii. Chap. Xii. , 1899. ] and by Mr. N. W. Thomas. Mr. Thomas [MAN, 1905, No. 28. ] has produced the evidence of Henderson, writing in 1829-1830, for the belief in 'Piame' or Byamee, orBaiame. [OBSERVATIONS AN THE COLONIES OF NEW SOUTH WALES AND VAN DIEMAN'SLAND, p. 147. ]

In 1904 Mr. Howitt gave a great mass of evidence for the belief in whathe calls an 'All Father': in many dialects styled by various namesmeaning 'Our Father, ' dwelling in or above the sky, and often receivingthe souls of blacks who have been 'good. ' These ideas are not derived, Mr. Howitt holds, from Europeans, or developed out of ancestor-worship, which does not exist in the tribes. The belief is concealed from women, but communicated to lads at their initiation. [Howitt, NATIVE TRIBES OFSOUTH-EAST AUSTRALIA, pp. 488-508. ] The belief, in favourablecircumstances, might develop, Mr. Howitt thinks, into what he speaks of asa 'religion, ' a 'recognised religion. ' Without asking how 'a recognisedreligion' is to be defined, I shall merely tell what I have gathered as tothe belief in Byamee among the Euahlayi. 

It may seem strange that I should know anything about a beliefcarefully kept from women, but I have even been privileged to hear'Byamee's Song, ' which only the fully initiated may sing; an old black, as will later appear, did chant this old lay, now no longer understood, to myself and my husband. Moreover, the women of the Euahlayi have someknowledge of, and some means of, mystic access to Byamee, though theycall him by another name. 

Byamee, in the first place, is to the Euahlayi what the 'Alcheringa' or'Dream time' is to the Arunta. Asked for the reason why of anything, the Arunta answer, 'It was so in the Alcheringa. ' Our tribe have asubsidiary myth corresponding to that of the Alcheringa. There was anage, in their opinion, when only birds and beasts were on earth; but acolossal man and two women came from the remote north-east, changedbirds and beasts into men and women, made other folk of clay or stone, taught them everything, and left laws for their guidance, thenreturned whence they came. This is a kind of 'Alcheringa' myth, butwhether this colossal man was Byamee or not, our tribe give, as thefinal answer to any question about the origin of customs, 'BecauseByamee say so. ' Byamee declared his will, and that was and is enoughfor his children. At the Boorah, or initiatory ceremonies, he isproclaimed as 'Father of All, whose laws the tribes are now obeying. 'Byamee, at least in one myth (told also by the Wir djuri), is theoriginal source of all totems, and of the law that people of the sametotem may not intermarry, 'however far apart their hunting-grounds. ' Iheard first in a legend, then received confirmation from all oldblacks, that Byamee had a totem name for every part of his body, evento a different one for each finger and toe. And when he was passing onto fresh fields, he gave each kinship of the tribe he was leaving oneof his totems. The usual version is, that to such as were metamorphosedfrom birds and animals he gave as totem the animal or whatever it wasfrom which they were evolved. But no one dreams of claiming Byamee as arelation belonging to one clan; he is one apart and yet the father ofall, even as Birrahgnooloo is mother of all and not related to any oneclan; Cunnumbeillee, his other wife, had only one totem. 

Certainly woman is given a high place in their sacred lore. The chiefwife of Byamee, Birrahgnooloo, is claimed as the mother of all, forshe, like him, had a totem for each part of her body; no one totem canclaim her, but all do. 

Mother of all, though mother of none in particular, she was not to bevulgarised by ordinary domestic relations, For those purposesCunnumbeillee was at hand, as a bearer of children and a caterer. Yetit was Birrahgnooloo whom Byamee best loved and made his companion, giving her power and position which no other held. She too, like him, is partially crystallised in the sky-camp, where they are together; theupper parts of their bodies are as on earth; to her, those who wantfloods go, and when willing to grant their requests, she bidsCunnumbeillee start the flood-ball of flood rolling down the mountains. Cunnumbeillee, as has been said, had but one totem which her childrenderived from her. 

Byamee is the originator of things less archaic and important thantotemism. There is a large stone fish-trap at Brewarrina, on the BarwanRiver. It is said to have been made by Byamee and his gigantic sons, just as later Greece attributed the walls of Tiryns to the Cyclops, oras Glasgow Cathedral has been explained in legend as the work of thePicts. Byamee also established the rule that there should be a commoncamping-ground for the various tribes, where, during the fishingfestival, peace should be strictly kept, all meeting to enjoy the fish, and do their share towards preserving the fisheries. 

Byamee still exists. I have been told by an old native, as will beshown later, that prayers for the souls of the dead used to beaddressed to Byamee at funerals; certainly not a practice derived fromProtestant missionaries. 

Byamee is supposed to listen to the cry of an orphan for rain. Such anone has but to run out when the clouds are overhead, and, looking atthe sky, call aloud

'Gullee boorboor. Gullee boorboor. '

'Water come down. Water come down. '

Or should it be raining too much, the last possible child of a womancan stop it by burning Midjeer wood. 

Bootha told me after one rain that she had sent one of her tutelaryspirits to tell Boyjerh--Byamee is called by women and childrenBoyjerh--that the country wanted rain. In answer he had taken up ahandful of crystal pebbles and thrown them from the sky down into thewater in a stone basin on the top of the sacred mountain; as thepebbles fell in, the water splashed up into the clouds above, whence itdescended as the desired rain. 

It is told to me, that at some initiatory rites the oldest medicineman, or Wirreenun, present addresses a prayer to Byamee, asking him togive them long life, as they have kept his law. 

The tribesmen do not profess to pray, or to have prayed, to Byamee onany occasions except at funerals, and at the conclusion of the Boorah. 

As for Byamee's relation to ethics, it will be stated in the chapter onthe tribal ceremonies, while the stories as to the rewards andpunishments of the future life will be given in their place. Baiame'stroubles with a kind of disobedient deputy, Darramulun, will also benarrated: the myth is current, too, among the Wir djuri tribe. 

Other particulars about Byamee will occur in the course of laterchapters: here I have tried to give a general summary of the nativebeliefs. The reader may interpret them in his own fashion, and maydecide as to whether the beliefs do or do not indicate a kind of'religion, ' whether 'a recognised religion' or not. There isnecessarily, of course, an absence of temples and of priests, and Ihave found no trace or vestige of sacrifice. What may be said on theaffirmative side as to the religious aspect of the belief, the readercan supply from the summary of facts. Other potent beings occur innative myth, as we shall show, but there appears to exist between themand mankind no relation of affection, reverence, or duty, as in thecase of Byamee. 

Here it seems necessary to advert to a remark of Mr. Howitt's whichappears to be erroneous. He says 'that part of Australia which I haveindicated as the habitat of that belief' (namely, in an All Father), 'is also the area where there has been the advance from group marriageto individual marriage; from descent in the female line to that in themale line; where the primitive organisation under the class system hasbeen more or less replaced by an organisation based on locality; infact, where these advances have been made to which I have more thanonce drawn attention. '[Howitt, NATIVE TRIBES OF SOUTH-EAST AUSTRALIA, p. 500. ]

Mr. Howitt forgets that he himself attributes the early system ofdescent through women, and also the belief in an All Father (Nurelli), to the Wiimbaio tribe [IBID. P. 489] to the Wotjobaluk tribe, [NATIVETRIBES OF SOUTH-EAST AUSTRALIA, pp. 120, 490. ] to the Kamilaroi, to theTa-Ta-thi, [IBID. P. 494] while female descent and the belief in Baiamemark the Euahlayi and Wir djuri. [JOURNAL, ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE, XXV. , p. 297. ]

These tribes cover an enormous area of country, and, though they havenot advanced to male kinship, they all possess the belief in an AllFather. That belief does not appear to be in any way associated withadvance in social organisation, for Messrs. Spencer and Gillen cannotfind a trace of it in more than one of the central and northern tribes, which have male kinship, and a kind of local self-government. On theother hand, it does occur among southern tribes, like the Kurnai, whichhave advanced almost altogether out of totemism. 

In short, we have tribes with female descent, such as the Dieri andUrabunna, to whom all knowledge of an All Father is denied. We havemany large and important tribes with female descent who certainlybelieve in an All Father. We have tribes of the highest socialadvancement who are said to show no vestige of the belief, and we havetribes also socially advanced who hold the belief with great vigour. Inthese circumstances, authenticated by Mr. Howitt himself, it isimpossible to accept the theory that belief in an All Father is onlyreached in the course of such advance to a higher social organisationas is made by tribes who reckon descent in the male line. 

CHAPTER III

RELATIONSHIPS AND TOTEMS

Some savants question the intellectual ability of the blacks becausethey have not elaborate systems of numeration and notation, which intheir life were quite unneeded. Such as were needed were supplied. Theyare often incorporate in one word-noun and qualifying numericaladjective, as for example--

Gundooee A SOLITARY EMU

Booloowah TWO EMUS

Oogle oogle FOUR EMUS

Gayyahnai FIVE OR SIX EMUS

Gonurrun FOURTEEN OR FIFTEEN EMUS. 

I fancy the brains that could have elaborated their marriage rules werecapable of workaday arithmetic if necessary, and few indeed of us knowour family trees as the blacks know theirs. 

Even the smallest black child who can talk seems full of knowledge asto all his relations, animate and inanimate, the marriage taboos, andthe rest of their complicated system. 

The first division among this tribe is a blood distinction (Iphratries'):--

Gwaigulleeah LIGHT BLOODED

Gwaimudthen DARK BLOODED. 

This distinction is not confined to the human beings of the tribe, whomust be of one or the other, but there are the Gwaigulleeah andGwaimudthen divisions in all things. The first and chief division inour tribe, as regards customary marriage law, is the partition of alltribes-folk into these 'phratries, ' or 'exogamous moieties. ' While inmost Australian tribes the meanings of the names of phratries are lost, where the meanings are known they are usually names of animals--Eagle, Hawk, and Crow, White Cockatoo and Black Cockatoo, and so forth. Amongthe great Kamilaroi tribe, akin in speech to the Euahlayi, the names ofphratries, DILBI and KUPATHIN, are of unknown significance. TheEuahlayi names, we have seen, are Gwaigulleeah, Light blooded, andGwaimudthen, Dark blooded. 

The origin of this division is said to be the fact that the originalancestors were, on the one side, a red race coming from the west, theGwaigulleeah; on the other, a dark race coming from the east. 

A Gwaigulleeah may under no circumstances marry a Gwaigulleeah; he orshe must mate with a Gwaimudthen. This rule has no exception. A childbelongs to the same phratry as its mother. 

The next name of connection is local, based on belonging to one countryor hunting-ground; this name a child takes from its mother wherever itmay happen to be born. Any one who is called a Noongahburrah belongs tothe Noongah-Kurrajong country; Ghurreeburrah to the orchid country;Mirriehburrah, poligonum country; Bibbilah, Bibbil country, and so on. This division, not of blood relationship, carries no independentmarriage restriction, but keeps up a feeling equivalent to Scotch, Irish, or English, and is counted by the blacks as 'relationship, ' butnot sufficiently so to bar marriage. 

The next division is the name in common for all daughters, or all sonsof one family of sisters. The daughters take the name from theirmaternal grandmother, the sons from their maternal great-uncle. 

Of these divisions, called I Matrimonial Classes, there are four foreach sex, bearing the same names as among the Kamilaroi. The namesare--

 Masculine Kumbo BROTHER AND SISTER Feminine, Bootha

 Masculine Murree BROTHER AND SISTER Feminine, Matha

 Masculine Hippi BROTHER AND SISTER Feminine, Hippitha

 Masculine Kubbee BROTHER AND SISTER Feminine, Kubbootha

The children of Bootha will be

 Masculine Hippi BROTHER AND SISTER Feminine, Hippitha

The children of Matha will be

 Masculine Kubbee BROTHER AND SISTER Feminine, Kubbootha

The children of Hippatha will be

 Masculine Kumbo BROTHER AND SISTER Feminine, Bootha

The children of Kubbootha will be

 Masculine Murree BROTHER AND SISTER Feminine, Matha

Thus, you see, they take, if girls, their grandmother's and hersisters' 'class' names in common; if boys, the 'class' name of theirgrandmother's brothers. 

Bootha can only marry Murree, Matha can only marry Kumbo, Hippitha can only marry Kubbee, Kubbootha can only marry Hippi. 

Both men and women are often addressed by these names when spoken to. 

A PROPOS of names, a child is never called at night by the same name asin the daytime, lest the 'devils' hear it and entice him away. 

Names are made for the newly born according to circumstances; a girlborn under a Dheal tree, for example, was called Dheala. Any incidenthappening at the time of birth may gain a child a name, such as aparticular lizard passing. Two of my black maids were called afterlizards in that way: Barahgurree and Bogginbinnia. 

Nimmaylee is a porcupine with the spines coming; such an one havingbeen brought to the camp just as a girl was born, she became Nimmaylee. 

The mothers, with native politeness, ask you to give their childrenEnglish names, but much mote often use in familiar conversation eitherthe Kumbo Bootha names, or others derived from place of birth, fromsome circumstance connected with it, a child's mispronunciation of aword, some peculiarity noticed in the child, or still more often theycall each other by the name proclaiming the degree of relationship. 

For example, a girl calls the daughters of her mother and of her auntsalike sisters. 

 Boahdee SISTER Wambaneah FULL BROTHER Dayadee HALF BROTHER Gurrooghee UNCLE Wulgundee UNCLE'S WIFE Kummean SISTER'S SISTER Numbardee MOTHER Numbardee MOTHER'S SISTER Beealahdee FATHER Beealahdee MOTHER'S SISTERS' HUSBANDS Gnahgnahdee GRANDMOTHER ON FATHER'S SIDE Bargie GRANDMOTHER ON MOTHER'S SIDE Dadadee GRANDFATHER ON MOTHER'S SIAE Gurroomi A SON-IN-LAW, OR ONE WHO COULD BE A SON-IN-LAW Goonooahdee A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW, OR ONE WHO COULD BE A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW Gooleerh HUSBAND OR WIFE, OR ONE WHO MIGHT BE SO. 

So relationships are always kept in their memories by being daily usedas names. There are other general names, too, such as--

 Mullayerh A TEMPORARY MATE OR COMPANION Moothie A FRIEND OF CHILDHOOD IN AFTER LIFE Doore-oothai A LOVER Dillahga AN ELDERLY MAN OF THE SAME TOTEM Tuckandee A YOUNG MAN OF THE SAME TOTEM, RECKONED AS A SORT OF BROTHER. 

Another list of names used ordinarily is--

 Boothan LAST POSSIBLE CHILD OF A WOMAN Mahmee OLD WOMAN Beewun MOTHERLESS GIRL Gowun FATHERLESS GIRL Yumbui FATHERLESS BOY Moogul ONLY CHILD. 

Those of the same totem are reckoned as brothers and sisters, so cannotintermarry. 'Boyjerh' relations, as those on the father's side arecalled, are not so important as on the mother's side, but are stillrecognised. 

Now for the great Dhe, or totem system, by some called Mah, but Dhe, isthe more correct. 

Dinewan, or emu, is a totem, and has amongst its multiplex totems' or'sub-totems'--

 Goodoo OR CODFISH Gumbarl SILVER BREAM Inga CRAYFISH Boomool SHRIMPS Gowargay WATER EMU SPIRIT Moograbah BIG BLACK-AND-WHITE MAGPIE Booloorl LITTLE NIGHT OWL Byahmul BLACK SWAN Eerin A LITTLE NIGHT OWL Beerwon A BIRD LIKE A SWALLOW Dulloorah THE MANNA-BRINGING BIRDS Bunnyal FLIES Dheal SACRED FIRE Gidya AN ACACIA Yaraan AN EUCALYPTUS Deenyi IRONBARK Guatha QUANDONG Goodooroo RIVER BOX Mirieh POLIGONUM Yarragerh THE NORTH-EAST WIND Guie TREE--OWENIA ACIDULA Niune WILD MELON Binnamayah BIG SALTBUSH. 

Bohrah, the kangaroo, is another totem, and is considered somewhat akinto Dinewan. For example, in a quarrel between, say, the Bohrah totemand the Beewee, the Dinewan would take the part of the former ratherthan the latter. 

Amongst the multiplex totems of Bohrah are--

 Goolahwilleel TOPKNOT PIGEONS Boogoodoogadah THE RAIN-BIRD Gilah FINK-BREASTED PARROT Quarrian YELLOW AND RED BREASTED GREY PARROT Buln Buln GREEN PARROT Gidgerregah SMALL GREEN PARROT Cocklerina A ROSE AND YELLOW CRESTED WHILE COCKATOO Youayah FROGS Guiggahboorool BIGGEST ANT-BEDS Dunnia WATTLE TREE Mulga AN ACACIA Gnoel SANDALWOOD Brigalow AN ACACIA Yarragerh NORTH-EAST WIND, SAME AS DINEWAN'S. 

All clouds, lightning, thunder, and rain that is not blown up by thewind of another totem, belong to Bohrah. 

Beewee, brown and yellow Iguana, numerically a very powerful totem, hasfor multiplex totems--

 Gai-gai CATFISH Curreequinquin BUTCHER-BIRD Gougourgahgah LAUGHING-JACKASS Deenbi DIVERS Birroo Birroo SAND BUILDERS Deegeenboyah SOLDIER-BIRD Weedah BOWER-BIRD Mooregoo Mooregoo BLACK IBIS Booloon WHITE CRANE Noodulnoodul WHISTLING DUCKS Goborrai STARS Gulghureer PINK LIZARD Goori PINE Talingerh NATIVE FUCHSIA Guiebet NATIVE PASSION FRUIT Boonburr POISON TREE Gungooday STOCKMAN'S WOOD Guddeeboondoo BITTER BARK Boorgoolbean or Mooloowerh A SHRUB WITH CREAMY BLOSSOMS Yarragerh SPRING WIND Muddernwurderh WEST WIND. 

Those with whom the Beewee shares the winds he counts as relations. Itis the Beewees of the Gwaimudthen, or dark blood, who own Yarragerh(spring wind); the light-blooded own Mudderwurderh (west wind). 

Another totem is Gouyou, or Bandicoot. The animal has disappeared fromthe Narran district, but the totem tribe is still strong, though not sonumerous as either the Beewees or Dinewans. 

Multiplex totems of Gouyou--

 Wayarnberh TURTLE Mungghee MUSSELS Piggiebillah PORCUPINE Dayahminnah SMALL CARPET SNAKE Mungun LARGE CARPET SNAKE Douyouie ANTS Moondoo WASPS Murgahmuggui SPIDER Bayarh GREEN-HEAD ANTS Mubboo BEEFWOOD Coolabah EUCALYPTUS, FLOODED BOX Bingahwingul NEEDLEBUSH Mayarnah STONES Gheeger Gheeger COLD WEST WIND Gibbon YAM Boondoon KINGFISHER Durnerh brown PIGEON Guineeboo REDBREASTS Munggheewurraywurraymul SEAGULLS Guiggah ordinary ANT-BEDS. 

Next we take Doolungaiyah, or Bilber, commonly known as Bilby, a largespecies of rat the size of a small rabbit, like which it burrows;almost died out now. The totem clan are very few here too, so it isdifficult to learn much as to their multiplex totems, amongst which, however, are--

 Ooboon BLUE-TONGUED LIZARD Goomblegubbon PLAINS TURKEY OR BUSTARD Boothagullagulla BIRD LIKE SEAGULL Tekel Barain LARGE WHITE AMARYLLIS. 

Douyou, black snake, totem claims--

 Noongah KURRAJONG--STERCULIA Carbeen AN EUCALYPTUS Booroorerh BULRUSHES Gargooloo YAMS Yhi THE SUN (FEMININE) Gunyahmoo THE EAST WIND Kurreah CROCODILE Wa-ah SHELLS Douyougurrah EARTH-WORMS Deereeree WILLY WAGTAIL Burrengeen JEEWEE Bouyoudoorunnillee GREY CRANES Ouyan CURLEW Bouyougah CENTIPEDES Bubburr BIG SNAKE Woggoon SCRUB TURKEY Beeargah CRANE Waggestmul KIND OF RAT Wi SMALL FISH Millan SMALL WATER-YAM--SOURTOP

Moodai, or opossum, another totem, claims--

 Bibbil POPULAR-LEAVED GUM Bumble CAPPARIS MITCHELLIANNI Birah WHITEWOOD Beebuyer YELLOW FLOWERING BROOM Illay HOP BUSH Mirrie WILD CURRANT BUSH Mooregoo SWAMP OAK--BELAH Mungoongarlee LARGEST IGUANA Mouyi WHITE COCKATOO Beeleer BLACK COCKATOO Wungghee WHITE NIGHT OWL Mooregoo MOPOKE Narahdarn BAT Bahloo MOON Euloowirrie RAINBOW Bibbee WOODPECKER Billai CRIMSON WING PARROT Durrahgeegin GREEN FROG. 

Maira, a paddy melon, claims as multiplex totems--

 Wahn THE CROW Mullyan THE EAGLE-HAWK Gooboothoo DOVES Goolayyalilee PELICAN Oonaywah BLACK DIVER Gunundar WHILE DIVER Birriebungar SMALL DIVER Mounin MOSQUITO Mouninguggahgui MOSQUITO BIRD Bullah Bullah BUTTERFLIES Tucki A KIND OF BREAM Beewerh BONY BREAM Gulbarlee SHINGLEBACK LIZARD Budtha ROSEWOOD Goodoogah YALLI Wayarah WILD GRAPES Garwah RIVERS Gooroongoodilbaydilbay SOUTH WIND. 

It is said a Maira will never be drowned, for the rivers are asub-totem of theirs; but I notice they nevertheless learn to swim. 

Yubbah, carpet snake, as a kin has almost disappeared, only a fewmembers remaining to claim

 Mungahran HAWK. 

Burrahwahn, a big sandhill rat, now extinct here, claims--

 Mien DINGO Dalleerin A LIZARD Gaengaen WILD LIME Willerhderh, or Douran Douran NORTH WIND Bralgah NATIVE COMPANION. 

Buckandee, native cat kin, claim--

 Buggila LEOPARD WOOD Bean MYALL Bunbundoolooey A LITTLE BROWN BIRD Dunnee Bunbun A VERY LARGE GREEN PARROT Dooroongul HAIRY CATERPILLAR. 

Amongst other totems were once the Bralgah, Native Companion, andDibbee, a sort of sandpiper, but their kins are quite extinct as far asour blacks are concerned; the birds themselves are still plentiful. TheBralgah birds have a Boorah ground at the back of our oldhorse-paddock, a smooth, well-beaten circle, where they dance thegrotesque dances peculiar to them, which are really most amusing towatch, somewhat like a set of kitchen lancers into which some dignifieddames have got by mistake, and a curious mixture is the dance ofdignity and romping. 

The totem kins numerically strongest with us were the Dinewans, Beewees, Bohrahs, and Gouyous. Further back in the country, they tellme, the crow, the eaglehawk, and the bees were original totems, notmultiplex ones, as with us. 

It may be as well for those interested in the marriage law puzzles tostate that Dinewans, Bohrahs, Douyous, and Doolungayers are always

 Kumbo Hippi Bootha Hippitha. 

That Moodai, Gouyou, Beewee, Maira, Yubbah are always

 Murree Kubbee Matha Kubbootha. 

Our blacks may and do eat their hereditary totems, if so desirous, withno ill effects to themselves, either real or imaginary; their totemnames they take from their mothers. They may, in fact, in any way usetheir totems, but never abuse them. A Beewee, for example, may kill, orsee another kill, and eat or use a Beewee, or one of its multiplextotems, and show no sign of sorrow or anger, but should any one speakevil of the Beewee, or of any of its multiplex totems, there will be aquarrel. 

There will likewise be a quarrel if any one dares to mimic a totem, either by drawing one, except at Boorahs, or imitating it in any way. 

There are members of the tribes, principally wizards, or men intendedto be such, who are given an individual totem called Yunbeai. This theymust never eat or they will die. Any injury to his yunbeai hurts theman himself In danger he has the power to assume the shape of hisyunbeai, which of course is a great assistance to him, especially inlegendary lore; but, on the other hand, a yunbeai is almost a Heel ofAchilles to a wirreenun (see the chapter on Medicine and Magic). 

Women are given a yunbeai too, sometimes. One girl had a yunbeai givenher as a child, and she was to be brought up as a witch, but she caughtrheumatic fever which left her with St. Vitus's dance. The yunbeaiduring one of her bad attacks jumped out of her, and she lost herchance of witchery. One old fellow told me once that when he was goingto a public-house he took a miniature form of his yunbeai, which wasthe Kurrea--crocodile--out of himself and put it safety in a bottle ofwater, in case by any chance he got drunk, and an enemy, knowing hisyunbeai, coaxed it away. I wanted to see that yunbeai in a bottle, butnever succeeded. 

The differences between the hereditary totem or Dhe, inherited from themother, and the individual totem or yunbeai, acquired by chance, arethese: Food restrictions do not affect the totem, but marriagerestrictions do; the yunbeai has no marriage restrictions; a man havingan opossum for yunbeai may marry a woman having the same either as heryunbeai or hereditary totem, other things being in order, but under nocircumstances must a yunbeai be eaten by its possessor. 

The yunbeai is a sort of alter ego; a man's spirit is in his yunbeai, and his yunbeai's spirit in him. 

A Minggah, or spirit-haunted tree of an individual, usually chosen fromamongst a man's multiplex totems, is another source of danger to him, as also a help. 

As Mr. Canton says: 'What singular threads of superstition bind theends of the earth together! In an old German story a pair of loversabout to part chose each a tree, and by the tree of the absent one wasthe one left to know of his wellbeing or the reverse. In time his treedied, and she, hearing no news of him, pined away, her tree witheringwith her, and both dying at the same time. 

Well, that is just what a wirreenun would believe about his Minggah. These Minggah and Goomarh spirit trees and stones always make me think, perhaps irrelevantly, of one of the restored sayings of the Lord, whichends 'Raise the stone, and there thou shalt find Me; cleave the wood, and I am there. '

Blacks were early scientists in some of their ideas, being beforeDarwin with the evolution theory, only theirs was a kind of evolutionaided by Byamee. I dare say, though, the missing link is somewhere inthe legends. I rather think the Central Australians have the key to it. One old man here was quite an Ibsen with his ghastly version ofheredity. 

He said, when I asked him what harm it would do for, say, a Beeweetotem man to come from the Gulf country, where his tribe had never hadany communication with ours, and marry a girl here, --that all Beeweeswere originally changed from the Beewee form into human shape. TheBeewee of the Gulf, originally, like the Beewee here, had the sameanimal shape, and should two of this same blood mate the offspringwould throw back, as they say of horses, to the original strain, andpartake of iguana (Beewee) attributes either in nature or form. 

From the statements just given, it will be seen that the Euahlayi arein the Kamilaroi stage of social organisation. They reckon descent inthe female line: they have 'phratries' and four matrimonial classes, with totems within the phratries. In their system of 'multiplex-totems'or 'sub-totems' they resemble the Wotjobaluk tribe. [Howitt, NATIVE TRIBESOF SOUTH-EAST AUSTRALIA, pp. 121, 125, 453, 455. ] The essence of the'sub-totem' system is the division of all things into the categoriesprovided by the social system of the human society. The arrangement is avery early attempt at a scientific system of classification. 

Perhaps the most peculiar feature in the organisation of the Euahlayiis the existence of Matrimonial Classes, which are named as in theKamilaroi tongue, while the phratry names are not those of the Kamilaroi, and alone among phratry names in Australia which can be translated, arenot names of animals. The phratries have thus no presiding animals, and inthe phratries there are no totem kins of the phratriac names. The cause ofthese peculiarities is matter of conjecture. 

A peculiarity in the totemic system of the Euahlayi--the right of eachindividual to kill and eat his own totem--has been mentioned, and maybe associated here with other taboos on food. 

The wunnarl, or food taboo, was taken off a different kind of food forboys at each Boorah, until at last they could eat what they pleasedexcept their yunbeai, or individual familiar: their Dhe, or familytotem, was never wunnarl or taboo to them. 

A child may not perhaps know that it has had a yunbeai given to it, andmay eat of it in ignorance, when immediately they say that childsickens. 

Should a boy or a girl eat plains turkey or bustard eggs while theywere yet wunnarl, or taboo, he or she would lose his or her sight. Should they eat the eggs or flesh of kangaroo or piggiebillah, theirskins would break out in sores and their limbs wither. 

Even honey is wunnarl at times to all but the very old or very young. Fish is wunnarl for about four years after his Boorah to a boy, andabout four months after she is wirreebeeun, or young woman, to a girl. 

When the wunnarl was taken off a particular kind of meat, a wizardpoured some of the melted fat and inside blood of that animal or bird, as the case might be, over the boy, and rubbed it into him. The boy, shaking and shivering, made a spluttering noise with his lips; afterthat he could eat of the hitherto forbidden food. 

This did not necessarily refer to his totem, but any food wunnarl tohim, though it is possible that there may have been a time in tribalhistory, now forgotten, when totems were wunnarl, and these ceremoniesmay be all that is left to point to that time. 

When a boy, after his first Boorah, killed his first emu, whether itwas his Dhe, or totem, or not, his father made him lie on the birdbefore it was cooked. Afterwards a wirreenun (wizard) and the fatherrubbed the fat on the boy's joints, and put apiece of the flesh in hismouth. 'The boy chewed it, making a noise as he did so of fright anddisgust; finally he dropped the meat from his mouth, making a blowingnoise through his lips of 'Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!' After that he could eat theflesh. 

A girl, too, had to be rubbed with the fat and blood of anything fromwhich the wunnarl was to be removed for her. No ceremony of this sortwould be gone through with the flesh, fat, or blood of any one'syunbeai, or individual familiar animal, for under no circumstanceswould any one kill or eat their yunbeai. 

Concerning the yunbeai, or animal familiar of the individual, conferredby the medicine men, more is to be said in the ensuing chapters. Theyunbeai answers to the Manitu obtained by Red Indians during the fastat puberty; to the 'Bush Soul' of West Africa; to the Nagual of SouthAmerican tribes; and to the Nyarong of Borneo. The yunbeai has hithertobeen scarcely remarked on among Australian tribes. Mr. Thomas declaresit to be 'almost non-existent' in Australia, mentioning as exceptionsits presence among the Euahlayi; the Wotjobaluk in Victoria; theYaraikkanna of Cape York; and 'probably' some of the northern tribes onthe other side of the Gulf of Carpentaria. [MAN (1904), No. 53, p. 85. ]

Perhaps attention has not been directed to the animal familiar inAustralia, or perhaps it is really an infrequent thing among thetribes. 

CHAPTER IV

THE MEDICINE MEN

I used to wonder how the wirreenuns or doctor-wizards of the tribeattained their degrees. 

I found out that the old wizards fix upon a young boy who is to followtheir profession. They take him to a tribal burial-ground at night. There they tie him down and leave him, after having lit some fires offat at short distances round him. 

During the night that boy, if he be shaky in his nerves, has rather abad time. 

One doctor of our tribe gave me a recital of his own early experience. 

He said, after the old fellows had gone, a spirit came to him, andwithout undoing his fastenings by which he was bound, turned him over, then went away. Scarcely had the spirit departed when a big star fellstraight from the sky alongside the boy; he gazed fixedly at it, andsaw emerge from it, first the two hind legs, then the whole of a Beeweeor iguana. The boy's totem was a Beewee, so he knew it would not hurthim. It ran close up to him, climbed on him, ran down his whole length, then went away. 

Next came a snake straight towards his nose, hissing all the time. Hewas frightened now, for the snake is the hereditary enemy of theiguana. The boy struggled to free himself, but ineffectually. He triedto call out but found himself dumb. He tried to shut his eyes, or turnthem from the snake, but was powerless to do so. The snake crawled onto him and licked him. Then it went away, leaving the boy as oneparalysed. Next came a huge figure to him, having in its hand a gunnaior yam stick. The figure drove this into the boy's head, pulled it outthrough his back, and in the hole thus made placed a 'Gubberah, ' orsacred stone, with the help of which much of the boy's magic in thefuture was to be worked. 

This stone was about the size and something the shape of a small lemon, looking like a smoothed lump of semi-transparent crystal. It is in suchstones that the wi-wirreenuns, or cleverest wizards, see visions of thepast, of what is happening in the present at a distance, and of thefuture; also by directing rays from them towards their victims they aresaid to cause instantaneous death. 

Next, to the doctor-boy on trial, came the spirits of the dead whocorroboreed round him, chanting songs full of sacred lore as regardsthe art of healing, and instructions how, when he needed it, he couldcall upon their aid. 

Then they silently and mysteriously disappeared. The next day one ofthe old wizards came to release the boy; he kept him away from the campall day and at night took him to a weedah, or bower-bird's, playground. There he tied him down again, and there the boy was visited again bythe spirits of the dead, and more lore was imparted to him. 

The reason given for taking him to a weedah's playground is, thatbefore the weedah was changed into a bird, he was a great wirreenun;that is why, as a bird, he makes such a collection of pebbles and bonesat his playground. 

The bower-bird's playgrounds are numerous in the bush. They are made ofgrass built into a tent-shaped arch open at each end, through which theweedahs run in and out, and scattered in heaps all around are whitebones and black stones, bits of glass, and sometimes we have foundcoins, rings, and brooches. 

The weedahs do not lay their eggs at their playgrounds their nests arehard to find. A little boy always known as 'Weedah, ' died lately, soprobably a new name will have to be found for the bird, or to mentionit will be taboo, at all events before the old people, who never allowthe names of the dead to be mentioned. 

For several nights the medical student was tied down in case he shouldbe frightened and run away, after that he was left without bonds. Hewas kept away from the camp for about two months. But he was notallowed to become a practitioner until he was some years older: firsthe dealt in conjuring, later on he was permitted to show his knowledgeof pharmacy. 

His conjuring cures are divers. 

A burn he cures by sucking lumps of charcoal from it. Obstinate painsin the chest, the wizard says, must be caused by some enemy having puta dead person's hair', or bone in it. Looking wisdom personified intruly professional manner, he sucks at the affected spot, and soonproduces from his mouth hair, bones, or whatever he said was there. 

If this faith-healing does not succeed, a stronger wizard than he musthave bewitched the patient; he will consult the spirits. To that end hegoes to his Minggah, a tree or stone--more often a tree, only the verygreatest wirreenuns have stones, which are called Goomah--where his ownand any spirits friendly towards him may dwell. 

He finds out there who the enemy is, and whence he obtained his poison. If a wirreenun is too far away to consult his friendly spirits inperson, he can send his Mullee Mullee, or dream spirit, to interviewthem. 

He may learn that an enemy has captured the sick person's Doowee, ordream spirit--only wirreenuns' dream spirits are Mullee Mullee, theothers are Doowee--then he makes it his business to get that Dooweeback. 

These dream spirits are rather troublesome possessions while theirhuman habitations sleep they can leave them and wander at will. Thethings seen in dreams are supposed to be what the Doowees see whileaway from the sleeping bodies. This wandering of the Doowees is a greatchance for their enemies: capture the Doowee and the body sickens;knock the Doowee about before it returns and the body wakes up tiredand languid. Should the Doowee not return at all, the person from whomit wandered dies. When you wake up unaccountably tired in the morning, be sure your Doowee has been 'on the spree, ' having a free fight orsomething of that sort. And though your Doowee may give you at timeslovely visions of passing paradises, on the whole you would be betterwithout him. 

There is on the Queensland border country a dillee bag full ofunclaimed Doowees. The wirreenun who has charge of this is one of themost feared of wirreenuns; he is a great magician, who, with hiswonder-working glassy stones, can conjure up visions of the old fleshlyhabitations of the captured Doowees. 

He has Gubberahs, or clever stones, in which are the active spirits ofevil-working devils, as well as others to work good. Should a Dooweeonce get into this wirreenun's bag, which has the power ofself-movement, there is not a great chance of getting it back, thoughit is sometimes said to be done by a rival combination of magic. Theworst of it is that ordinary people have no power over their Doowees;all they can do is to guard against their escaping by trying to keeptheir mouths shut while asleep. 

The wirreenuns are masters of their Mullee Mullees, sending them wherethey please, to do what they are ordered, always provided they do notmeet a greater than themselves. 

All sorts of complications arise through the substitution of mad orevil spirits for the rightful Doowee. Be sure if you think any one hassuddenly changed his character unaccountably, there has been somehankey-pankey with that person's Doowee. One of the greatest warningsof coming evil is to see your totem in a dream; such a sign is a heraldof misfortune to you or one of your immediate kin. Should a wirreenun, perhaps for enmity, perhaps for the sake of ransom, decide to capture aDoowee, he will send his Mullee Mullee out to do it, bidding the MulleeMullee secrete the Doowee in his--the wirreenun's--Minggah, tree orrock. 

When he is consulted as to the return of the missing Doowee, he willorder the one who has lost it to Sleep, then the Doowee, should theterms made suit the wirreenun, re-enters the body. Should it not do so, the Doowee-less one is doomed to die. 

In a wirreenun's Minggah, too, are often secreted shadow spirits stolenfrom their owners, who are by their loss dying a lingering death, forno man can live without Mulloowil, his shadow. Every one has a shadowspirit which he is very careful not to parade before his enemies, asany injury to it affects himself. A wirreenun can gradually shrink theshadow's size, the owner sickens and dies. 'May your shadow never beless!'

The shadow of a wirreenun is, like his head, always mahgarl, or taboo;any one touching either will be made to suffer for such sacrilege. 

A man's Minggah is generally a tree from amongst his multiplex totems, 'as having greater reason to help him, being of the same family. 

In his Minggah a wirreenun will probably keep some Wundah, or whitedevil spirits, with which to work evil. There, too, he often keeps hisyunbeai, or animal spirit--that is, his individual totem, nothereditary one. All wirreenuns have a yunbeai, and sometimes a specialfavourite of the wirreenuns is given a yunbeai too--or in the event ofany one being very ill, he is given a yunbeai, and the strength of thatanimal goes into the patient, making him strong again, or a dyingwirreenun leaves his yunbeai to some one else. Though this spirit givesextra strength it likewise gives an extra danger, for any injury to theanimal hurts the man too; thus even wirreenuns are exposed to danger. 

No one, as we have said, must eat the flesh of his yunbeai animal; hemay of his family totem, inherited from his mother, but of his yunbeaior individual familiar, never. 

A wirreenun can assume the shape of his yunbeai; so if his yunbeaiwere, for example, a bird, and the wirreenun were in danger of beingwounded or killed, he would change himself into that bird and fly away. 

A great wirreenun can substitute one yunbeai for another, as was donewhen the opossum disappeared from our district, and the wirreenun, whose yunbeai it was, sickened and lay ill for months. Two verypowerful wirreenuns gave him a new yunbeai, piggiebillah, theporcupine. His recovery began at once. The porcupine had been one ofhis favourite foods; from the time its spirit was put into him as hisyunbeai, he never touched it. 

A wirreenun has the power to conjure up a vision of his particularyunbeai, which he can make visible to those whom he chooses shall seeit. 

The blacks always told me that a very old man on the Narran, dead someyears ago, would show me his yunbeai if I wished; it was Oolah, theprickly lizard. 

One day I went to the camp, saw the old man in his usual airy costume, only assumed as I came in sight, a tailless shirt. One of the gins saidsomething to him; he growled an answer; she seemed persuading him to dosomething. Presently he moved away to a quite clear spot on the otherside of the fire; he muttered something in a sing-song voice, andsuddenly I saw him beating his head as if in accompaniment to his song, and then--where it came from I can't say--there beside him was alizard. That fragment of a shirt was too transparent to have hiddenthat lizard; he could not have had it up his sleeve, because hissleeves were in shreds. It may have been a pet lizard that he charmedin from the bush by his song, but I did not see it arrive. 

They told me this old man had two yunbeai, the other was a snake. Heoften had them in evidence at his camp, and when he died they were seenbeside him; there they remained until he was put into his coffin, thenthey disappeared and were never seen again. This man was the greatestof our local wizards, and I think really the last of the very cleverones. They say he was an old grey-headed man when Sir Thomas Mitchellfirst explored the Narran district in 1845. We always considered him acentenarian. 

It was through him that I heard some of the best of the old legends, with an interpreter to make good our respective deficiencies in eachother's language. 

In the lives of blacks, or rather in their deaths, the Gooweera, orpoison sticks or bones, play a great part. 

A Gooweera is a stick about six inches long and half an inch through, pointed at both ends. This is used for sickening' or killing men. 

A Guddeegooree is a similar stick, but much smaller, about three inchesin length, and is used against women. 

A man wishing to injure another takes one of these sticks, and warms itat a small fire he has made; he sticks the gooweera in the ground a fewinches from the fire. While it is warming, he chants an incantation, telling who he wants to kill, why he wants to kill him, how long hewants the process to last, whether it is to be sudden death or alingering sickness. 

The chant over, and the gooweera warmed, he takes it from the fire. Should he wish to kill his enemy quickly, he binds opossum hair cordround the stick, only leaving one point exposed; should he only want tomake his enemy ill, he only partially binds the stick. Then he ties aligature tightly round his right arm, between the wrist and elbow, andtaking the gooweera, or guddeegooree, according to the sex of hisenemy, he points it at the person he wishes to injure, taking care heis not seen doing it. 

Suddenly he feels the stick becoming heavier, he knows then it isdrawing the blood from his enemy. The poison is prevented from enteringhimself by the ligature he has put round his arm. When the gooweera isheavy enough he ceases pointing it. 

If he wants to kill the person outright, he goes away, makes a smallhole in the earth, makes a fire beside it. In this hole he puts a fewDheal leaves--Dheal is the tree sacred to the dead; on top of theleaves he puts the gooweera, then more leaves this done, he goes away. The next day he comes back with his hand he hits the earth beside theburied stick, out jumps the gooweera, his enemy is dead. He takes thestick, which may be used many times, and goes on his way satisfied. Should he only wish to inflict a lingering illness on his enemy, herefrains from burying the gooweera, and in this case it is possible tosave the afflicted person. 

For instance, should any one suspect the man with the gooweera ofhaving caused the illness, knowing of some grudge he had against thesick person, the one who suspects will probably intercede for mercy. The man may deny that he knows anything about it. He may, on the otherhand, confess that he is the agent. If the intercessions prevail, heproduces the gooweera, rubs it all over with iguana fat, and gives theintercessor what fat is left to rub over the sick person, who, on thatbeing done, gradually regains his normal condition after havingprobably been reduced to a living skeleton from an indescribablewasting sickness, which I suspect we spell funk. 

The best way to make a gooweera effective is to tie on the end of itsome hair from the victim's head--a lock of hair being, in this countryof upside-downs, a hate token instead of one of love. 

When the lock of hair method is chosen as a means of happy dispatch, the process is carried out by a professional. 

The hair is taken to the Boogahroo--a bag of hair and gooweeras--whichis kept by one or two powerful wirreenuns in a certain Minggah. Thewirreenun on receiving the hair asks to whom it belongs. Should itbelong to one of a tribe he is favourably disposed towards, he takesthe gooweera or hair, puts it in the bag, but never sings the I deathsong' over it, nor does he warm it. 

Should he, however, be indifferent, or ill-disposed towards theindividual or his tribe, he completes the process by going through theform already given, or rather when there are two wirreenuns at theBoogahroo, the receiver of the hair gives it to the other one, whosings the death-song, warms the gooweera, and burns the hair. Theperson from whose head the hair on the gooweera came, then bysympathetic magic, at whatever distance he is, dies a sudden orlingering death according to the incantation sung over thepoison-stick. Gooweeras need not necessarily be of wood; bone issometimes used, and in these latter days even iron. 

Sometimes at a large meeting of the blacks the Boogahroo wirreenunsbring the bag and produce from it various locks of hair, which theowners or their relations recognise, claim, and recover. They find out, from the wirreenun, who put them there; on gaining which knowledge atribal feud is declared--a regular vendetta, which lasts from generationto generation. 

If it be known that a man has stolen a lock of hair, he will be watchedand prevented from reaching the Boogahroo tree, if possible. 

These gooweeras used to be a terrible 'nuisance to us on the station. Areally good working black boy would say he must leave, he was going todie. On inquiry we would extract the information that some one waspointing a gooweera at him. 

Then sometimes the whole camp was upset; a strange black fellow hadarrived, and was said to have brought gooweeras. This reaching theboss's ears, confiscation would result in order to restore peace ofmind in the camp. Before I left the station a gin brought me a gooweeraand told me to keep it; she had stolen it from her husband, who hadthreatened to point it at her for talking to another man. 

Some of them, though they still had faith in the power of such charms, had faith also in me. I used to drive devils out with patent medicines;my tobacco and patent medicine accounts while collecting folk-lore wereenormous. 

A wirreenun, or, in fact, any one having a yunbeai, has the power tocure any one suffering an injury from whatever that yunbeai is; as, forexample, a man whose yunbeai is a black snake can cure a man who isbitten by a black snake, the method being to chant an incantation whichmakes the yunbeai enter the stricken body and drive out the poison. These various incantations are a large part of the wirreenun'seducation; not least valuable amongst them is the chant sung over thetracks of snakes, which renders the bites of those snakes innocuous. 

CHAPTER V

MORE ABOUT THE MEDICINE MEN AND LEECHCRAFT

The wirreenuns sometimes hold meetings which they allownon-professionals to attend. At these the spirits of the dead speakthrough the medium of those they liked best on earth, and whose bodiestheir spirits now animate. These spirits are known as Yowee, theequivalent of our soul, which never leave the body of the living, growing as it grows, and when it dies take judgment for it, and can atwill assume its perishable shape unless reincarnated in another form. So you see each person has at least three spirits, and some four, asfollows: his Yowee, soul equivalent; his Doowee, a dream spirit; hisMulloowil, a shadow spirit; and may be his Yunbeai, or animal spirit. 

Sometimes one person is so good a medium as to have the spirits ofalmost any one amongst the dead people speak through him or her, in thewhistling spirit voice. 

I think it is very clever of these mediums to have decided that spiritsall have one sort of voice. 

At these meetings there would be great rivalry among the wirreenuns. The one who could produce the most magical stones would be supposed tobe the most powerful. The strength of the stones in them, whetherswallowed or rubbed in through their heads, adds its strength totheirs, for these stones are living spirits, as it were, breathing andgrowing in their fleshly cases, the owner having the power to producethem at any time. The manifestation of such power is sometimes, at oneof these trials of magic, a small shower of pebbles as seeming to fallfrom the heads and mouths of the rivals, and should by chance any onesteal any of these as they fall, the power of the original possessorwould be lessened. The dying bequeath these stones, their most preciouspossessions, to the living wirreenun most nearly related to them. 

The wirreenun's health and power not only depend upon his crystals andyunbeai, but also on his Minggah; should an accident happen to that, unless he has another, he will die--in any case, he will sicken. Many ofthe legends deal with the magic of these spirit-animated trees. 

They are places of refuge in time of danger; no one save the wirreenun, whose spirit-tree it was, would dare to touch a refugee at a Minggah;and should the sanctuary be a Goomarh, or spirit-stone, not even awirreenun would dare to interfere, so that it is a perfectly safesanctuary from humanly dealt evil. But a refugee at a Minggah orGoomarh runs a great risk of incurring the wrath of the spirits, forMinggah are taboo to all but their own wirreenun. 

There was a Minggah, a great gaunt Coolabah, near our river garden. Some gilahs build in it every year, but nothing would induce the mostavaricious of black bird-collectors to get the young ones from there. 

A wirreenun's boondoorr, or dillee bag, holds a queer collection:several sizes of gooweeras, of both bone and wood, poison-stones, bones, gubberahs (sacred stones), perhaps a dillee--the biggest, mostmagical stone used for crystal-gazing, the spirit out of which is saidto go to the person of whom you want to hear, wherever he is, to seewhat he is doing, and then show you the person in the crystal. Adinahgurrerhlowah, or moolee, death-dealing stone, which is said toknock a person insensible, or strike him dead as lightning would by aninstantaneous flash. 

To these are added in this miscellaneous collection medicinal herbs, nose-bones to put through the cartilage of his nose when going to astrange camp, so that he will not smell strangers easily. The blackssay the smell of white people makes them sick; we in our arrogance hadthought it the other way on. 

Swansdown, shells, and woven strands of opossum's hair are valuable, and guarded as such in the boondoorr, which is sometimes kept forsafety in the wirreenun's Minggah. 

Having dealt with the supernatural part of a wirreenun's training, which argues cunning in him and credulity in others, I must get to hismore natural remedies. 

Snakebite they cure by sucking the wound and cauterising it with afirestick. They say they suck out the young snakes which have beeninjected into the bitten person. 

For headaches or pains which do not yield to the vegetable medicine, the wirreenuns tie a piece of opossum's hair string round the soreplace, take one end in their mouths, and pull it round and round untilit draws blood along the cord. For rheumatic pains in the head or inthe small of the back and loins they often bind the places affectedwith coils of opossum hair cord, as people do sometimes with redknitting-silk. 

The blacks have many herbal medicines, infusions of various barks, which they drink or wash themselves with, as the case may be. 

Various leaves they grind on their dayoorl-stones, rubbing themselveswith the pulp. Steam baths they make of pennyroyal, eucalyptus, pine, and others. 

The bleeding of wounds they stanch with the down of birds. 

For irritations of the skin they heat dwarf saltbush twigs and put thehot ends on the irritable parts. 

After setting a broken limb they put grass and bark round it, then bindit up. 

For swollen eyes they warm the leaves of certain trees and hold them tothe affected parts, or make an infusion of Budtha leaves and bathe theeyes in it. 

For rheumatic pains a fire is made, Budtha twigs laid on it, a littlewater thrown on them; the ashes raked out, a little more water thrownon, then the patient lies on top, his opossum rug spread over him, andthus his body is steamed. To induce perspiration, earth or sand is alsooften heated and placed in a hollowed-out space; on it the patientlies, and is covered with more heated earth. 

Pennyroyal infused they consider a great blood purifier they also use aheap as a pillow if suffering from insomnia. It is hard to believe ablack ever does suffer from insomnia, yet the cure argues the fact. 

Beefwood gum is supposed to strengthen children. It is also used forreducing swollen joints. A hole is made in the ground, some coals putin, on them some beefwood leaves, on top of them the gum; over the holeis put enough bark to cover it with a piece cut out of it the size ofthe swollen joint to be steamed, which joint is held over this hole. 

Various fats are also used as cures. Iguana fat for pains in the headand stiffness anywhere. Porcupine and opossum fats for preserving theirhair, fish fat to gloss their skins, emu fat in cold weather to savetheir skins from chapping. 

But what is supposed to strengthen them more than anything, bothmentally and physically, is a small piece of the flesh of a deadperson, or before a body is put in a bark coffin a few incisions weremade in it; when it was coffined it was stood on end, and what drainedfrom the incisions was caught in small wirrees and drunk by themourners. 

I fancy such cannibalism as has been in these tribes was not with aview to satisfaction of appetite but to the incorporation of additionalstrength. Either men or women are allowed to assist in thisparticularly nauseating funeral rite, but not the young people. 

Nor must their shadows fall across any one who has partaken of thisrite; should they do so some evil will befall them. 

If the mother of a young child has not enough milk for its sustenance, she is steamed over 'old man' saltbush, and hot twigs of it laid on herbreasts. To expedite the expulsion of the afterbirth, an old womanpresses the patient round the waist, gives her frequent drinks of coldwater, and sprinkles water over her. As soon as the afterbirth isremoved a steam is prepared. Two logs are laid horizontally, somestones put in between them, then some fire, on top leaves ofeucalyptus, and water is then sprinkled over them. The patient standsastride these logs, an opossum rug all over her, until she is wellsteamed. After this she is able to walk about as if nothing unusual hadhappened. Every night for about a month she has to lie on a steam bedmade of damped eucalyptus leaves. She is not allowed to return to thegeneral camp for about three months after the birth of her child. 

Though perfectly well, she is considered unclean, and not allowed totouch anything belonging to any one. Her food is brought to her by someold woman. Were she to touch the food or food utensils of another theywould be considered unclean and unfit for use. Her camp is gailie--thatis, only for her; and she is goorerwon as soon as her child is born--awoman unclean and apart. Immediately a' baby is born it is washed incold water. 

Ghastly traditions the blacks have of the time when Dunnerh-Dunnerh, the smallpox, decimated their ancestors. Enemies sent it in the winds, which hung it on the trees, over the camps, whence it dropped on to itsvictims. So terror-stricken were the tribes that, with few exceptions, they did not stay to bury their dead; and because they did not do so, flying even from the dying, a curse was laid on them that some day theplague would return, brought back by the Wundah or white devils; andthe blacks shudder still, though it was generations before them, at thethought that such a horror may come again. 

Poison-stones are ground up finely and placed in the food of the persondesired to be got rid of. These poison-stones are of two kinds, ayellowish-looking stone and a black one; they cause a lingering death. The small bones of the wrist of a dead person are also pounded up andput into food, in honey or water, as a poison. 

One cure struck me as quaint. The patient may be lying down, when upwill come one of the tribe, most likely a wirreenun with a big piece ofbark. He strikes the ground with this all round the patient, making agreat row; this is to frighten the sickness away. 

What seems to me a somewhat peculiar ceremony is the reception a comingbaby holds before its birth. 

The baby is presumably about to be born. Its grandmother is therenaturally, but the black baby declines to appear at the request of itsgrandmother, and, moreover, declines to come if even the voice of itsgrandmother is heard; so grannie has to be a silent spectator whilesome other woman tempts the baby into the world by descanting on theglories of it. First, perhaps, she will say:

'Come now, here's your auntie waiting to see you. '

'Here's your sister. '

'Here's your father's sister, ' and so on through a whole list. Then shewill say, as the relatives and friends do not seem a draw:

'Make haste, the bumble fruit is ripe. The guiebet flowers areblooming. The grass is waving high. The birds are all talking. And itis a beautiful place, hurry up and see for yourself. '

But it generally happens that the baby is too cute to be tempted, andan old woman has to produce what she calls a wi-mouyan--a cleverstick--which she waves over the expectant mother, crooning a charm whichbrings forth the baby. 

If any one nurses a patient and the patient dies, the nurse wears anarmlet of opossum's hair called goomil, and a sort of fur boa calledgurroo. 

If blacks go visiting, when they leave they make a smoke fire and smokethemselves, so that they may not carry home any disease. 

As a rule blacks do not have small feet, but their hands are almostinvariably small and well shaped, having tapering fingers. 

CHAPTER VI

OUR WITCH WOMAN

Our witch woman was rather a remarkable old person. When she was, Isuppose, considerably over sixty, her favourite granddaughter died. 

Old Bootha was in a terrible state of grief, and chopped herself in amost merciless manner at the burial, especially about the head. Shewould speak to no one, used to spend her time about the grave, roundwhich she fixed upright posts which she painted white, red, and black. All round the grave she used to sweep continually. 

More and more she isolated herself, and at last discarded all herclothes and roamed the bush A LA Eve before the Fall, as she hadprobably done as a young girl. 

She dug herself an underground camp, roofed it over, and paintedenormous posts which she erected in front of her 'Muddy wine, ' as shecalled her camp. She never came near the house, though we had beengreat friends before. 

She used to prowl round the outhouses and pick up all sorts of things, rubbish for the most part, but often good utensils too; all used to besecreted in the underground camp. She never talked to any one, but usedto mutter continually to herself and her dogs in an unknown tonguewhich only her dogs seemed to understand. 

We thought she was quite mad. 

One day, while we were playing tennis, she suddenly, muttering herstrange language and dancing new corroboree steps, clad only in herblack skin, came up. Matah told her to go away, but she onlycorroboreed round him and said she wanted to see me. I have the mostmorbid horror of lunacy in any form. I was once induced to go over alunatic asylum--the horror of it haunts me still. However, I thought itwould never do to show the coward I was, so though I felt as if I hadbeen scooped out and filled up with ice, I went to her. She dancedround me for a little time, then sidled up to me and said:

'Wahl you frightened, wahl me hurt you. I only womba--mad--allyowee--spirits--in me tell me gubbah--good--I lib 'long a youee; bimebyI come back big feller wirreenun; wahl you frightened? I not hurt you. '

And after crooning an accompaniment to her steps off she went, astrange enough figure, dancing and crooning as she went towards hercamp; and not until the spirits gave up possession of her did she comenear the house again. 

One day she gave us a start. We were schooling a new team of fourhorses. The off-side leader had only been in once before, and was abrumby (horse run in from a wild mob). We had to pass Bootha's camp. Ilooked about as we neared it but saw nothing of her. Suddenly from theground, as it seemed, out dashed the weird old figure, arms full ofthings, jabbering away at a great rate. Whiz came a tin plate past theleaders' heads; the offside horse reared and plunged and took someholding. Whiz came an old bill; then, one after another, a regularfusilade of various utensils. 

It did not take us long to get past, but for as long as we could seethe attack was kept up. Coming back we saw nothing of Bootha, and allthe utensils had been picked up. 

I used to tell the other blacks to see that Bootha had plenty of food. They said she was all right, the spirits were looking after her. Lunatics, from their point of view, are only persons spirit-possessed. 

Gradually old Bootha, clothed as usual, came back about the place. 

Strange stories came through the house blacks to me of old Bootha. Shewas very ill for a long time, then suddenly she recovered; not onlyrecovered but seemed rejuvenated. We heard of wonderful cures she made;how she always consulted the spirits about any illness; how there weresaid to be spirits in some of her dogs; how she was now a rainmakerand, in fact, a fully fledged witch. 

I was curious to see some of these wonders, so used to get the oldwoman to come up when any one was ill, consult her, and generally makemuch of her. There is no doubt she could diagnose a case well enough. Matah suffered a good deal with a constant pain in one knee, he wasquite lame from it. He showed it to Bootha one day. She sang a song toher spirits, then said:

'Too muchee water there; you steam him, put him on hot rag; you drinkplenty cold water, all lite dat go. '

As it happened a medical man was passing a few days afterwards with aninsurance agent. Matah consulted him. 

'Hum! Yes, yes. Hot fomentations to the place affected, poultices, acooling draught. There's a stoppage of fluid at the knee-joint whichmust be dispersed. '

I thought Bootha ought to have been called in consultation. 

A girl I had staying with me was taken suddenly and, to us, unaccountably ill. She was just able to get out of her room into thedrawing-room, where she would lie back on the cushions of a loungelooking dreadfully limp and utterly washed out. Hearing of her illnessold Bootha came up. I thought it might amuse Adelaide to see an oldwitch; she agreed, so I brought her in. 

Bootha went straight up to the sick girl, expressed a few sympatheticsentences, then she said she would ask the spirits what had madeAdelaide ill and what would cure her. 

She moved my furniture until she left the centre of the room clear; shesquatted down, and hanging her head began muttering in anunintelligible dialect. Presently her voice ceased and we heard frombeside her a most peculiar whistling sort of voice, to which sheresponded, evidently interrogating. Again the whistling voice fromfurther away. Bootha then told me she had asked a dead black fellow, Big Joe, to tell her what she wanted to know; but he could not, so nowshe was going to ask her dead granddaughter. Again she said a sort ofincantation, and again, after a while, came the whistling voicereply--this time from another direction, not quite so loud. The samesort of thing was gone through with the same result. 

Then Bootha said she would ask Guadgee, a black girl who had been oneof my first favourites in the camp, and who had died a few yearspreviously. 

The whistling voice came from a third direction, though all the time Icould see Bootha's lips moving. 

Guadgee answered all she was asked. She said Adelaide was made illbecause she had offended the spirits by bathing in the creek under theshade of a Minggah, or spirit-tree, a place tabooed to all butwirreenuns, or such as hold communion with spirits. 

Of course, according to the blacks, to disturb a shadow is to hurt theoriginal. 

In this Minggah, Guadgee said, were swarms of bees invisible to allbut wirreenuns, and they are ready always to resent any insult to theMinggah or its shadow. These spirit-bees had entered Adelaide andsecreted some wax on her liver; their bites, Guadgee said, were on herback. 

Well, that can't be it, I said, I for you never did bathe in the shadeof a Minggah; for, going as you always do with the house-girls, you arebound to be kept from such sacrilege; they would never dare suchdesecration. '

'Which is their Minggah? Is it a big Coolabah between the Bend and thegarden?'

'Yes. '

'Then I did bathe there the last time I went down. I was up too late togo with the Black-but-Comelys, and as the sun was hot I went furtherround the point and bathed in the shade. And the bee-bites must bethose horribly irritating pimples I have across my back. '

The cause of illness settled to her satisfaction, Bootha asked how tocure it. The patient was to drink nothing hot nor heating but as muchcold water as she liked, especially a long drink before going to bed. Guadgee said she would come in the night when the patient was asleepand take the wax from her liver; she would sleep well and wake betterin the morning. 

Bootha got up then, came over to the patient, took her hand, rubbed itround the wrist several times, muttering an incantation; then sayingshe would see her again next day, off she went, taking, she told us, all the spirits away inside her, whence at desire they could bereturned to such Minggah in their own Noorunbah, or hereditaryhunting-grounds, as wirreenuns had placed them in, or to roam at theirpleasure when not required by those in authority over spirits. Our oldspiritualist denies us freedom even in the after-life she promises us. 

Adelaide slept that night, looked a better colour the next morning, andrapidly recovered. 

We think old Bootha must be a good physician and a ventriloquist, onlyI believe it is said ventriloquists cannot live long, and Bootha is nowover eighty. 

Others besides wirreenuns see spirits sometimes, but rarely, thoughwirreenuns are said to have the power to conjure them up in a formvisible to ordinary eyes. 

Babies are said to see spirits when they are smiling or crowing as ifto themselves; it's to some spirit visible to them but to no one else. 

When a baby opens his hands and shuts them again quickly, smiling allthe while, that baby is with the spirits catching crabs!

Dogs see spirits; when they bark and howl suddenly and you see nothingabout, it is because they have seen a spirit. 

One person may embody many spirits, but such an one must be careful notto drink anything hot or heating, such would drive out the spirits atonce. The spirits would never enter a person defiled by the white man's'grog. '

Old Bootha had an interview with a very powerful spirit after she wasill, who told her that the spirit of her father was now in Bahloo, themoon; and that it was this spirit which had cured her, and if she kepthis commands she would live for ever. The commands were never to drink'grog, ' never to wear red, never to eat fish. This was told her fifteenyears ago, never once has she transgressed; her vigour for an old womanconsiderably over eighty is marvellous. 

She was going away for a trip. Before going she said, as she would notbe able to know when I wanted rain for my garden, she would put twoposts in it which had in them the spirits of Kurreahs, or crocodiles. As these spirits required water I might be certain my tanks would nevergo dry while they were on guard. She asked one of my Black-but-Comelys, a very stalwart young woman, to help her lift one of these posts intothe garden where she wanted to erect it. The girl took hold of one end, but in a little while dropped it, said it was too heavy. Old Bootha gotfurious. 

'I get the spirits to help me, ' she said, and started a littlesing-song, then shouldered the post herself and carried it in. Theseposts are painted red, black, and white, with a snaky pattern, theKurreah sign, on them. She also planted in my garden two otherwitch-poles, one painted red and having a cross-bar about midway downit from which raddled strings were attached to the top; this was tokeep away the Euloowayi, black fellows possessed of devils, who camefrom behind the sunset. 

The other was a plain red-painted, tapering pine-pole which she said, when it fell to the ground, would tell of the death of some one relatedto an inmate of the house. Should it lean towards the house it foretoldmisfortune; or if she were any time away, when she was returning shewould send her Mullee Mullee to sit on the top and bend it just to letus know. This pole would also keep away the spirits of the dead fromthe house during her absence. While she was away there would be no oneto come and clear the place of evil by smoking the Budtha twigs allround it, as she always did if I were alone and, she thought, in needof protection. 

Old Bootha has what she calls a wi-mouyan, clever-stick. It is aboutsix feet long, great lumps of beefwood gum making knobs on it atintervals; between each knob it is painted. Armed with this stick, apiece of crystal, some green twigs, and sometimes a stick with a bunchof feathers on top, and a large flat stone, she goes out to make rain. The crystal and stone she puts under the water in the creek, thefeathered stick she erects on the edge of the water, then goes in andsplashes about with green twigs, singing all the time. 

After a while she gets out and parades the bank with the wi-mouyan, singing a rain-song which charms some of the water out of the creekinto the clouds, whence it falls where she directs it. Once my gardenof roses looked very wilted. I asked Bootha to make rain, but just thenshe was very offended with Matah. One of her dogs had been poisoned, she would make no rain on his country. However, at last she said shewould make some for me. I bound her down to a certain day. The daycame; a heavy storm fell just over my garden, filling the ground tank, which was almost empty. About two inches fell. Within half a mile ofeach side of the garden the dust was barely laid. 

Old Bootha's luck stuck to her that time, and I had to give her a newdress and some 'bacca. ' But during the last drought she failedsignally. Her excuse for failing was that a great wirreenun up thecreek was so angry with the white people who were driving away all emu, kangaroo, and opossums, the black fellow's food, and yet made a fuss iftheir dogs killed a sheep for them sometimes, that he put hisrain-stone in a fire, and while he did that no rain would fall. He saidif all the sheep died the white fellows would go away again, and then, as long ago, the black fellows' country would have plenty of emu andkangaroo. 

We saw a curious coincidence in connection with one of Bootha'switch-poles in my garden, the pole whose falling foretold death of somerelative of some one in the house. 

One afternoon there had been drizzling rain and a grey mistovershadowing things. Matah went out to look at the chances of acontinuance of rain, the usual drought being on. He called to me tocome and see a curious sky. Looking towards the west I saw a goldenball of a sun piercing the grey clouds which seemed like a spangledveil over its face; shooting from the sun was a perfect halo of goldenlight, from which three shafts spread into roadways up past the greyclouds into the vault of heaven. The effect was very striking indeed, against the grey clouds shaded from silver to almost black. 

As we stood waiting for the sun to sink and the afterglow to paintthese clouds, as it did, from shrimp pink and heliotrope to vividcrimson, we saw Bootha's pole fall. The air was quite still. 

'The damp has loosened its setting, ' said Matah, 'but we had betterleave it alone and let the old girl fix it up again herself; it may betaboo to ordinary mortals like us. '

We left it. 

That evening a messenger arrived from the sheep station to say mycook's mother had died just before sunset. The camp were firm believersin Bootha's witch-stick after that. 

It was just as well we did not touch that stick; had we done so, Boothasays we should have broken out in sores all over our bodies. 

They say that long ago the wirreenuns always used to have a sort oftotem wizard-stick guarding the front of their camps. 

CHAPTER VII

BIRTH--BETROTHAL--AN ABORIGINAL GIRL FROM INFANCY TO WOMANHOOD

To begin at the beginning, Bahloo, the moon, is a sort of patron ofwomen. He it is who creates the girl babies, assisted by Wahn, thecrow, sometimes. 

Should Wahn attempt the business on his own account the result isdireful; women of his creating are always noisy and quarrelsome. 

Bahloo's favourite spot for carrying on the girl manufacturing issomewhere on the Culgoa. On one of the creeks there is to be seen, whenit is dry, a hole in the ground. As water runs along, the bed of thiscreek, gradually a stone rises from this hole. As the water rises itrises, always keeping its top out of the water. 

This is the Goomarh, or spirit-stone, of Bahloo. No one would dare totouch this stone where the baby girls' spirits are launched into space. 

In the same neighbourhood is a clear water-hole, the rendezvous of thesnakes of Bahloo. Should a man go to drink there he sees no snakes, butno sooner has he drunk some of the water than he sees hundreds; so evenwater-drinkers see their snakes. 

The name of the hole is Dahn. 

Spirit-babies are usually despatched to Waddahgudjaelwon and sent byher to hang promiscuously on trees, until some woman passes under wherethey are, then they will seize a mother and be incarnated. Thisresembles the Arunta belief, but with the Euahlayi the spirits are newfreshly created beings, not reincarnations of ancestral souls, as amongthe Arunta. To live, a child must have an earthly father; that it hasnot, is known by its being born with teeth. 

Wurrawilberoo is said to snatch up a baby spirit sometimes and whirlalong towards some woman he wishes to discredit, and through the mediumof this woman he incarnates perhaps twins, or at least one baby. Nodoubt were it not for signs of teeth in a spirit-baby of immaculateconception, many a camp scandal would be conveniently nipped in thebud. 

Babies are sometimes sent directly to their mothers without theCoolabah-tree or whirlwind medium. 

The bronze mistletoe branches with their orange-red flowers are said tobe the disappointed babies whose wailing in vain for mothers haswearied the spirits who transform them into these bunches, the redflowers being formed from their baby blood. The spirits of babies andchildren who die young are reincarnated, and should their first motherhave pleased them they choose her again and are called millanboo--thesame again. 

They can instead, if they like, choose some other woman they know, which seems very accommodating in those presiding over thereincarnation department. 

Sometimes two baby spirits will hang on one branch and incarnatethemselves in the same woman, who as result is the mother of twins, andthe object of much opprobrium in the camp. In fact, in the old days, one of the twins would have been killed. 

One of my Black-but-Comelys said, on hearing that a woman had twins:

'If it had been me I would have put my fingers round the throat of oneof them and killed it. ' The woman who made this speech I had alwayslooked upon as the gentlest and kindliest of creatures. 

The father of the twins has treated his wife with the utmost contemptsince their birth, and declines to acknowledge more than one of thebabies. 

They say the first-born of twins is always born grinning with histongue out, as if to say, 'There's another to come yet; nice sort ofmother I have. '

No wonder the women cover themselves under a blanket when they see awhirlwind coming, and avoid drooping Coolabah trees, believing thateither may make them objects of scorn as the mother of twins. 

When a baby is born, some old woman takes the Coolabah leaf out of itsmouth. Such a leaf is said always to be found there if the baby wasincarnated from a Coolabah tree; should this leaf not be removed itwill carry the baby back to spirit-land. As soon as the leaf is takenaway the baby is bathed in cold water. Hot gum leaves are pressed onthe bridge of its nose to ensure its flatness; the more bridgeless thenose the greater the beauty. 

When a baby clutches hold of anything as if to give it to some one, thebargie--grandmother--or some elderly woman takes what the baby offers, and makes a muffled clicking sort of noise with her tongue rolled overagainst the roof of her mouth, then croons the charm which is to makethe child a free giver: so is generosity inculcated in extreme youth. Ihave often heard the grannies croon over the babies:

 Oonahgnai Birrablee, Oonahgnoo Birrahlee, Oonahgnoo Birrahlee, Oonabmillangoo Birrahlee, Gunnoognoo oonah Birrahlee. 

Which translated is:

 'Give to me, Baby, Give to her, Baby, Give to him, Baby, Give to one, Baby, Give to all, Baby. '

As babies are all under the patronage of the moon, the mothers are verycareful every new moon to make a white cross-like mark on the babies'foreheads, and white dabs on cheeks and chins. 

And very careful are the mothers not to look at the full moon, nor lettheir babies do so; an attack of thrush would be the result. 

Bahloo, too, has a spiteful way of punishing a woman who has thetemerity to stare at him, by sending her the dreaded twins. 

If babies do not sleep well their mothers get the red powdered stufflike pine pollen, from the joints of the Bingahwingul, or needlebushtree, and rub it on the babies' skulls and foreheads. 

If the babies cry too much their mothers say evil spirits are in them, and must be smoked out. They make a smoke fire of Budtha twigs and holdthe baby in the thick of the smoke. I have seen the mother of a fretfulchild of three or four years even, apply the smoke anodyne. 

Whenever the mother of a young child woke in the night, if well up inher mother duties, she was supposed to warm her hands, and rub herbaby's joints so that the child might grow lissome and a good shape, and she always saw that her baby's mouth was shut when the child wasasleep lest an evilly disposed person should slip in a disease orevil-working spirit. For the same reason they will not let a baby lieon its back unless they cover its head. 

If a gilah flies over the camp crying out as it passes, it is a suresign of 'debbil debbil'; the child, to escape evil consequences, mustbe turned on to its left side. 

If a gooloo, or magpie, did the same, the child had to be laid flat onher moobil--stomach: for the passing of a cawing crow, a child had tobe laid on the right side. 

As these birds are not night birds, it is evident that they are evilspirits abroad in bird form, hence the precautions. As soon as a babybegins to crawl, the mother finds a centipede, half cooks it, takes itfrom the fire, and catching hold of her child's hands beats them withit, crooning as she does so:

 'Gheerlayi ghilayer, Wahl munnoomerhdayer, Wahl mooroonbahgoo, Yelgayerdayer deermuldayer, Gheerlayi ghilayer. '

Which means:

 'Kind be, Do not steal, Do not touch what to another belongs, Leave all such alone, Kind be. '

The accompaniment being a muffled click of a rolled-up tongue againstthe roof of a mouth. 

No child must touch the big feathers of a goomblegubbon, or bustard'swings, nor any of its bones. At the age of about four, the mother takesone of these wings and beats the child all over the shoulders and underthe arms with it. Again making the clicking noise, she croons:

 'Goobean gillaygoo, Oogowahdee goobolaygoo, Wahl goonundoo, Ghurranbul daygoo. '

Which charm means:

 'A swimmer be, Flood to swim against, No water, Strong to stop you. ' And so was a child made a good swimmer. 

The wirreenuns would see that the septum of a child's nose was piercedat the right time, and their tribal marks cut on them. The nose waspierced at midwinter when ice was about, with which to numb the placeto be pierced; ice was held to the septum, then prod through it went abone needle. 

An old gin who worked about the station had a pierced nose, and oftenwore a mouyerh, or bone, through it. A white laundress wore earrings. She said one day to the old gin:

'Why you have hole made in your nose and put that bone there? No goodthat. White women don't do that. '

The black woman looked the laundress up and down, and finally anchoredher eyes on the earrings. 

'Why you make hole in your ears? No good that. Black gin no do that, pull 'em down your ears like dogs. Plenty good bone in your nose makeyou sing good. Sposin' cuggil--bad--smell you put bone longa nose nosmell 'im. Plenty good make hole longa nose, no good make hole longaears, make 'em hang down all same dogs. ' And off she went laughing, andpulling down the lobes of her ears, began to imitate the barking of adog. 

There is often a baby betrothal called Bahnmul. 

For some reason or another it has been decided that a baby girl is tobe given to a man, perhaps because he has been kind to her mother, perhaps she is owed to his kin by her own; any way the granny of thebaby girl puts feathers, white swansdown, on the baby's head, and takesher over to the man when she is about a month old. Granny says to thebaby:

'Look at him, and remember him, because you are promised to him. '

Then she takes some feathers off the baby's head and puts them on tohis; that makes it a formal betrothal, binding to both sides. 

I have heard great camp rows because girls made a struggle forindependence, having found out they had only been promised, notformally betrothed, to some old chap whom they did not wish to marry. Perhaps the old fellow will already have a wife or so, a man can haveas many as he pleases. I have heard of one with three; I have knownsome with two; but the generality of them seem content with one. 

Should a young girl marry a man with an old wife, the old wife rulesher to any extent, not even letting her have a say about her ownchildren, and no duenna could be stricter. Should the young wife in theabsence of her husband speak to a young man, she will probably get ascolding from the old wife and a 'real hiding' from the old man, towhom the old wife will report her conduct. Quite young men often marryquite old women; a reason sometimes given is that these young men wereon earth before and loved these same women, but died before theirinitiation, so could not marry until now in their reincarnation. 

Certainly, amongst the blacks, age is no disqualification for a woman;she never seems to be too old to marry, and certainly with age gainspower. 

At whatever age a girl may be betrothed to a man he never claims herwhile she is yet Mullerhgun, or child girl; not until she isWirreebeeun, or woman girl. 

A girl's initiation into womanhood is as follows. Her granny probably, or some old woman relation, takes her from the big camp into the scrubwhere they make a bough shade. As soon as this is made, the old womansets fire to a thick heap of Budtha leaves and makes the girl swallowthe smoke. She then bids her lie down in a scooped-out hollow she hasmade in the earth, saying to her, 'You are to be made a young womannow. No more must you run about as you please. Here must you stay withme, doing as I say. Then in two moons' time you shall go and claim yourhusband, to do for ever what he bids you. You must not sleep as you liethere in the day time, nor must you go to sleep at night until those inthe camp are at rest. I will put food ready for you. Honey you must noteat again for four moons. At first streak of day you must get up, andeat the food I have placed for you. Then when you hear a bird note youmust shake yourself all over, and make a noise like this. '

And the old woman makes a ringing noise with her lips. 

'That you must do every time you hear a fresh bird note; so too whenyou hear the people in the camp begin to talk, or even if you hear themlaugh or sneeze. If you do not, then grey will your hair be while youare yet a young woman, dull will your eyes be, and limp your body. '

Girls have told me that they got very tired of being away with only theold woman for so long, and were glad enough when she told them theywere to move to a new camp, nearer to the big one, which the women hadprepared for them. 

When they reached this the old woman rubbed off the mud with which shehad plastered the girl's limbs when first they went away to camp, andwhich she had renewed from time to time. When this was all off shepainted the girl in different designs with red ochre and white gypsum, principally in spots. She put on her head a gnooloogail, or foreheadband, made of Kurrajong fibre, plaited and tied with some Kurrajongstring, from over the cars to the back of the head; in this band, whichshe had painted white, she stuck sprays of white flowers. Sweetlyscented Budtha and clustering Birah were the flowers most used for thisceremony. Should neither of these be in bloom, then sprays of Collareneor Coolibah blossom were used. When the flowers were placed in the bandthe old woman scattered a handful of white swansdown over the girl'shead. Next she tied round her a girdle of opossum's sinews with strandsof woven opossum's hair hanging about a foot square in front. Round herarms she bound goomils--opossum hair armlets--into which she placedmore sprays of flowers, matching those in the girl's hair. 

To show that the occasion was a sacred one a sprig of Dheal tree wasplaced through the hole in the septum of the nose. The toilet of awirreebeeun was now complete. 

The old woman gave her a bunch of smoking Budtha leaves to carry, andtold her what to do. Note here the origin of bridal bouquets. 

Having received her instructions, the girl, holding the smoking twigs, went towards the big camp. 

When the women there saw her coming they began to sing a song in, toher, a strange language. 

On a log, with his back towards her--for he must not yet look on herface--sat the man to whom she was betrothed. The girl went up to him. As the women chanted louder she threw the smoking Budtha twigs away, placed a hand on each of his shoulders and shook him. Then she turnedand ran back to her new camp, the women singing and pelting her withdry twigs and small sticks as she went. For another moon she stayedwith her granny in this camp, then the women made her another onenearer. 

In a few weeks they made her one on the outskirts of the main camp. Here she stayed until they made her another in the camp, but a littleapart. In front of the opening of this dardurr they made a fire. Thatnight her betrothed camped on one side of this fire and she on theother. For a moon they camped so. Then the old granny told the girl shemust camp on the same side of the fire as her betrothed, and as long asshe lived be his faithful and obedient wife, having no thought of othermen. Should he ill-treat her, her relations had the power to take herfrom him. Or should he for some reason, after a while, not care forher, he can send her back to her people; should she have a child heleaves it with her until old enough to camp away from her, when it isreturned to him. 

The wedding presents are not given to the bride and bridegroom, but bythe latter to his mother-in-law, to whom, however, he is never allowedto speak. Failing a mother-in-law, the presents are given to thenearest of kin to the wife. You can hardly reckon it as purchase money, for sometimes a man gives no presents and yet gets a wife. 

In books about blacks, you always read of the subjection of the women, but I have seen henpecked black husbands. 

There are two codes of morals, one for men and one for women. OldTestament morality for men, New Testament for women. The black men keepthe inner mysteries of the Boorah, or initiation ceremonies, from theknowledge of women, but so do Masons keep their secrets. 

As to the black women carrying most of the baggage on march, naturallyso; the men want their hands free for hunting en route, or to be inreadiness for enemies in a strange country. 

Black women think a great deal of the Moonaibaraban, or as they moreoften call them, Kumbuy, or sister-in-law. These are spirit-women whocome a few days after the Boorah to bring presents to the womenrelations of the boys who have been initiated. The Kumbuy are neverseen, but their voices are heard--voices like dogs barking; on hearingwhich the women in the camp have to answer, calling out:

'Are you my Kumbuy?'

An answer comes like a muffled bark, 'Bah! bah bah!'

Then the old men--crafty old men--go out to where the 'bahing' comesfrom, and bring in the gifts, which take the form of food, yams, honey, fruit principally. 

These Kumbuy are among the few beneficent spirits they never hurt anyone, simply supply the bereaved women with comfort in the shape offood, for the temporary loss of their male relatives. Should anuninitiate have a wife, which of course is improper, the Kumbuy declineto recognise her; and should she presume to answer their spirit back, they make in token of displeasure a thudding noise as if earth werebeing violently banged with a yam stick. She has encroached on theKumbuy preserves, for prior to his initiation a man should only have aspirit wife, never an incarnate one. 

If you ask a black woman why the Kumbuy thud the earth in answer to aninitiate's wife, she will say:

'Dat one jealous. ' jealousy even in the spirit world of women!

Unchaste women were punished terribly. After we went west even thedeath penalty for wantonness was enforced, though at the time we didnot know it. 

Should a girl be found guilty of a frailty, it being her first fault, her brothers and nearest male relations made a ring round her, afterhaving bound her hands and feet, and toss her one from the other untilshe is in a dazed condition and almost frightened to death. 

The punishment over, she is unbound and given to her betrothed, or ahusband chosen for her. 

Should a woman have been discovered to be an absolute wanton, men fromany of the clans make a ring round her, she being bound, and tossedfrom one to the other, and when exhausted is unbound and left by herrelations to the men to do as they please to her--the almost inevitableresult is death. With this terror before them, it is possible the oldblacks are right who say that their women were very different in theirdomestic relations in olden times. 

CHAPTER VIII

THE TRAINING OF A BOY UP TO BOORAH PRELIMINARIES

At the boy manufactory, Boomayahmayahmul, the wood lizard, was theprincipal worker, though Bahloo from time to time gave him assistance. 

The little blacks throw their mythical origin at each other tauntingly. A little black girl, when offended with a boy friend, says:

'Ooh, a lizard made you. '

'Wah! wah! a crow made you, ' he retorts. 

Up to a certain age boys are trained as are girls--charms sung overthem to make them generous, honest, good swimmers, and the rest; butafter that they are taken into the Weedegah, or bachelors' camp, anddeveloped on manly lines. 

When he is about seven years old, his mother will paint her son upevery day for about a week with red and white colourings. After that hewould go to the Weedegah Gahreemai, bachelors' camp. He would then beallowed to go hunting with boys and men. He would see, now when he wasout with the men, how fire was made in the olden time, almost a lostart now when wax matches are plentiful. 

No boy who had not been to a Boorah would dare to try to make fire. 

The implements for fire-making are a little log about as thick as aman's arm, of Nummaybirah wood--a rather soft white wood--and a splitflat piece about a foot long and three inches wide. The little log wassplit open at one end, a wedge put in it, and the opening filled upwith dry grass broken up. This log was laid on the ground and firmlyheld there; the fire-maker squatted in front, and with the flat piecerubbed edgeways across the opening in the log. The sawdust fell quicklyinto the opening. After about a minute and a half's rubbing a smokestarted out. After rubbing on a little longer the fire-maker took ahandful of dry grass, emptied the smoking sawdust and dry grass intoit, waved it about, and in three and a half minutes from starting theprocess I have seen a blaze. Sometimes it has taken longer, but justunder five minutes is the longest time I have ever seen it take. 

They use pine too, I believe, but whenever I timed them it wasNummaybirah they were using. 

The boys pick up the woodcraft of the tribes when they begin going outwith the men. As the boys began to grow up, when a good season cameround, and game and grass were plentiful, the old men were seen to drawapart often and talk earnestly. 

At length there came a night when was heard a whizzing, whirling boomfar in the scrub. As the first echo of it reached the camp, the women, such as were still young enough to bear children, stopped their ears, for should any such hear the Gurraymi, the women's name for theGayandi, or Boorah spirit's voice, that spirit will first make themmad, then kill them. 

The old women began to sing a Boorah song. To deaden the sound of thedreaded voice, opossum rugs were thrown over the children, none of whommust hear, unless they are boys old enough to be initiated; the soundreveals the fact to such that the hour of their initiation is at hand. 

The men all gathered together with the boys, except two old wirreenuns, who earlier in the evening have seemingly quarrelled and gone away intothe scrub. 

The men and boys in camp march up and down to some distance from thecamp. The old women keep on singing, and one man with a spear paintedred with a waywah fastened on top, walks up and down in the middle ofthe crowd of men, holding the spear, with its emblematic belt ofmanhood, aloft; as he does so, calling out the names of the bends ofthe creek, beginning with the one nearest to which they are camped. When he gets to the end of the names along that creek and comes to thename of a big river, all the men join him in giving a loud crow like

'Wah! wah! wah!'

Then he begins with the names along the next creek across the bigriver, and so on; at the mention of each main stream the crowd againjoin in the cry of

'Wah! wah! wah!'

All the while, closer and still closer, comes the sound of the Gayandi, as the men call the Gurraymi, or bull roarer. 

At length the two old wirreenuns come back to the camp and the noiseceases, to recur sometimes during the night, when I expect, did any onesearch for them, the old wirreenuns would be found missing from thecamp. 

After the first whirling of the bull roarers and calling of the creeknames, the Gooyeanawannah, or messengers, prepare for a journey, andwhen ready, the wirreenuns start them off in various directions tosummon neighbouring tribes from hundreds of miles round to attend theBoorah. The messengers each carry a spear with a waywah (or belt ofmanhood) on the top, seeing which no tribe, even at enmity with themessenger, will molest him. When a messenger arrived at a strange camp, he was not asked his business but left to choose his own time fortelling. He would squat down a little way from the strangers' camp, food would probably be brought to him which he would cat. 

He would find out who was the chief wirreenun of the tribe, then takehim apart, give to him his Boorah message-stick as guarantee of hisgood faith, and tell him where and when the Boorah was to be held. After having given all necessary information, the Gooyeanawannah wouldreturn to his tribe; the wirreenun to whom he had given theDoolooboorah, or message-stick, would send it on by the messenger ofhis tribe, and so with others, until all were summoned, each tribeletting it be known that a Boorah summons had been received by soundingthe Gayandi, which would carry its own tale to those in the camp. 

Should young boys be chosen as messengers, they were held in highhonour; Woormerh they were called. 

While the messengers were away, the old men of the tribe in whoseNoorumbah, or hereditary hunting lands, the Boorah was to be held, prepared the sacred grounds. 

They cleared a big circle, round which they put a bank of earth, andfrom the circle was cleared a path leading to a thick scrub; along thispath were low earthen embankments, and the trees on both sides had thebark stripped off, and carved on them the various totems and multiplextotems of the tribes. Such carvings were also put on the trees roundthe Bunbul, or little Boorah ring, where the branches were also in someinstances lopped, and the trunks carved and painted to representfigures of men, amongst whom were supposed to be the sons of Byamee'swives. Two of these sons had been made young men at the first BoorahByamee instituted in this district, the ground of which is pointed outto this day. 

In the middle of the Bunbul a large heap of wood was placed ready forthe Yungawee, or sacred fire. 

When the preliminary preparations were over, the camps were moved tojust outside the Boorah, or big Boorah ring. By that time the othertribes began to arrive. First came from each tribe the boys to beinitiated and the Munthdeeguns, or men in charge of them. The men werepainted, and had leafy twigs tied round their wrists and ankles, as hadthe boys also, and all carried in their hands small branches of green. Those especially in charge of boys held, too, a painted spear with awaywah on top of it. 

As they approached the place of gathering the head man, with thepainted spear, began calling out all the names of the places along thecreeks from whence he came; at the name of each big watercourse theyall cried together

'Wah! Wah! wah!'

They were met at some distance from the camp by the men who hadsummoned them, and who had made a round brush yard where they were tomeet them. Here the older women were singing Boorah songs. Some heldtheir breasts as a sign they had sons among the initiates; others puttheir hands on their shoulders, which showed they had brothers going tobe made young men. All the women had leafy twigs tied round theirwrists and ankles as the men had. The newcomers and the men who metthem walked round the yard at a measured beat, lifting one leg andthrowing up one arm each time the cry of 'Wah! wah! wah!' was given, for here too the enumeration of geographical names went on. 

When the Boorah song was over, the men marched out of the yard; closelybehind them the two oldest men with the tufted spears; the Boorah boysclosely after them. The women followed, carrying bunches of leafy twigswith which they pelted the boys until they reached the camp. 

Matah and I had been watching the whole performance, and followed inthe wake of the women. 

The whole scene impressed us as picturesque--the painted figures of themen and boys, with the peculiarly native stealthy tread, threadingtheir way through the grey Coolabah trees; the decorated women throwingtheir leafy missiles with accurate aim into the ranks of the boys, whodid not dare to look at their assailants. A Boorah boy must give noevidence of curiosity; the NIL ADMIRARI attitude then begun clings to ablack man through life. The women of the tribe express volublesurprise, but a black man never except by the dilation of his eyes. 

Every night after this a corroboree was held. The fully initiated ofeach tribe, as they arrived, help in the preparation of the innersacred ground, while the younger men collected game and other food. 

The old men cut out of the ground along the narrow path leading to theBunbul, and round it, huge earthen animals, their various totems, suchas crocodiles, kangaroos, emus and others, all of a colossal size. These they plastered over with mud and painted in different colours anddesigns. On the right of the Bunbul they made an earthen figure ofByamee--this figure was reclining holding in each hand a Boondee. Onthe other side was the huge figure of a woman--this representedBirrahgnooloo, the favourite wife of Byamee; she held two spears. Therewas a third figure not so large as the other two but like them, apartfrom the figures near the path and the Bunbul; this was Baillahburrah, according to some, Dillalee according to others, the supernatural sonof Byamee--or as some say, brother--not born of woman, having livedbefore the human race existed, before Byamee travelled as Creator andculture hero through Australia. 

Of the Gayandi, the Boorah spirit, sometimes calledWallahgooroonboooan, there was no figure, because he was always presentat Boorahs, though invisible. His voice only gave evidence of hispresence. 

The wirreenuns said it was he who had placed in the forks of treesround the big ring heaps of dry wood, which they said, when theceremonies began, he would light, making a dazzling illumination of thescene. 

In the middle of the Boorah ring was placed a mudgee, a painted stickor spear, with a bunch of hawk's feathers on the top. Every night washeard at intervals the Gayandi, and immediately the younger women andchildren stopped their ears, while the old women shrieked theirBRUMBOORAH. 

As each fresh batch of blacks arrived the volume of sound wasincreased, for the old men with their Gayandi would go into the scruband whirl them. These bull roarers sound curiously uncanny--I did notwonder the uninitiated accepted the spirit theory as to their origin. 

The bush of Australia is a good background for superstition; there issuch a non-natural air about its Nature, as if it has been sketched inroughly by a Beardsley-like artist. 

The function of the Gayandi is to inspire awe, and it fulfils it. Byamee himself made the first. It was some time before he got quite theeffect he wanted. At first he desired to give the Boorah spirit a formas well as a voice, to inspire awe; he also wished it to knock out thefront tooth of an initiate. 

He made a stone figure in the image of man, having a voice. Thisspirit, known variously as Gayandi, or Darramulun, went to the Boorah, but when he was to knock out the front tooth, he began to eat the boys'faces. He was too strong; he would not do to preside over, Boorahs. Byamee transformed him into a large piggiebillah-like animal, thoughinstead of being covered with spines, thick hair grew over him; he hassince been known as Nahgul. He went away into the bush, where he hasbeen a dreaded devil ever since; for if he touches a man's shadow even, that man will itch all over and nothing can cure him of it. He hauntsBoorah grounds. 

Next Byamee made a stone bull roarer sort of thing, but this was tooheavy to make the noise he wanted. One day he was chopping a bigCoolabah tree close to Weetalibah water-hole, which tree, much to thehorror of our blacks, was burnt down a few years ago by travellers. 

As Byamee chopped, out flew a big chip. He heard the whizzing sound itmade, gave another chop, out flew another; again the whizzing sound. 

'That is what I want, ' he said I'll make a Gayandi of wood. '

He cut a piece of mubboo, or beefwood, and shaped it; he tied a pieceof string to a hole in one end; he hung it up in the big Coolabah tree. Then he went and cut one out of Noongah or Kurrajong, tied a string onto that and put it beside the other on the tree, and left them swingingthere. 

One day he came back and was camping near; his wives, came along to thebig tree. There the Gayandi swung, making a whirring noise. 

'What's that?' said the women. 'We'll have a look what it is. ' SeeingByamee they said, 'We heard voices in that big tree over there. '

'Whereabouts?' he said. 

'In that Coolabah tree. Such strange voices, such as we never heard. '

'You two go' he said, 'to our camp and make a fire. I'll go and seewhat it is. '

When the women were out of sight he went to the tree and took thepieces of wood down. He was satisfied now they would answer hispurpose. He carefully hid them until he made a Boorah. And since thensuch pieces of wood have been the medium for the Gayandi's voice, andare kept carefully hidden away from all but the eyes of wirreenuns. 

At length all the expected tribes had arrived, preparations werefinished, and a signal was given for a move to be made that the realceremonies might begin. 

The fully initiated men went away after their midday meal, and aboutsundown came in single file along the banked-in path each carrying afirestick in one hand, a green switch in the other. When they reachedthe mudgee in the middle of the big ring and corroboreed for a littleround it, the old women answered with a Boorah song, and all moved tothe edge of the ring. At this stage men often tried to steal eachother's boys, and great wrestling matches came off. One man would tryto pull up the mudgee, out would rush one of another clan to wrestlewith him. First the boys would wrestle, then the elder men, eachdetermined his clan should prove victorious at this great Boorahwrestling. 

The skill of the eeramooun, or uninitiated boys, would be tried in shamfights too. They were given bark shields, and their attackers had barkboomerangs; great was the applause when the boys ably defendedthemselves. Previously they have been tried with boomerang and boodthulthrowing, and other arts of sport and warfare, boys of each tribetrying to excel those of the others. If a boy comes well out of thesetrials the men say he is worthy to be a yelgidyi, or fully initiatedyoung man. 

When the wrestling and sham fights are over, corroborees begin. Allnight they are kept up, and sometimes there are day performances too. 

CHAPTER IX

THE BOORAH AND OTHER MEETINGS

At last would come the night when everything was ready. Sports andcorroborees would be held as usual, until, at a given signal, theyounger women were ordered into bough sheds which were round the ring. 

The old women stayed on singing. 

The boys, who are painted red, are beckoned into the middle of thering, where their respective Munthdeeguns daub them with white. Thatdone, each man seizing his charge, hoists him on to his shoulder, anddances round the ring with him. Then the old women are told to bid theboys good-bye. 

Forward they come, singing each her own brumboorah, for every oldestwoman relation of each of the boys makes a song for him. Theycorroboree a few steps behind the men, chanting a farewell, thencorroboree back a few steps, then hasten to join the younger women inthe bough sheds, which are now pulled down on top of them by the men, that they may see nothing further. Then the Munthdeeguns disappear downthe track into the scrub. 

When they are out of sight the women are released, that they may getready to travel to where the Durrawunga, or Little Boorah, will be heldin about four days' time, at about ten miles distance. 

As the Munthdeeguns passed their totem-marked trees, or images, whichwould be those of the boys in their charge--for each guardian was arelation of the same totem as his charge--they would perform somemagical feat, such as producing gubberahs, charcoal, gypsum, and so on, uttering as they did so a little chant about that totem. 

The boy's eyes are closed all this time and his head bent down. 

Boys at a Boorah always remind me of WILHELM MEISLER'S TRAVELS, where, at the school to which Wilhelm takes Felix, he learns, on inquiry as tothe three attitudes assumed by the pupils, that these gesturesinculcate veneration, which also seems to be the keynote of theeeramooun's instruction. The Boorah over, he too, 'Stands erect andbold, yet not selfishly isolated; only in an union with his equals (hisfellow initiates) does he present a front towards the world. '

And only when the fear, the abasement, is gone does the true reverencecome, which makes the most primitive creed a living religion. 

As the Munthdeeguns pass the sacred fire they throw in a weapon each. This done they place their charges in slightly scooped-out places, already prepared in the inner ring. 

Then they bid them, on pain of death, not to look up whatever happens. 

Soon a great whirring is heard, telling that Gayandi, the Boorahspirit, is near. 

Yudtha Dulleebah, one of the oldest black men in the district, said atthis stage once two boys did look up. 

The wirreenuns saw them, though the boys did not know it and went onlooking. These boys saw the men advance each to the fire where they hadthrown their weapons; chanting in a strange tongue, they corroboreedround the fire for some time. 

Then the wirreenuns snatched up the coals left from the weapons andrubbed them into their limbs, trampling as they did so on the edge ofthe fire, which did not seem to burn them, rubbing and chanting untilthe sacred coals were supposed to be absorbed by them, from which theywould derive new powers. 

This over, the boys were all ordered to get up, and march round, handson thighs and heads abased, while they learnt a Boorah song, giving newwords for common things, which acted as pass-words hereafter for theinitiated. Into a slow chant these words were strung, as the men andboys passed round the ring, two of the oldest men standing beating timewith painted spears with tufted tops. 

The two boys who had transgressed before looked up again, curious as totheir surroundings. Suddenly the men with the spears roared at the boysto lower their heads. 

The boys laughed. Their fates were sealed. Out flashed the sacredgubberahs of these two old men. 

'Dead is he, ' they cried, 'who laughs in the Bunbul where yungaweeburns more fiercely than Yirangal, the sun, where near lies the imageof Byamee: Byamee, father of all, whose laws the tribes are nowobeying. ' Then the men chanted to the gubberahs and held them betweenthe fires and the boys, the light of the flames seemed to play on themand stretch its beams to the boys, who began to tremble. As louder grewthe chant an answer came from the scrub, the voice of Gayandi; shakingwith fear the boys fell to the ground, to all appearance lifeless. Thenthe old men went forward, each with a stone knife in hand. Stoopingover the two boys they opened veins in each, out flowed the blood, andthe other men all raised a death cry. The boys were lifeless. The oldwirreenuns, dipping their stone knives in the blood, touched with themthe lips of all present. Then the bodies were put on the edge of thesacred fire and the other initiates taken a little further into thescrub. There they were tried in many ways. 

With the Boorah spirits whistling and whizzing all round them, spearswere pointed at them. Their skins were scratched with stone knives andmussel shells. Hideously painted, fiendish-looking creatures suddenlyrushed upon them. Should they show fear and quail at the Little Boorahthey would be returned to their mothers as cowards unfit forinitiation, and sooner or later sympathetic magic would do its work, apoison-stick or bone would end them. Or if one of the initiates wasconsidered stupid and generally incapable, having been brought to theBoorah for that purpose, he was now, after having been made to sufferall sorts of indignities, such as eating filth and so on, bound to theearth, strapped down, killed, and his body burnt. 

When the trials were over and the old wirreenuns said to the boys whohad not quailed, 'You are brave; you shall be boorahbayyi first andafterwards yelgidyi, and carry the marks that all may know. '

Then they made on the shoulder of each boy a round hole with a pointedstone; this hole they licked to feel no splinter of stone remained, then filled it with powdered charcoal. 

After this, leaving the boys there, the men went back to the Bunbulring. The bodies of the Boorah victims were cooked. Each man who hadbeen to five Boorahs ate a piece of this flesh, no others were allowedeven to see this done. Then the bones and what was left of the bodieswere put into the middle of the fire, and all traces of the victims sodestroyed. 

The men then sang a song, saying that so must always be served thosewho scoffed at sacred things; that the strength they had wasted shouldgo into other men who would use it better; while the spirits of thevictims should wander about until reincarnated if the Boorah spiritgave them another chance. Perhaps he would only let them bereincarnated in animals. 

After another dance and chant round the yungawee, the men went andbrought the boys back again. They came with their hands on theirthighs, and their heads abased; each was taken to his allotted placenear the outer edge of the ring. There each Munthdeegun told his boy hecould sleep that night; he would go to sleep the boy he had been, towake in the morning a new man; his courage had now been tried, and inthe morning a new name and a sacred stone would be given to him. TheGayandi would settle their names that night and tell the wirreenuns. 

The next morning the boys were awakened by the Munthdeegun chanting anddancing before them. They stopped in front of the first boy, called himto rise by a new name; as he did so all the men clapped their thighsand shouted

'Wah! wah! wah!'

Then an old wirreenun gave him a small white gubberah, which he wasbidden to keep concealed for ever from the uninitiated and the women, and he must be ready to produce it whenever called upon to do so. Theresult of failure would be fatal to him. With the loss of the stone hislife spirit would be weakened, and the strength of the Boorah spirit, with which he was now endowed, be used against him instead of for him, as would be the case as long as he kept the stone. 

These stones seem somewhat in the way of 'Baetyli' of pagan antiquity, which were of round form; they were supposed to be animated, by meansof magical incantations, with a portion of the Deity; they wereconsulted on occasions of great and pressing emergency as a kind ofdivine oracle, and were suspended either round the neck or some otherpart of the body. 

As each boy received his stone another loud chorus of 'Wah! wah! wah!'went up from that crowd, making the scrub ring with the sound. 

Some of those, of whose tribe it was the custom--it is not invariablyso--now had a front tooth knocked off; this done a wirreenun chanted tothe boy, who had been blindfolded and almost deafened by the whirringof Gayandi. 

One chant was as follows:--

 Now you can meet the Boorah spirit, Now will he harm you not. He will know his spirit is in you. For this is the sign, A front tooth gone. That is his sign, He will know you by it. 

Some of the wirreenuns buried these teeth by the Boorah fire, otherscarefully wrapped them up to keep as charms, or to send to othertribes, each according to the individual custom of his tribe. 

This all over, once more there was a marching and chanting round thefire, then the boys were taken away and given food for the first timesince they left their mothers. 

No wonder that the 'supernatural' was mixed up with their impressionsof the Boorah: fasting nourishes hallucinations. While the boys wereeating, they could hear in the distance other chants, and knew thatceremonies were going on to which they were not yet to be admitted, there being degrees of initiation. 

On the fourth day the men took them about ten miles, and camped withthem where they could hear faintly in the distance the noise of themain camp; so they knew they were near the place chosen for theDurramunga, or Little Boorah. 

Just before dawn next morning each Munthdeegun took his Boorahbayyi, orpartially initiated one, to the Durramunga. There was a Boorah ring, but instead of earth grass was heaped all round it. No young women werevisible, only the old women, who sang and corroboreed towards the boys. Slowly they came forward, peered at their shoulders, and seeing therethe marks, embraced them, shrieking out cries of joy that their boyshad borne the tests. They danced round them, then at a sign from theold men embraced them again; and while, the women sang their brumboorahand danced, the boys were taken away by their guardians. 

For two moons they remained away, learning much as to sacred things. They were told that the oldest wirreenuns could see in their sacredcrystals pictures of the past, pictures of what was happening at adistance in the present, and pictures of the future; some of which lastfilled their minds with dread, for they said as time went on thecolours of the blacks, as seen in these magical stones, seemed to growpaler and paler, until at last only the white faces of the Wundah, orspirits of the dead, and white devils were seen, as if it should meanthat some day no more blacks should be on this earth. 

The reason of this must surely be that the tribes fell away from theBoorah rites, and in his wrath Byamee stirred from his crystal seat inBullimah. He had said that as long as the blacks kept his sacred laws, so long should he stay in his crystal seat, and the blacks live onearth; but if they failed to keep up the Boorah rites as he had taughtthem, then he would move and their end would come, and only Wundah, orwhite devils, be in their country. 

It is said that this prophetic vision was the reason that so many ofthe first-born half-caste babies were killed, the old wirreenuns seeingin them the beginning of the end. 

At the end of two moons they make back towards the place where theBoorah had begun, and where preparations were now being made to receivethem. 

They camped in the scrub near the old camp of the tribe who had startedthe Boorah. 

That night in the camp the Gayandi was heard again, another ceremonywas at hand. 

The next day the women at the big camp made a big fire, a littledistance away. When this fire was nearly burnt out they covered itthickly with Budtha, Dheal, and Coolabah leaves to make a great smoke. On the top of these leaves, which were piled about two feet high, logswere placed; this fire was round a Dheal tree. 

When the thick smoke was seen curling up in a column, the Boorahbayyiwere brought out of the scrub by the Munthdeegun, while in the distancesounded the whizzing voice of the Boorah spirit. As it ceased, when thewomen's chanting rose above it, the painted boys came into the open. Onthey came, heads down and hands on thighs, looking neither to the rightnor to the left, but walking straight ahead until they stood on thelogs on the fire. They leaned over and placed a hand each on the treein the centre, there they stood while the smoke curled all round them. The women past child-bearing were singing all the time, while the mendanced outside the leaf-smoke, clicking boomerangs as they did so. 

For some time this went on, then the men took the boys back into thescrub. 

In about four moons' time another leaf-smoke was made ready, and theBoorahbayyi were again brought out and smoked. This time while chantinga song the old women brought a big net and put it right over the boys. Then they stepped back and danced round to the clicking of boomerangsby the men. The boys were again taken away. 

But after this they were allowed to camp nearer the general camp, though they held no intercourse with the people of it. I have often metthese Boorah boys in the bush, and on sighting me they have fled as ifI were a devil in petticoats. 

In about another moon's time, the boys were painted principally white, a waywah put on them, a yunbean--a piece of beefwood gum with twokangaroo teeth stuck in it, and a hole through it--was tied to theirfront lock of hair. A number of these yunbean were tied to foreheadbands, which they wore too. Armlets of opossum's hair string were puton their arms, and feathers stuck in them. Feathers were also stuckupright in the forehead bands. 

Some of the old men added to their own decorations by putting onwongins, from which were hanging those most precious possessions toinland blacks--seaside shells. Some had fresh beads of gum fastened onto their hair, hanging round their heads in dozens. 

The women, too, had coiffured themselves with fresh gum beads; themothers of the Boorahbayyi were painted, too, in corroboree style. Theyhad made a smoke fire, but the logs instead of being put on it, wereplaced at a little distance; on these the painted boys sat, the smokeenveloping them. 

After they had been seated there some time, their mothers came upbehind them, and put their hands on their sons' shoulders. Then theyrubbed all the paint off the boys' bodies; the boys never once lookingat them. When the paint was all off, the women sang and danced, untilthe men in charge took the boys away again. 

After this, supervision was relaxed except at night. During theday-time the boys might wander at will, so as they kept clear of thegeneral camp. They might not receive food from nor speak to a woman fortwelve months, as if they were monks of Byamee in training. 

At his second Boorah a young man was allowed to see the sacred fireceremony, throwing in of weapons, walking on burning coals, and therest. He saw the huge earthen figures of Byamee, Birrahgnooloo, andBaillahburrah, or Dillalee, and was told all about them; that Byameehaving initiated the Boorah, only such as have been through its ritescan go to his sky-camp. 

Three sins are unforgiveable, and commit a spirit of a guilty one tocontinual movement in the lower world of the Eleanbah Wundah, where, but for big fires kept up, would be darkness. 

There the guilty one had to keep his right hand at his side, nevermoving it, but he himself perpetually moving. Those who know the blacksand their love of a 'dolce far niente, ' will understand what averitable hell this perpetual movement would make. 

The three deadly sins were unprovoked murder, lying to the elders ofthe tribe, or stealing a woman within the forbidden degrees--that is, of the same hereditary totem, i. E. Of the same blood, or of theprohibited family name clan. 

But by a curious train of reasoning two wrongs make a right. Should byany chance a man succeed in getting a wife he had no right to, havinglived with her, he could keep her, if he came unhurt from the trial hehad to stand; he only having a shield to defend himself with, the menof the stolen woman's kin threw weapons at him. Only the men of her kinare assailants, not as in a murder trial, when the men of all kins canthrow at the guilty man. Should he defend himself successfully, he cankeep the woman on the understanding that a woman of his family is givento a man of hers, to square things. A man who stands his trial iscalled a Booreenbayyi. 

Kindliness towards the old and sick is strictly inculcated as a commandof Byamee, to whom all breaches of his laws are reported by theall-seeing spirit at a man's death, and he is judged accordingly. SirThomas Mitchell, writing in 1837 his experiences of the blacks duringhis explorations, notices as very striking their care and affection forthe aged of their race. 

At his second Boorah a man is allowed to see the carvings on the treesand to hear the legends of them. Also to hear the Boorah song ofByamee, which Byamee himself sang; and to hear the prayer of the oldestwirreenun to Byamee, asking him to let the blacks live long, for theyhave been faithful to his charge as shown by the observance of theBoorah ceremony. 

The old wirreenun says words to this effect several times imploringly, his head turned to the east; facing this direction the dead are mostlyburied. 

Though we say that actually these people have but two attempts atprayers, one at the grave and one at the inner Boorah ring, I thinkperhaps we are wrong. These two seem the only ones directly addressedto Byamee. But perhaps it is his indirect aid which is otherwiseinvoked. Daily set prayers seem to them a foolishness and an insult, rather than otherwise, to Byamee. He knows; why weary him byrepetition, disturbing the rest he enjoys after his earth labours? Buta prayer need not necessarily be addressed to the highest god. I thinkif we really understood and appreciated the mental attitude of theblacks, we should find more in their so-called incantations of thenature of invocations. When a man invokes aid on the eve of a battle, or in his hour of danger and need; when a woman croons over her baby anincantation to keep him honest and true, and that he shall be spared indanger, surely these croonings are of the nature of prayers born of thesame elementary frame of mind as our more elaborate litany. I fancyinherent devotional impulses are common to all races irrespective ofcountry or colour. 

When the prayer was over the old men chanted Byamee's song, which onlythe fully initiated may sing, and which an old black fellow chanted forus as the greatest thing he could do. 

There seemed very little in this song, for no, one can translate it, the meaning having been lost in the 'dark backward, ' if it was everknown to the Euahlayi. 

 'Byamee guadoun. Byamee guadoun. Byamee guadoun. Mungerh wirree. Mungerh wirree. Mungerh wirree. Birree gunyah, birrie gunyah. Dilbay gooran mulah bungarn. Oodoo doo gilah. Googoo wurra wurra. Bulloo than nulgah delah boombee nulgah. Delah boombee. Nulgah delah boombee boombee. Buddereebah . . . . . . Eumoolan. Dooar wullah doo. Boombee nulgah delah. '

The old fellow said wherever Byamee had travelled this song was known, but no one now knew the meaning of the whole, not even the oldestwirreenuns. 

Another stone was given to a Boorahbayyi when he first heard this song. 

The wirreenuns, they say, swallow their stones to keep them safe. 

At each Boorah a taboo is taken off food. After a third Boorah a mancould eat fish, after a fourth honey, after a fifth what he liked. Hewas then, too, shown and taught the meanings of the tribalmessage-sticks, and the big Boorah one of Byamee. As few men now haveever been to five Boorahs, few know anything about these last. At eachBoorah a stone was given to a man, and when he had the five he couldmarry. 

After each Boorah all the figures and embankments are destroyed. 

After the fifth Boorah the mystery of the Gayandi was revealed and thebull roarers shown--oval pieces of wood pointed at both ends, fastenedto a string and swung round; but though this was shown, the wirreenunstold them that the spirit's voice was really in this wood animating it. After a man has been to one Boorah he can have war weapons and is awarrior, but not until he has been to five can he join or be one of thedorrunmai--sort of chiefs--who hold councils of war, but have fewprivileges beyond being accepted authorities as to war and hunting. With the wirreenuns rests the real power, by reason of their skill inmagic. 

Besides Boorahs are minor corroboree meetings where marriages arearranged; meetings where the illegality of marriages is gone into, and, if necessary, exchanges effected or arranged; meetings where thewirreenuns of the Boogahroo produce the bags of hair, etc. , andvendettas are sworn; meetings of Boodther, or giving, where each personreceives and gives presents. A person who went to a Boodther without agoolay full of presents would be thought a very poor thing indeed. 

Of course every meeting has a corroboree as part of it. 

Every totem even has its own special corroboree and time for having it, as the Beewees, or iguanas, when the pine pollen is failing and the reddust-storms come. And if you abused these dust-storms to a Beeweeblack, you would insult him: it is not dust, it is the pollen off thepines, and so a multiplex totem to him!

The winds belong to various totems, and the rains are claimed by thetotem whose wind it was that blew it up. 

If a storm comes up without wind it belongs to Bohrah, the kangaroo. 

The big mountainous clouds when they come from the south-west are saidto be Mullyan, the eagle-hawk, who makes the south-west wind claimed byMaira, paddy melon totem, one of whose multiplex totems Mullyan is. 

The crow keeps the cold west wind in a hollow log, as she was too fondof blowing up hurricanes; she escapes sometimes, but the crow hunts herback. But they say the log is rotting and she will get away yet, whenthere will be great wreckage and quite a change in climates. [Here we seethe usual antagonism of crow and eagle-hawk. --A. L. ]

Away to the north-west a tribe of blacks have almost a monopoly inwind-making, holding great corroborees to sing these hurricanes up. Oneof this tribe came to the station once and wanted to marry a girlthere. She would not consent, and told him to go home. He went, threatening to send a storm to wreck the station. The storm came; thehouse escaped, but stable, store, and cellar were unroofed. I told myBlack-but-Comelys to kindly avoid such vehemently revengeful lovers forthe future. 

CHAPTER X

CHIEFLY AS TO FUNERALS AND MOURNING

I was awakened one morning on the station by distant wailing. 

A wailing that came in waves of sound, beginning slowly and lowly, togain gradually in volume until it reached the full height or limit ofthe human voice, when gradually, as it had risen, it fell again. Noshrieking, just a wailing inexpressibly saddening to hear. 

I lay for some minutes not realising what the sound was, yet penetratedby its sorrow. Then came consciousness. It was from the blacks' camp, and must mean death. Beemunny, the oldest woman of the camp, who forweeks had been ill, must now be dead. 

Poor old Beemunny, who was blind and used to get hergreat-granddaughter, little Buggaloo, to lead her up to the treeoutside my window, under whose shade she had spent so many hours, telling me legends of the golden age when man, birds, beasts, trees, and elements spoke a common language. But the day before I had been tothe camp to hear how she was. The old women were sitting round her; oneof the younger ones told me her end had nearly come. 

The Boolees, or whirlwinds, with the Mullee Mullees of her enemies in, had been playing round and through the camp for days, they said, watching to seize her fleeting spirit--a sure sign the end was near. That night surely would come Yowee, the skeleton spirit, with the bighead and fiery eyes, whose coming meant death. 

Last night more than one of the blacks had dreamt of an emu, whichmeant misfortune to one of that totem, which was Beemunny's. 

As Yellen spoke in a hushed sad voice, suddenly, though no breath ofwind was stirring, sprang up on the edge of the camp a boolee, rearingits head as if it were a living thing. Round it whirled, snatching thedead leaves of the Coolabahs, swirling them with the dust it gatheredinto a spiral column, which sped, as if indeed a spirit animated it, straight to the camp of the dying woman. Round and round it eddied, adust-devil dancing a dance of death. 

The watchers drew nearer to Beemunny, who was past heeding even thespirits of evil. 

The women in other camps clutched their children to them, but spoke noword. All was silent but the swirling leaves as the column gatheredthem. Finding the deathbed guarded, the boolee turned sharply from thecamp and sped away down the road, dissolving on the poligonum flat inthe distance. 

Yellen gave a sigh of relief. 

But now her fears were verified; Beemunny was dead. 

Poor old Beemunny! How the vanities of youth cling to one; how we are'all sisters under the skin. '

She was ever so old, she was blind, her face was scarred with wrinkles, yet one of her beauties remained, and she absolutely joyed in itspossession: it was her hair. Her hair was thick and fuzzy, when combedwould stand nearly straight out, which is quite unusual with the nativewomen's hair in that part. Beemunny one day asked one of the youngerwomen if I had ever heard what a lot of lovers she had had in heryouth, what fights there had been over her, and all because of herbeautiful hair. 

Poor old Beemunny! Something in my own woman nature went out to her insympathy. She was old, she was ugly, her husband was dead, as were allmen to her. 

Poor old Beemunny! Having once learnt her vanity, I never passed herwithout saying 'Gubbah Tekkul!' 'Beautiful hair!' at which she wouldbeam and toss her head. 

At sunrise came again the wailing; the singing of the Goohnai, ordirge, wherein are enumerated all the multiplex totems of the deceased, crooned in a wailing way, and each fresh person who comes to the campsings this dirge again. In olden times all would have been painted infull war paint, weapons in hand, to see the corpse. 

I was given permission to go to the funeral, old Bootha was to take me. 

I heard that Beemunny had died early in the night. Her daughter andnearest of kin had sat all night beside her body, with each a hand onit to guard her from the spirits. She was now in her bark coffin, roundwhich were her own blankets to be buried with her. The coffin was madeof bark cut off right round a tree, split on one side from end to end;the body was placed in this, then the bark lapped over it, the endswere blocked up with other pieces, the whole secured by ropes. All dayuntil the burial some one of kin stayed beside the coffin, little firesof Budtha kept smoking all the while. In the afternoon old Bootha camefor me, and we set out. 

First in the procession marched two old men of the tribe, behind themsome young men, then those in charge of the coffin and the two nearestwomen relations, immediately behind them the old women, then the youngwomen. No women with babies were allowed to go, nor any children. Icame last with old Bootha. 

The procession moved along an old winding track on the top of amoorilla, or pebbly ridge, pine-trees overarching in places carving thesky into a dome--a natural temple through which we walked to theburial-ground. 

Every now and then we heard a bird note, which made the women glance ateach other and say, first, 'Guadgee, ' then 'Bootha, ' as it came again, and a third time 'Hippitha. ' To my uneducated ear the note seemed thesame each time. I asked Bootha what it was. She told me it was the noteof a little bird, something like a wren, called Durrooee, in whoseshape the spirits of dead women revisited the earth. It seems thatNumbardee, the first woman, was, like Milton's Eve, a caterer; sheacquired art in beating the roots of plants into flat cakes muchesteemed; she was never to be met without some, carrying them always ina bag across her shoulders. 

And Byamee was so pleased with her for always having food for thehungry that, when at length she died, he allowed her to revisit her oldgahreemai, or camp, her spirit returning in the form of the littlehoney-eater bird, Durrooee; and all women after her had a likeprivilege if they had done their duty in life. These birds are sacred;no one must harm them, nor even imitate their cry. It would be hard tohurt them, for the spirit in them is so strong. If any one even takesup a stick or stone to throw at them, hardly is it raised from theground when the would-be assailant is forcibly knocked over, though hesees nothing but the little bird he was about to attack. Then he knowsthe bird must be a spirit bird, and perhaps seeing him look at her, thebird calls a woman's name, then he knows whose spirit it is. 

A black boy on the station was badly hurt by a fall from a tree. It hadseemed strange that such a good climber should fall. The blacks said itwas because there was a Durrooee's nest in that tree, the spirit hadknocked him down, and for a time so paralysed the man with him that hecould not move to his assistance. Needless to say, they have avoidedthat tree since. 

In the distance we heard the sound of the grave being dug. None of thesame totem as the dead person must dig the grave. The coffin was putdown beside the grave, the daughter and other nearest women relationsstayed with it, the other women went away into the bush in onedirection, some of the men in another. 

Old Hippi heaped up some Budtha twigs he had gathered, I noticed as wecame along; these he set fire to, and made a dense smoke which hung lowover the open grave and spread over the old graves. 

Hippi smoked himself in this smoke. The women came back with arms fullof small branches of the sacred Dheal tree, these they laid beside thegrave, then sat down and broke them into small twigs; the old women hadtwigs put through the bored hole in their noses. 

The men came back with some pine saplings; two of these they laid atthe bottom of the grave, which was about five feet deep. On these pinesthey spread strips of bark, then a thick bed of Dheal twigs; then awoman handed a bag containing the belongings of the dead woman--boogurrthey were called--to the oldest male relative, who was standing in thegrave; he placed it as a pillow at one end. Then Hippi and thedaughter's husband took each an end of the coffin and lowered it intothe grave; the daughter cried loudly as they did so. Over the coffinthey laid a rug, and on the rug they placed Beemunny's yam stick. Hippisignalled to the daughter, who then came with the other women close tothe edge of the grave. She sat at one end, looked over into the grave, and called out: 'My mother! Oh, my mother! Come back to me, my mother!My mother that I have been with always, why did you leave me?' Then shewailed the death-wait, which the other women caught up. As the waildied away, Hippi said:

 'She has gone from us; never as she was will she return. Never more as she once did will she chop honey. Never more with her gunnai dig yams. She has gone from us; never as she was to return. '

As he finished all the women wailed again, and loudest of all thedaughter. Then the old man in the grave said:

 'Mussels there are in the creek and plenty, But she who lies here will dig no more. We shall fish as of old for cod-fish, But she who lies here will beg no more oil, Oil for her hair, she will want no more. ' Then again the women wailed. 

Old Hippi said, as the other man, in a sort of recitative

 'Never again will she use a fire. Where she goes fires are not. For she goes to the women, the dead women, And women can make no fires. Fruit is there in plenty and grass seed, But no birds nor beasts in the heaven of woman. '

Again the women wailed, wail after wail. Then they handed the remainingtwigs of Dheal to the men, who laid them on the top of the coffin, thenbark again over the twigs, and pine saplings on them, on top some oldrugs. 

While this was being done the old, old gins danced slowly a corroboreestep round the edge of the grave, crooning a Goohnai-wurrai or dirge. 

Then the men began to throw in the earth, the oldest male relative ofthe deceased standing in the grave to guard the body until the earthcovered the coffin. As thud after thud went the earth in, the daughtershrieked and swayed over as if to fall into the grave, but her frienddrew her back. She called 'Mother! mother!' took a sharp stone whichwas beside her and hit it against her head until the blood gushed out. They took the stone from her. There she sat rocking her body to andfro, wailing all the time, the other women wailing too, until the gravewas quite covered in. 

When it was filled in Hippi made another big smoke, thoroughly smokedhimself, calling to all the men to do the same. 

An old woman made a big smoke behind where the women were sitting; shecalled them one by one and made them stand in the thick of it for awhile. 

Hippi said something to her. I caught the word 'Innerah'--they calledme Innerah, which meant literally a woman with a camp of her own. Theold woman gave the smoke fire a stir, and out at once came a thickcolumn of smoke circling round my guest and myself. 

They covered the grave with logs and boughs and then swept round it. 

All was over, we turned homewards. As we did so a flock of screechinggilahs flew over, their bright rose colouring lighting up the sombrescene where the only colour was that of the dark pines silhouettedagainst a sky from which the blue had now faded. Going home Bootha toldme that the smoking process was to keep the spirits away, and todisinfect us from any disease the dead might have; and she said had wenot been smoked the spirits might have followed us back to the house. 

They would at once change their camp; the old one would be gummarl--atabooed place; but before they left it they would burn smoke firesthere to scare away the spirits. 

I asked her why they swept round the grave. She said, in case the deadperson had been poisoned or killed by magic; and, indeed, so little dothey allow the possibility of death from natural causes, they even saidold Beemunny had been given poison in her honey by an old-time rejectedlover. Well, by sweeping round the grave they would see what track wason the swept place next morning, and according to that they would knowto what totem the murderer belonged. If the track should be aniguana's, then one of the Beewee, or iguana totem, was guilty; if anemu, then one of the Dinewan, or emu totem, and so on. 

Old Hippi joined me a little further on. He explained that the servicewas not as it would have been some years ago. That I knew, because whenI first went to the station I had seen them going to funerals alldecorated as if for corroborees. Round their waists, wrists, knees andankles had been twigs of Dheal, the sacred tree, and the rest of theirbodies had been painted. 

Hippi said a great deal more would have been spoken and sung at thegrave if the dead person had been a man. His spirit would have in ashort sort of prayer been commended to Byamee, who would have beenintreated to let the dead enter Bullimah (heaven), as he had kept theBoorah laws--that is, of course, if he had been initiated: the spiritsof the uninitiated wander until they are reincarnated, and never enterBullimah. One curious coincidence occurred in connection with thisburial. 

Seeing the droughty desolation of the country, as we walked to thegrave, I asked old Bootha when she thought it would rain again. Comingvery close to me she half whispered:

'In three days I think it; old woman dead tell me when she dying that"'sposin" she can send 'em rain, she send 'im three days when her Yoweebulleerul--spirit breath--go long Oobi Oobi. '

Beemunny died on Wednesday night. On Saturday when we went to bed theskies were as cloudless as they had been for weeks. In the middle ofthe night we were awakened by the patter of rain-drops on the ironroof. All night it rained, and all the next day. 

It is said that a dead person always sends rain within a week of hisdeath to wash out his tracks on earth. 

One little black girl told me she always felt sad when she sawthunderclouds, because she thought some dead person had sent them. 

As a rule, there is a good deal more shedding of blood over a gravethan I saw. This blood offering is said to please the dead, being aproof to them of the affection of the living. It is funeral etiquetteto prepare yourself with a weapon with which to shed this blood, butlikewise etiquette for a friend to intervene and stop yourself-mutilation. 

On emerging from the grave the spirit finds the spirits of his deadrelations waiting to go with him to Oobi Oobi, that is, a sacredmountain whose top towers into the sky, nearly touching Bullimah. Thenew spirit recognises his relations at once; they had, many of them, been round the death-bed visible at the last to the dying, though notto any of the watchers with him, though these are said sometimes tohear the spirit voices. 

The spirit from the grave carried with him the twigs of the sacredDheal tree which were placed over and under his body; he follows hisspirit relations, dropping these twigs as he goes along, leaving thus atrail that those who follow may see. At the top of Oobi Oobi he findsthe spirits called Mooroobeaigunnil, whose business it is to bridgeover the distance a spirit has to traverse between the top of themountain and Bullimah, the great Byamee's sky-camp. 

One of these Mooroobeaigunnil seizes him and hoists him on to hisshoulders; then comes another and hoists the first; and so on, untilthe one holding the spirit can lift him into Bullimah. As the spirit ishoisted in, one of the Mooroobeaigunnil, knocks the lowest one in theladder of spirits down; thud to the earth come the rest, making a soundlike a thunderclap, which the far away tribes hear, and hearing say:

'A spirit has entered Bullimah. '

Should a big meteor fall followed by a thunderclap, it is a sign that agreat man has died. Should a number of stars shoot off from a fallingstar, it is a sign that a man has died leaving a large family. When astar is seen falling in the day-time, it is a sign that one of theNoongahburrah tribe dies. 

In the olden time some of the tribes would keep a body at least fivedays. Then they would rub the outside black skin off, make an openingin the side of the body, take out the internal parts, fill it up withDheal leaves. They would place the rubbed-off skin and internals inbark and put it in hollow trees. They would then bury the body, whichthey said would come up white. 

Sometimes they would keep their dead for weeks, that they might easilyextract the small joint bones with which to make poison. 

A baby's body they would sometimes carry for years before burying, butit would usually have been well smoke-dried first, though not, Ibelieve, invariably so. 

Sometimes a body was kept so that relations from a distance might comeand see for themselves the death was not the result of foul play. 

After the body was filled up with Dheal leaves it was put into its barkcoffin and smoke fires made round it. 

As each relation arrived he was blindfolded and led up to the corpse, which was held up standing by some of the men. When the blindfoldedrelation came near, the bandage was taken off him and before him he sawstanding his relation, whom he examined to see if wounds were visible. If signs of violence were apparent, the murderer had to be discoveredand stand his trial. He was given a shield to defend himself with. Every man had a right to throw a weapon at him; should he manage todefend himself successfully, as far as that crime was concerned hewould be henceforth a free man, no stigma attaching to him whatever. Inwhich, I fancy, the blacks show themselves a larger-minded people thantheir white supplanters, who make this world no place for repentancefor wrong-doers, 'though they seek it with tears. ' In the world'sopinion there is no limit to a man's sentence. We read the letter ofthe Gospel, and leave the spirit of it to the blacks to apply. 

Should there be a difficulty as to discovering the criminal, all themen of the tribes amongst whom the murderer could be stand round thecoffin. A head man says to the corpse, 'Did such and such a man harmyou?' naming, one after another, all the men. At the guilty one's namethe corpse is said to knock a sort of rap, rap, rap. 

That man has to stand his trial. 

But as a rule the blacks like to bury their dead quickly, because thespirit haunts their neighbourhood or its late camp until the body isburied. Mysterious lights are said to be seen at night, and there is ageneral scare in camp-land until a corpse is safely buried. 

There are variations in the funeral rites of nearly every tribe. Evenin our district the dead were sometimes placed in hollow trees. I knowof skeletons in trees on the edge of the ridge on which the homestation was built. These are said to be for the most part the bodies ofworthless women or babies. 

In the coastal districts there are platforms in trees on which deadbodies were laid. In some places corpses are tied up in a sittingposture. The tying, they say, is to keep them secure when spirits comeabout, or body-snatchers for poison bones. 

In some places the graves are covered with a sort of emu egg-shaped andsized lumps of copi; and also, when a widow's term of mourning wasover, she would take the widow's cap--which was a sort of copi or gypsumcovering put on wet to her head--and place it on the grave of herhusband. 

On the Narran the widows plaster their heads with copi or bidyi, asthey call it, but so thinly that it cakes off. They renew it, and keeptheir heads covered with it for the allotted term of mourning, thenjust let it gradually all wear off. 

Those widows' caps, having the imprint of nets inside them, are veryold; for hair nets have been out of fashion for very many years incamp-land, so such rank as antique curios. 

I don't think the small girl who thought when she grew up she'd chooseto be a widow, would have thought so if she had been born black. 

When a black woman's husband dies she has to cover herself with mud, and sleep beside a smouldering smoke all night. Three days afterwards, black fellows go and make a fire by the creek. They chase the widow andher sisters, who might have been her husband's wives, down to thecreek. The widow catches hold of the smoking bush, puts it under herarm, and jumps into the middle of the creek; as the smoking bush isgoing out she drinks some of the smoky water. Then out she comes, issmoked at the fire; she then calls to those in the camp, and lookstowards her husband's grave and calls again; his spirit answers, andthe blacks call to her that they have heard him. 

After that she is allowed to speak; she had been doomed to silencesince his death, but for lamentations. She goes to the new camp, whereanother big smoke is made. She puts on her widow's cap, which, as itwears out, has to be renewed for many months; for some months, too, shekeeps her face daubed with white. 

Every time a stranger comes to the camp the widow has to make a smokeand smoke the camp again. The nearest of kin to her husband has a rightto claim her as wife when her mourning is over. 

Should a woman be left a widow two or three times there are sinisterwhisperings about her. She is spoken of as having a 'white heart'; andno man can live long, they say, with a woman having a 'white heart. '

The graves in some parts of Australia are marked by carved trees; onlya few painted upright posts marked them on the Narran. 

A tabooed camp has always a marked tree--just a piece of bark cut offand some red markings made on the wood, which indicate that the placeis gummarl. 

Any possessions of the dead not buried with them are burnt, except thesacred stones; they are left to the wirreenun nearest of kin to thedead person. 

Lately a case came under my notice of the taboo extended to thepossessions of dead people. 

A black man having two horses died. Neither his widow nor her motherwould use those horses, even when he had been dead over a year. Theywould walk ten or twelve miles for their rations and carry them back, rather than use those horses before the term of mourning was over. 

The widow was one of my particular friends, but she would not come tosee me because her husband had been at the house shortly before hedied. She camped nearly a mile away, and I went to see her there. Afterhe had been dead about a year, she came to see me; but before she didso her mother walked all round the out-buildings, garden, yards, etc. , with a bunch of smoking Budtha, crooning little spirit songs. 

CHAPTER XI

SOMETHING ABOUT STARS AND LEGENDS

Venus in the Summer evenings is a striking object in the western sky. Our Venus they call the Laughing Star, who is a man. He once saidsomething very improper, and has been laughing at his joke ever since. As he scintillates you seem to see him grinning still at hisRabelais-like witticism, seeing which the {aborigines} say:

'He's a rude old man, that Laughing Star. '

The Milky Way is a warrambool, or water overflow; the stars are thefires, and the dusky haze the smoke from them, which spirits of thedead have lit on their journey across the sky. In their fires they arecooking the mussels they gather where they camp. 

There is one old man up there who was once a great rainmaker, and whenyou see that he has turned round as the position of the Milky Way isaltered, you may expect rain; he never moves except to make it. 

A waving dark shadow that you will see along the same course isKurreah, the crocodile. 

To get to the Warrambool, the Wurrawilberoo, two dark spots in Scorpio, have to be passed. They are devils who try to catch the spirits of thedead; sometimes even coming to earth, when they animate whirlwinds andstrike terror into the blacks. The old men try to keep them from racingthrough the camp by throwing their spears and boomerangs at them. 

The Pleiades are seven sisters, as usual, the dimmed ones having beendulled because on earth Wurrunnah seized them and tried to melt thecrystal off them at a fire; for, beautiful as they were with their longhair, they were ice-maidens. But he was unsuccessful beyond dullingtheir brightness, for the ice as it melted put out the fire. The twoice-maidens were miserable on earth with him, and eventually escaped bythe aid of one of their 'multiplex totems, ' the pine-tree. Wurrunnahhad told them to get him pine bark. Now the Meamei--Pleiades--belong tothe Beewee totem, so does the pine-tree. They chopped the pine bark, and as they did so the tree telescoped itself to the sky where thefive other Meamei were, whom they now joined, and with whom they haveremained ever since. But they who were polluted by their enforcedresidence with the earth-man never shone again with the brightness oftheir sisters. This legend was told emphasising the beauty of chastity. 

Men had desired all the sisters when once they travelled on earth, butthey kept themselves unspotted from the world, with the exception ofthe two Wurrunnah captured by stratagem. 

Orion's Sword and Belt are the Berai-Berai--the boys--who best of allloved the Meamei, for whom they used to hunt, bringing their offeringsto them; but the ice-maidens were obdurate and cold, disdaining lovers, as might be expected from their parentage. Their father was a rockymountain, their mother an icy mountain stream. But when they weretranslated to the sky the Berai-Berai were inconsolable. They would nothunt, they would not eat, they pined away and died. The spirits pitiedthem and placed them in the sky within sound of the singing of theMeamei, and there they are happy. By day they hunt, and at night lighttheir corroboree fires, and dance to the singing in the distance. Justto remind the earth-people of them, the Meamei drop down some ice inthe winter, and they it is who make the winter thunderstorms. 

Castor and Pollux, in some tribes, are two hunters of long ago. 

Canopus is Womba, the Mad Star, the wonderful Weedah of long ago, who, on losing his loves, went mad, and was sent to the sky that they mightnot reach him; but they followed, and are travelling after him to thisday, and after them the wizard Beereeun, their evil genius, who madethe mirage on the plains in order to deceive them, that they and Weedahmight be lured on by it and perish of thirst. 

When they escaped him Beereeun threw a barbed spear into the sky, andhooked one spear on to another until he made a ladder up which heclimbed after them; and across the sky he is still pursuing them. 

The Clouds of Magellan are the Bralgah, or Native Companions, motherand daughter, whom the Wurrawilberoo chased in order to kill and eatthe mother and keep the daughter, who was the great dancer of thetribes. They almost caught her, but her tribe pursued them too quickly;when, determined that if they lost her so should her people, theychanted an incantation and changed her from Bralgah, the dancing-girl, to Bralgah, the dancing-bird, then left her to wander about the plains. They translated themselves on beefwood trees into the sky, and therethey are still. 

Gowargay, the featherless emu, is a debbil-debbil of water-holes; hedrags people who bathe in his holes down and drowns them, but goesevery night to his sky-camp, the Coalpit, a dark place by the SouthernCross, and there he crouches. Our Corvus, the crow, is the kangaroo. 

The Southern Crown is Mullyan, the eagle-hawk. The Southern Cross wasthe first Minggah, or spirit tree a huge Yaraan, which was the mediumfor the translation of the first man who died on earth to the sky. Thewhite cockatoos which used to roost in this tree when they saw itmoving skywards followed it, and are following it still as Mouyi, thepointers. The other Yaraan trees wailed for the sadness that deathbrought into the world, weeping tears of blood. The red gum whichcrystallises down their trunks is the tears. 

Some tribes say it was by a woman's fault that death came into theworld. 

This legend avers that at first the tribes were meant to live for ever. The women were told never to go near a certain hollow tree. The beesmade a nest in this tree; the women coveted the honey, but the menforbade them to go near it. But at last one woman determined to getthat honey; chop went her tomahawk into that hollow trunk, and out flewa huge bat. This was the spirit of death which was now let free to roamthe world, claiming all it could touch with its wings. 

Of eclipses there are various accounts. Some say it is Yhi, the sun, the wanton woman, who has overtaken at last her enemy the moon, whoscorned her love, and whom now she tries to kill, but the spiritsintervene, dreading a return to a dark world. Some say the enemies havemanaged to get evil spirits into each other which are destroying them. The wirreenuns chant incantations to oust these spirits of evil, andwhen the eclipse is over claim a triumph of their magic. 

Another account says that Yhi, the sun, after many lovers, tried toensnare Bahloo, the moon; but he would have none of her, and so shechases him across the sky, telling the spirits who stand round the skyholding it up, that if they let him escape past them to earth, she willthrow down the spirit who sits in the sky holding the ends of theKurrajong ropes which they guard at the other end, and if that spiritfalls the earth will be hurled down into everlasting darkness. 

So poor Bahloo, when he wants to get to earth and go on with thecreation of baby girls, has to sneak down as an emu past the spirits, hurrying off as soon as the sun sinks down too. 

Bahloo is a very important personage in legends. 

When the blacks see a halo round the moon they say, 'Hullo! Going to be rain. Bahloo building a house to keep himself dry. '

All sorts of scraps of folk-lore used to crop out from the little girlsI took from the camp into the house to domesticate. When storms werethreatening, some of the clouds have a netted sort of look, somethinglike a mackerel sky, only with a dusky green tinge, they would say:'See the old man with the net on his back; he's going to drop somehailstones. '

Meteors always mean death; should a trail follow them, the dead personhas left a large family. 

Comets are a spirit of evil supposed to drink up the rain-clouds, socausing a drought; their tails being huge families all thirsty, sothirsty that they draw the river up into the clouds. 

Every natural feature in any way pronounced has a mythical reason forits existence, every peculiarity in bird life, every peculiarity in thetrees and stones. Besides there are many mythical bogies still atlarge, according to native lore, making the bush a gnome-land. 

Even the winds carry a legend in their breath. 

You hear people say they could have 'burst with rage, ' but it is leftto a black's legend to tell of a whole tribe bursting with rage, and sooriginating the winds. 

There was once an invisible tribe called Mayrah. These people, men andwomen, though they talked and hunted with them, could never be seen bythe other tribes, to whom were only visible their accoutrements forhunting. They would hear a woman's voice speak to them, see perhaps agoolay in mid-air and hear from it an invisible baby's cry; they wouldknow then a Mayrah woman was there. Or a man would speak to them. Looking up they would see a belt with weapons in it, a forehead bandtoo, perhaps, but no waist nor forehead, a water-vessel invisibly held:a man was there, an invisible Mayrah. One of these Mayrah men chummedwith one of the Doolungaiyah tribe; he was a splendid mate, a greathunter, and all that was desirable, but for his invisibility. TheDoolungaiyah longed to see him, and began to worry him on the subjectuntil at last the Mayrah became enraged, went to his tribe, and toldthem of the curiosity of the other tribes as to their bodily forms. Theothers became as furious as he was; they all burst with rage and rushedaway roaring in six different directions, and ever since have onlyreturned as formless wind to be heard but never seen. So savagely theMayrah howled round the Doolungaiyah's camp that he burrowed into thesand to escape, and his tribe have burrowed ever since. 

Three of the winds are masculine and three feminine. The Crow, according to legend, controls Gheeger Gheeger, and keeps her in ahollow log. The Eagle-hawk owns Gooroongoodilbaydilbay, and flies withher in the shape of high clouds. Yarragerh is a man, and he has forwives the Budtha, Bibbil, and Bumble trees, and when he breathes onthem they burst into new shoots, buds, flowers, and fruits, telling theworld that their lover Yarragerh, the spring, has come. 

Douran Doura woos the Coolabah, and Kurrajong, who flower after the hotnorth wind has kissed them. 

The women winds have no power to make trees fruitful. They can but moanthrough them, or tear them in rage for the lovers they have stolen, whom they can only meet twice a year at the great corroboree of thewinds, when they all come together, heard but never seen; for Mayrah, the winds, are invisible, as were the Mayrah, the tribe who in burstinggave them birth. 

Yarragerh and Douran Doura are the most honoured winds as being thesurest rain-bringers. In some of the blacks' songs Mayrah is sung of asthe mother of Yarragerh, the spring, or as a woman kissed into life byYarragerh putting such warmth into her that she blows the winter away. But these are poetical licences, for Yarragerh is ordinarily a man whowoos the trees as a spring wind until the flowers are born and thefruit formed, then back he goes to the heaven whence he came. 

Then there are the historical landmarks: Byamee's tracks in stone, andso on, and the battle-fields, too, of old tribal fights. Just in frontof our station store was a gnarled old Coolabah tree covered with wartyexcrescences, which are supposed to be seats for spirits, so showing aspirit haunt. 

In this particular tree are the spirits of the Moungun, or armlesswomen, and when the wind blows you could hear them wailing. Their cruelhusband chopped their arms off because they could not get him the honeyhe wanted, and their spirits have wailed ever since. 

Across the creek is another very old tree, having one hollow part inwhich is said to be secreted a shell which old Wurrunnah, the travellerof the tribes, and the first to see the sea, brought back. No one woulddare to touch the shell. The tribe of a neighbouring creek, when wewere first at the station, used to threaten to come and get it, but themen of the local tribe used to muster to protect it from desecrationeven at the expense of their lives. 

The Minggah by the garden I have told you of before. Further down thecreek are others. 

At Weetalibah was the tree from which Byamee cut the first Gayandi. This tree was burnt by travellers a few years ago. The blacks werefurious: the sacred tree of Byamee burnt by the white devils! There aretrees, too, considered sacred, from which Byamee cut honey and markedthem for his own, just as a man even now, on finding a bee's nest andnot being able to stay and get it, marks a tree, which for any one elseto touch is theft. 

A little way from the head station was an outcrop of white stones. These are said to be fossilised bones of Boogoodoogahdah's victims. Shewas a cannibal woman who had hundreds of dogs; with them she used toround up blacks and kill them, and she and her dogs ate them. At lastshe was outwitted and killed herself, and her spirit flew out as a birdfrom her heart. This bird haunts burial grounds, and if in a droughtany one can run it down and make it cry out, rain will fall. 

During a drought one of these birds came into my garden, hearing whichthe blacks said rain would come soon, and it did. In another droughtwhen the rainmakers had failed, some of the old blacks saw a rain-birdand hunted it, but could not get it to call out. 

Geologists say there should be diamonds along some of the oldwater-courses of the Moorilla ridges. Perhaps the white stone that theblacks talk about, which shows a light at night, and has, they say, adevil in it, is a diamond. Ruskin rather thought there was a devil indiamonds, making women do all sorts of evil to possess them. The blackstold me that a Queensland tribe had a marvellous stone which at greatgatherings they show. Taking those who are privileged to see it intothe dark, there they suddenly produce it, and it glows like a star, though when looked closely at in daylight seems only like a large dropof rain solidified. This stone, they said, has to be well guarded, asit has the power of self-movement, or rather, the devil in it can moveit. 

The greatest of local landmarks is at Brewarrina; this is the work ofByamee and his giant sons, the stone fisheries made in the bed of theBarwon. 

At Boogira, on the Narran Lake, is an imprint in stone of Byamee's handand foot, which shows that in those days were giants. There it was thatByamee brought to bay the crocodiles who had swallowed his wives, fromwhich he recovered them and restored them to life. 

At Mildool is a scooped-out rock which Byamee made to catch and holdwater; beside it he hollowed out a smaller stone, that his dog mighthave a drinking-place too. This recurrence of the mention of dogs inthe legends touching Byamee looks as if blacks at all events believeddogs to have been in Australia as long as men. 

At Dooyanweenia are two rocks where Byamee and Birrahgnooloo rested, and to these rocks are still sticking the hairs he pulled from hisbeard, after rubbing his face with gum to make them come out easily. 

At Guddee, a spring in the Brewarrina district, every now and then comeup huge bones of animals now extinct. Legends say that these bones arethe remains of the victims of Mullyan, the eagle-hawk, whose camp wasin the tree at the foot of which was the spring. This tree was a treeof trees; first, a widely spreading gum, then another kind, next apine, and lastly a midgee, in which was Mullyan's camp, out of whichthe relations of his victims burnt him and his wives, and they now formthe Northern Crown constellation. The roots of this gigantic treetravelled for miles, forming underground water-courses. At Eurahbah andelsewhere are hollowed-out caves like stones; in these placesBirrahgnooloo slept, and near them, before the stock trampled them out, were always to be found springs made at her instigation for herrefreshment; she is the patroness of water. 

At Toulby and elsewhere are mud springs. It is said that long ago therewere no springs there, nor in the Warrego district, and in the droughtsthe water-courses all dried up and the blacks perished in hundreds. Time, after time this happened, until at last it seemed as if thetribes would be exterminated. The Yanta--spirits--saw what washappening and felt grieved, so they determined to come and live on theearth again to try and bring relief to the drought-stricken people. Down they came and set to work to excavate springs. They scooped outearth and dug, deeper and deeper, until at length after many of themgave in from exhaustion, those that were left were rewarded by seeingsprings bubble up. 

The first of those that they made was at Yantabulla, which bears theirname to this day. 

The blacks were delighted at having watering-places which neither adrought nor the fiercest sun could dry up. The Yantas were notcontented with this nor with the other springs they made. Theydetermined to excavate a whole plain, and turn it into a lake so deepthat the sun could never dry it, and which would be full of fish forthe tribes. 

They went to Kinggle and there began their work. On they toiledunceasingly, but work as they would they could not complete theirscheme, for one after another wearied and died, until at last nothingwas left on the plain but the mud springs under the surface and thegraves of the Yantas on top. No blacks will cross Kinggle plains lestsome of these spirits arise through the openings of their graves. 

This legend shows what a disheartening country the West is in adrought. When even the spirits gave in, how can ordinary men succeed?But indeed it is not ordinary men who do, but our 'Western heroes, ' asWill Ogilvie calls them, who wear their cross of bronze on neck andcheek in the country where 'the green fades into grey. '

CHAPTER XII

THE TRAPPING OF GAME

Some of the blacks' methods of catching game I have seen practised, some have long since died out of use. 

Of course the sportsmen knew the favourite watering-holes of the game. At such a place they made a rough break at each side, leaving anopening where the track was. Along this track they would lay a net withone end on the edge of the water; in the water they put sticks on theends of which the birds rest to drink, the other ends are out in thetrap. They would make a hole low down on each side of the net, and aman would hide in each. 

A bird's watering-place, where the blacks trap them, is calledDheelgoolee. When the Dheelgoolee trapping begins, on the first daythose who go out hunting must bring home their game alive to give theman at the Dheelgoolee luck. Then they never try to catch an emu orkangaroo, only iguana, opossum, piggiebillah, paddy melon, orbandicoot, all of which could be brought home alive. But after thefirst day they can kill as they go along. 

All day some birds come to the Dheelgoolee-pigeons, gilahs, youngcrows, and others, and the man watching catches them. When the game wasthick on the net, the men in the holes would catch hold of the ends ofthe sticks in the net and quickly turn them over the lower ends, thusentrapping all on the net. In the evening turkeys and such things aswater at night-time, amongst which are opossums and paddy melons, wouldbe trapped. 

Ducks were trapped, too, by making bough breaks across the shallow partof the creek, with a net across the deep part from break to break. Acouple of the men would go up stream to hunt the ducks down, and somewould stay each side of the net armed with pieces of bark. The twohunters up stream frightened the ducks off the water, and sent themflying down stream to the trap. Should they seem flying too high as ifto pass, the blacks would throw the pieces of bark high in the air, imitating, as they did so, the cry of hawks. Down the ducks would flyturning back; some of the men would whistle like ducks, others wouldthrow bark again, giving the hawk's cry, which would frighten thebirds, making them double back into the net, where they were quicklydespatched by those waiting. 

Murrahgul is another trap. This is a yard made all round a waterholewith one opening; about this opening they will fasten, from stumps orlogs, strong strings with a slipping knot. The game, emu or kangaroo, would probably step into one of these string nooses, would try to pullits leg out; the harder it pulled the tighter the knot. Or the blacksmight have put a sort of cross-bar overhead at the entrance, withhanging strings having a slip knot; in would go an emu's head, the birdwould rush on and be strangled. 

Boobeen is a primitive cornet, a hollowed piece of Bibbil wood, one endpartially filled up with pine gum, and ornamented outside withcarvings. To blow through it is an art, and the result rather like abig horn. The noise is said to be very like an emu's cry, and this emubugle will certainly, they say, draw towards it a gundooee, or solitaryemu. 

The blacks used on the sandhills to make a deep hole to hide themselvesin, usually only one though. From this hole they would run out a drainfor about thirty yards. The man with the Boobeen would have a littlebreak of bushes round him; scattered over the leaves he'd have emufeathers, and then he would have a strong string, on the end of whichhe would have a small branch with this he would place about midway emufeathers on it; down the drain. 

When the emu answers the Boobeen's call, the bugler gets lower andslower with his call. The emu sees the feathered thing in the drain, comes inquisitively up and sniffs at it. The man in the hole pulls inthe string slowly; the emu follows, on, on, until heedlessly he stepson a Murrahgul, or string trap, and is caught. The hunters wouldsometimes stalk kangaroo, holding in front of them boughs of trees orbushy young saplings, closing silently in and in, until at last thekangaroo were so closely surrounded by men armed with boondees andspears that there was no escape for them. 

For catching emu they had a net made of string as thick as aclothes-line. These nets were made either of Kurrajong (Noongah) bark, or of Burraungah grass. The Kurrajong bark is stripped off the trees, beaten, chewed, and then teased. Then it was taken and rubbed, principally by the women on their legs, into strands. 

The grass was used preferably to Kurrajong bark, as it was easier towork. The process of preparation was as follows:--

A hole was dug in the ground, some fire put in it, a. Quantity ofordinary grass was put on the top of the coals, and on top of that aheap of Burraungah grass, that topped with ordinary grass. 

Water was sprinkled over it all and the hole earthed up. 

When it had been in long enough the earth was cleared away, and thegrass, which was quite soft, taken out. It was then chewed and workedlike the Kurrajong bark, than which it was much more pliable. 

String was made of various thicknesses according to what it wasrequired for. 

Fishing nets were always smoked before being used, and all nets hadlittle charm songs sung over them. In netting, their only implement wasa piece of wood to wind their string on. An emu net was about five feethigh, and between two and three hundred yards long. 

When any one discovered a setting emu, they used not to disturb her atonce and get her eggs, but returned to the camp, singing as they nearedit a song known as the Noorunglely, or setting emu song; those in campwould recognise it, and sing back the reply. The black fellows havinglearnt where the nest was, would get their net and go out to camp nearit. All that evening they would have an emu-hunting corroboree. Thenext morning at daylight they would erect their net into a sort oftriangular-shaped yard, one side open. Black fellows would be stationedat each end of the net, and at stated intervals along the mirroon, asthe net was called. When the others were all ready some of the blackswould make a wide circle round the emu, leaving open the side towardsthe net; they would close in gradually until they frightened the emuoff her nest; she would run in the direction where she saw no blackfellows and where the net was; the black fellows closing in behind, followed quickly. Poor Noorunglely floundered into the net, up rushed ablack fellow and, seizing her, wrung her neck. Having secured her, theywould next secure her eggs; that they might be a trifle stale was amatter of indifference to them. 

Another old method was by making sort of brush yards and catching theemus in these. 

One modern way is to run them down with kangaroo dogs, the same waywith kangaroo; but at one time still another method obtained. A blackfellow would get a long spear and fasten on the end a bunch of emufeathers. When he sighted an emu he would climb a tree, break someboughs to place beneath him, if the trees were thinly foliaged, to hidehim from the emu, then he would let his spear dangle down. The emu, amost inquisitive bird, seeing the emu feathers, would investigate. Directly the bird was underneath the tree, the black fellow would griphis spear tightly and throw it at the emu, rarely, if ever, failing tohit it, though the emu might run wounded for a short distance, but theblack fellow would be quickly after it to give it happy despatch. 

If the emu got a good start even, it was easily tracked by the trail ofblood. It has happened that a black fellow has not found his emu untilthe next day, when it was dead and the spear still in it; but usuallyvery soon after the wounded birds start running the spear is shakenout. 

Sometimes the blacks killed birds with their boomerangs, ducks inparticular. I fancy this killing of ducks by a well-thrown boomerang isone of the feats that black fellows allow themselves to blow about. Every man has usually one subject, a speciality he considers of hisown, and on that subject he waxes eloquent. 

Pigeons, gilahs, and plains turkeys are also killed with boomerangs. Blacks' fishing-nets are about ten feet by five, a stick run througheach end, for choice of Eurah wood. Eurah is a pretty drooping shrubwith bell-shaped spotted flowers, having a horrible smell. The wood isvery pliable. It is sometimes used instead of the sacred Dheal atfunerals. 

Two of the fishermen take the net into the creek, one at each end; theystand in a rather shallow place, holding the net upright in the water. Some other blacks go up stream and splash about, frightening the fishdown towards the net. When those holding the net feel the fish in it, they fold the two sticks together and bring the net out. 

To catch fish they also make small weirs and dams of stones, withnarrow passages of stones leading to them. The fish are swept by thecurrent into these yards, and there either caught by the blacks withtheir hands, or speared. The most celebrated of these stone fish-trapsis at Brewarrina on the Barwon. It is said to have been made by Byamee, the god and culture-hero of these people, and his giant sons. He it waswho established the rule that there should be a camping-ground incommon for the various tribes where, during the fishing festival, peaceshould be strictly kept, all meeting to enjoy the fish, to do theirshare towards preserving the fisheries. 

Each tribe has its particular yards; for another to take fish fromthese is theft. Each tribe keeps its yards in repair, replacing stonesremoved by floods, and so on. 

These stony fish mazes are fully two hundred yards in length, substantially built; some huge boulders are amongst the stones whichform these most intricate labyrinthine fish yards, which as traps areeminently successful, many thousands of Murray cod and other fish beingcaught in them. 

Dingo pups, in the days when dingoes were plentiful, were a mostesteemed delicacy. To eat dog is dangerous for a woman, as causingincreased birth-pangs; that suggests dog must be rather good eating, some epicure wirreenun scaring women off it by making that assertion. 

Ant larv', a special gift from some spirit in the stars, and frogs, arealso thought good by camp epicures. 

The blacks smear themselves over with the fat of fish or of almost anygame they catch. It is supposed to keep their limbs supple, and givethe admired ebony gloss to their skins which, by the way, are very finegrained. After a flood, when the water is running out of thetributaries of the creek, the blacks make a bough break beginning oneach bank and almost meeting in the middle; across the gap they place afishing-net which folds in like a bag, thus forming a fish-trap inwhich are caught any number of fish. Crayfish and mussels they caughtby digging down their holes in the mud for them. Their mode of catchingshrimps was very (with all apologies to scientists for using the word)primitive. Quite nude, the women sit down in the water, let the shrimpsbite them; as they nip, seize them. 

Iguanas burrow into the soft sand ridges and there remain during thewinter, only coming out after the Curreequinquins--butcher birds--oneof their sub-totems, sing their loudest to warn them that the winter isgone, calling Dooloomai, the thunder, to their aid lest their singingis not heard by their relations, who after the storms come out again inas good condition as when they disappeared. 

Black men do not approve of women cooks. At least the old men, underthe iron rule of ancient custom, will not eat bread made by gins, norwould they eat iguana, fish, piggiebillah, or anything like that if theinside were removed by a woman, though after themselves having preparedsuch things, they allow the gins to cook them--that is, if they havenot young children or are enceinte; under those conditions they areunclean. 

CHAPTER XIII

FORAGING AND COOKING

It is very strange to me to hear the average white person speak of theblacks collectively as having no individuality, for really they are asdiverse in characteristics as possible; no two girls I had in the housebut were totally different. 

There has been too much generalisation about the blacks. For instance, you hear some people assert all blacks are trackers and good bushmen. That there are some whose tracking power is marvellous is true, butthey are not the rule, and a black fellow off his own beat is oftenuseless as a bushman. 

So with their eyesight; what they have been trained to look out forthey see in a marvellously quick way, or so it seems to us who have notin their lines the same aptitude. Of course, for seeing things at adistance a black has the advantage, unless the white has had the sameopen-air life. Some white bushmen are as good as any blacks. 

Nimmaylee, a little black girl who lived in the house, used to tell meall sorts of bush wonders, as we went in the early summer mornings fora swim in the river. She was a great water-baby, with rather a contemptfor my aquatic limitations. Then she thought it too idiotic to want todry yourself with a towel, --just like a mad white woman!

White people were an immense joke to Nimmaylee. She conformed to theirrules as one playing a new game. She has a little brother as black asherself. She has a substantial pair of legs, but his are so thin andhis little body so round that he looks like a little black spider. 

Nimmaylee is quite an authority on corroborees, knowing ever so manydifferent steps, from the serpentile trail of the codfish to the mimicfight. The songs she knows too. She used, when she lived in the camp, to marshal in a little crowd of camp children, and put them through avaried performance for my benefit. 

These performances were of daily occurrence when the fruit was ripe, for Nimmaylee's capacity for water-melon was practically unlimited. 

Nimmaylee was a wonderful little fisherwoman; she delighted in afishing expedition with me. Off we used to go with our lines, worms orfrogs for bait, or perhaps shrimps or mussels if we were after cod. Ifwe were successful, Nimmaylee would string the fish on a stick in amost professional manner, and carry them with an air of pride to thecook. She attributes her fishing successes to a charm having been sungover her to that end as a baby. 

Accompanied by some reliable old 'gins' and ever so many piccaninnies, I used to take long walks through the 'bush. '

How interesting those blacks made my bush walks for me! Every ridge, plain, and bend had its name and probably legend; each bird a past, every excrescence of nature a reason for its being. 

Those walks certainly at least modified my conceit. I was always thedunce of the party--the smallest child knew more of woodcraft than Idid, and had something to tell of everything. Seeing Oogahnahbayah, asmall eagle-hawk, flying over, they would say, 'He eats the emu eggs. 'He flies over where the emu is sitting on her eggs and makes a noisehoping to frighten the bird off; having done so, he will drop a stoneon the eggs. If the emu is not startled off the nest, the hawk will flyon, alight at some distance, and walk up like a black fellow, stillwith the stone in his beak, to the nest; off the emu will go, then thehawk bangs the eggs with the stone until he breaks them. He throws thestone on one side, has a feed of emu eggs, and goes off, leaving poorMoorunglely, the sitting emu, to come back and find her eggs alldestroyed. As the narrative ended, the little {aborigines} would lookquite sad, and say 'Nurragah!' 'Poor thing!' at the thought of thedomestic tragedy in bird life. 

I had to hear the stingless little native bees humming before I couldsee them; and as to knowing which tree had honey in it, unless I sawthe bees, that was quite beyond me, while a mere toddler would pointtriumphantly to a 'sugar-bag' tree, recognising it as such by the waxon its fork, black before rain, yellowish afterwards. 

This honey is good strained, but as the blacks get it, it is all mixedup with dirty wax and dead bees. 

I deplored the sacrifice of the bees one day, but was told it was allright. Whoever had chopped the nest out would take home the waxy stickthey had used to help get the honey out; they would throw the stick inthe fire, then all the dead bees would go to a paradise in the skies, whence next season they would send Yarragerh Mayrah, the Spring Wind, to blow the flowers open, and then down they would come to earth again. One year the manna just streamed down the Coolabah and Bibbil trees; itran down like liquid honey, crystallising where it dropped. 

The old blacks said, 'It is a drought now, but it will be worse. Byameehas sent the manna by the little Dulloorah birds and the black ants, because there will be no flowers for the bees to get honey from, so hehas sent this manna. ' Each time he has done so, a great drought hasfollowed, and indeed it was followed by one of the worst droughtsAustralia has ever known. Byamee, it is said, first sent them the mannabecause their children were crying for honey, of which there was noneexcept in the trees that Byamee, when on earth, had marked for his own. The women had murmured that they were not allowed to get this; but themen were firm, and would neither touch it nor let them touch it, whichso pleased Byamee that he sent the manna, and said he always would whena long drought threatened. 

A great chorus of 'My Jerhs' would tell something was sighted. 

It might be the track of a piggiebillah porcupine. This track wasfollowed to a hollow log; then came the difficulty, how to get it out, for porcupines cling tightly with their sharp claws, and all a dog cando where a piggiebillah is concerned is to bark, their spines are toomuch to tackle at close quarters. But the old gins are equal to theoccasion: a tomahawk to chop the log, and a yam-stick to dislodge theporcupine, who takes a good deal of killing before he is vanquished. 

They say a fully initiated man can sing a charm which will make apiggiebillah relax his grip and be taken captive without any trouble. The piggiebillahs burrow into the sand and leave their young there assoon as the faintest feel of a spine appears. The baby piggiebillahslook like little indiarubber toys. 

The opossums all disappeared from our district. When we were firstthere they were very numerous and used to make raids at night to myrose-bushes--great havoc the result. It is said a very greatwirreenun--wizard--willed them away so that his enemy, whose yunbeai, orpersonal totem, the opossum was, should die. This design was frustratedby counter magic; two powerful wizards appeared and, acting in concert, put a new yunbeai into the dying man; he recovered. 

When the opossums were about the blacks used to see their scratchedtracks on the trees, and chop or burn them out. They miss the opossumsvery much, for not only were they a prized food, but their skins maderugs, their hair was woven into cords of which were made amulets wornon the forearm or head against sickness, and with no modern instrumentcan they so well carve their weapons, as with an opossum tooth. Naturally their desire is to see Moodai, the opossum, return; to thatend a wirreenun is now singing incantations to charm him back. 

Opossum hunters had a way of bringing them home strung round theirnecks; very disagreeable, I should think, but custom, that tyrant, rules it so. The old gins dug out yams vigorously; some were eaten raw, others were kept for cooking. 

To cook them they dug out a hole, made a fire in it, put some stones onthe fire, then, when the stones were heated and the fire burnt down, they laid some leaves and grass on the stones, sprinkled some water, then put on the yams, on top of them more grass, sprinkled more water, then more grass and a. Thick coating of earth, leaving the yams tocook. 

Several other roots they cooked and ate. Raw they ate thistle tops, pigweed, and crowfoot, with great relish. Their game they cooked asfollows. Kangaroo were first singed, cleaned out, and filled with hotstones, then put on the top of a burnt-down fire, hot ashes heaped allover them. The blacks like their meats with the gravy in, verydistinctly red gravy. Emu were plucked, the insides taken out, and thebirds filled up with hot stones, box leaves, and some of their ownfeathers. A fire was made in a hole; when it was burnt down, leaves andemu feathers were put in it, on top of these the bird, on top of itleaves and feathers again, then a good layer of hot ashes, and over allsome earth. 

The piggiebillahs were first smoked so that their quills might beeasily knocked off. This done, the insides were taken out, then thepiggiebillahs were put in little holes made beside the fire, andcovered over with hot ashes, as were also opossums, ducks and otherbirds, iguanas and fish. 

Ducks were plucked by our tribe, but in some places they were encasedthickly in mud, buried in the ashes to cook, and, when done, theplaster of mud would be knocked off, and with it would come all thefeathers. 

The insides of iguanas and fish are taken out all in one piece. Eachfish carries in its inside a representation of its Minggah--spirittree; by drying the inside and pressing it you can plainly see theimprint of the tree. 

When we go bathing, the blacks tell me that the holes in the creekfilled with gum leaves are codfish nests. They say too, that when theybeat the river to drive the fish out towards the net waiting for them, that they hear the startled cod sing out. 

Mussels and crayfish are cooked in the ashes. 

The seagulls, which occasionally we used to see inland, are said tohave brought the first mussels to the back creeks. 

Emu eggs the blacks roll in hot ashes, shake, roll again; shake oncemore, and then bury them in the ashes, where they are left for about anhour until they are baked hard, when they are eaten with much relishand apparently no hurt to digestion, though one egg is by no meansconsidered enough for a meal in spite of its being equal to severaleggs of our domestic hen. 

Not only are the blacks very particular in the way their game is carvedor divided, but also in the distribution of the portions allotted toeach person. The right to a particular part is an inherited one. Nopolite offering of a choice to an honoured guest, no suggestion of theleg or wing. You may loathe the leg of a bird as food, but at a blackfellow's feast, if convention ordains that as your portion, have it youmust; just as each rank in society had its invariable joint in earlymediaeval Ireland. 

The seeds of Noongah--a sterculia--and Dheal, were ground on their flatdayoorl-stones and made into cakes, which they baked, first on piecesof bark beside the fire to harden them, then in the ashes. Thesedayoorl, or grinding-stones, are handed down from generation togeneration, being kept each in the family to whom it had firstbelonged. Should a member of any other use it without permission, afight would ensue. Some of these stones are said to have spirits inthem; those are self-moving, and at times have the power of speech. Ihave neither seen them move nor heard them speak, though I have acouple in my possession. I suppose the statement must be taken onfaith; and as faith can move mountains, why not a dayoorl-stone?

The so-called improvident blacks actually used to have a harvest time, and a harvest home too. When the doonburr, or seed, was thick on theyarmmara, or barley-grass, the tribes gathered this grass inquantities. 

First, they made a little space clear of everything, round which theymade a brush-yard. Each fresh supply of yarmmara, as it was brought inby the harvesters, was put in this yard. When enough was gathered, thebrush-yard was thrown on one side, and fire set to the grass, which wasin full ear though yet green. While the fire was burning, the blackskept turning the grass with sticks all the time to knock the seeds out. When this was done, and the fire burnt out, they gathered up the seedinto a big opossum-skin rug, and carried it to the camp. 

There, the next day, they made a round hole like a bucket, and a squarehole close to it. These they filled with grass seed. One man trampledon the seed in the square hole to thresh it out with his feet; anotherman had a boonal, or stick, about a yard long, rounded at one end, andnearly a foot broad; with this he worked the grass in the round hole, and as he worked the husks flew away. 

It took all one day to do this. The next day they took the large barkwirrees, canoe-shaped vessels, which when big like these are calledyubbil. They put some grain in these, and shook it up; one end of theyubbils being held much higher than the other, thus all the dust anddirt sifted to one end, whence it was blown off. When the grain wassufficiently clean, it was put away in skin bags to be used asrequired, being then ground on the large flat dayoorl-stones, with asmaller flat stone held in both hands by the one grinding; this stonewas rubbed up and down the dayoorl, grinding the seed on it, on which, from time to time, water was thrown to soften it. 

When ground, the grain was made into little flat cakes, and cooked asthe tree-seed cakes were. When the harvesting of the yarmmara was done, a great hunt took place, a big feast was prepared, and a big corroboreeheld night after night for some time. 

The two principal drinks were gullendoorie--that is, water sweetenedwith honey; and another made of the collarene, or flowers of theCoolabah (grey-leaved box), or Bibbil (poplar-leaved box) flowers, soaked all night in binguies (canoe-shaped wooden vessels) of water. Just about Christmas time the collarene is at its best; and then, inthe olden days, there were great feasts and corroborees held. 

The flat dayoorl-stones on which the seeds are ground with the smallerstone, are like the 'saddle-stone querns' occasionally found inancient British sites. These primitive appliances preceded the circularrotatory querns in evolution, and as the monuments prove were used inancient Egypt. I cannot say whether, amongst the Euahlayi, there was arecognised licence as to exchange of wives on these festal occasions, or at boorahs. If the custom existed, I was not told of it by theblacks; but it is quite possible that, unless I made inquiries on thesubject, I would not be told. 

CHAPTER XIV

COSTUMES AND WEAPONS

I have seen a coloured king simply smirking with pride, in what heconsidered modern full dress--a short shirt and an old tall hat. 

And I suppose, as far as actual clothing went, it was an advance on theold-time costume of paint and feathers. A black woman's needle was alittle bone from the leg of an emu, pointed. Her thread was sinews ofopossums, kangaroos, and emus; that was all that was necessary for herplain sewing, which was plain indeed. 

Her fancy work consisted of netting dillee, goolays, or miniaturehammocks to sling her baby across her back, or, failing a baby, hermixed possessions, from food to feathers; her larder and wardrobe inone. 

Her costume being simple in the extreme did not require much room. Itconsisted of a goomillah, which was a string wound round the waist, made of opossum sinews, and in front, hanging down for about a foot, were twisted strands of opossum hair. A bone, or on state occasions agreen twig, stuck through the cartilage of her nose, a string net overher hair, or perhaps only a fillet, or a kangaroo's tooth fastened toher front lock, gum balls dried on side-locks, an opossum's hairarmlet, and perhaps a reed bead necklet and a polished black skin, toilette complete, unless for certain ceremonies a further decorationof flowers or down feathers was required. 

The principal article of the man's dress was called waywah. It was abelt, about six inches wide, made of twisted sinews and hair, with fourtufts about eighteen inches long hanging back and front and at eachside from it, made of narrow strips of kangaroo or paddy melon skins. 

For warmth in winter they would wrap themselves in their opossum-skinrugs. Sometimes both sexes adorned themselves with strings of kangarooteeth fixed into gum, in which a little hole was made, round theirheads and necks--yumbean they called them; or forehead bands withhanging kangaroo teeth, which were called gnooloogail. 

Pine gum they rolled into small egg-shaped balls, warmed them and stuckthem in dozens all over their heads, where they would be left untilthey wore off, hairdressings being only an occasional duty. The gumthey used for sticking the kangaroo's teeth was that of the Mubboo, orbeefwood tree. 

Sometimes wongins were worn; they consisted of cords round the neck andunder the arms, crossing the chest with a shell pendant at the centreof the cross. A shell is still a most prized ornament. 

The corroboree dress is one of paint; the feature of it being itsdesign, a man can gain quite a tribal reputation for being anoriginator of decorative designs. 

Their original paint colourings were white, red, and yellow;occasionally they said they got some sort of blue by barter, but veryoccasionally, as it came from very far. White was from Gidya ash, orgypsum; red and yellow, ochre clay; but they also got both red andyellow from burning at a certain stage certain trees, gooroolay forred; the charcoal, instead of being black, having red and yellowtinges. But since the white people came the blue bag has put yellow outof fashion, and raddle is used for the red. 

Their opossum rugs used to have designs scratched on the skin sides andalso painted patterns, some say tribal marks, others just to lookpretty and distinguish each their own. 

Feathers tied into little bunches and fastened on to small woodenskewers were stuck upright in the hair at corroborees, also swansdownfluffed in puff balls over the heads. 

The Gooumoorh, or corroboree, is a sort of black fellow's opera; as tothe musical part, rather, as some one found an oratorio, a thing ofhigh notes and vain repetition. 

The stage effects of corroborees are sometimes huge sheets of barkfastened on to poles; these sheets of bark are painted in differentdesigns and colours, something like Moorish embroideries. Sometimesthere is a huge imitation of an alligator made of logs plastered overwith earth and painted in stripes of different colours, a piece of woodcut open stuck in at one end as a gaping mouth. This alligatorcorroboree is generally indicative of a Boorah, or initiation ceremony, being near at hand. Sometimes the stage effects are high painted polesmerely. 

At the back of the goomboo, or stage, are large fires; in the front, ina semicircle, sit the women as orchestra, and the audience; a fire ateach end of the semicircle, as a sort of footlights. The music of theorchestra is made by some beating time on rolled-up opossum rugs, andsome clicking two boomerangs together. The time is faultless. The tunesare monotonous, but rhythmical and musical, curiously well suited tothe stage and layers. These last have a very weird look as they stealPout of the thick scrub, out of the darkness, quickly one afteranother, dancing round the goomboo in time to the music, theirgrotesquely painted figures and feather-decorated heads lit up by theflickering lights of the fires around. 

As the dancing gets faster the singing gets louder, every muscle of thedancers seems strained, and the wonder is the voices do not crack. Justas you think they must, the dancing slows again; the voices die away, to swell out once more with renewed vigour when the fires are built upagain and again; the same dance is gone through, time after time--onenight one dance, or, for that matter, many nights one dance. 

The dancers sometimes make dumb-show of hunts, fights, slaughters, thewomen sometimes translating the actions in the songs; sometimes thewords seem to have nothing to do with them, and the dances only aseries of steps illustrating nothing. 

Corroborees seem to fit in with the indescribable mystery of the bush. That the spirit of the bush is mystery makes it so difficult todescribe beyond bald realism, otherwise it seems an effort to seize theintangible. Poor Barcroft Boake got something of the mystery intowords. 

If an Australian Wagner could be born we might hope for a musicaladaptation of corroborees. Wagner was essentially the exponent offolk-lore music, wherein must be expressed the fundamentals of humanpassion unrefined. 

The most celebrated weapon is probably the boomerang the mostcelebrated kind to whites, though not most useful to blacks, is theBubberab, or returning boomerang. These are made chiefly of Gidya andMyall. Here these 'Come backs' are never carved, are more curved thanthe ordinary boomerang, and were greased, rubbed with charred grass, and warmed before being used, so that the slightest warp would bestraightened. It is marvellous the accuracy with which an adept canthrow one of these weapons, locating it on the exact place to which hewishes it to return. 

Gidya is the favourite wood for boomerangs. They are first roughlyshaped, then thrown into water and soaked for two or three days; takenout and made into the proper shape, rubbed with charred grass, greasedwell, and carved in various designs with an opossum's tooth. 

Boomerangs have many uses--in peace two clicked together as a musicalinstrument, as a war weapon, and as a weapon in the chase. Its last andrapidly approaching use will be as a curio for collectors. 

Billah, or spears, are made of Belah (swamp oak) or Gidya. These tooare cut roughly first and thrown into water, then cut a little more, thrown into water again, and so day after day until finished. Sometimesthey are carved with a running featherstitch-like pattern from end toend, sometimes have bingles, or barbs, cut down one or both sides; somebarbarous things with barbs pointing both ways, so that they could beneither pushed out nor drawn through a wound; some are plain, paintedat each end or darkened with poison tips. 

Billah are war weapons; a larger kind called Moornin are used forspearing emu. 

Woggarahs, the hatchet-shaped weapons, were made of Myall, Gidya, andother woods, carved as were boomerangs, each carver usually having afavourite design by which his weapons were recognised. 

Booreens, or shields, were of three kinds: a narrow kind made ofhardwood, a broad flat kind of Kurrajong, and a medium-sized one ofBirah, or whitewood, all painted in coloured designs. It is wonderfulthe way a man can defend himself single-handed against a number of men, he having only a narrow shield, the only defence he is allowed when hehas to stand his trial for a breach of the laws. 

Their tomahawks, or Cumbees, were of dark-green stone, of which thereis none in this district, so it must have been obtained by barter, asin the first instance were the flat, light Booreens from the Queenslandside, and the grass-tree gum from the Narrabri mountains side, forwhich Gidya boomerangs were given in exchange. 

The stone tomahawks have a handle put over one end of the stone, gummedon with beefwood gum, then drawn together under the stone, crossed, andthe two ends tied together as a handle, with sinews of emus, opossums, or kangaroos. 

Muggils, or stone knives, are just sharpened pieces of stone. 

Moorooleh are plain waddies used in war and for killing game; a smallerkind called Boodthul are thrown for amusement. 

Boondees are heavy-headed clubs used in war. 

The black fellow won't allow his womenkind a heaven of rest, for thespirit women are supposed to make weapons which the wirreenuns journeytowards the sunset clouds to get--the women's heaven is in thewest--giving in exchange animal food and opossum rugs, no animals beingthere. 

For carrying water they used to make bags of opossum skins. To preparethe skins they would pluck the hair off, and, after cleansing themwell, sew up the skins with sinews, leaving only the neck open. Theywould fill this vessel with air and hang it out to dry. 

As, a water vessel, to mix their drinks and medicines in, they usedBinguies or Coolamons, a deep, canoe-shaped vessel cut out of solidwood, carved sometimes and painted, a string handle to it. They usedlittle bark vessels to drink out of, like shallow basins, cut fromexcrescences on eucalyptus trees; these were called wirree. A largerbark vessel they used for holding water, honey, or anything liquid. 

While on the subject of personal decoration I forgot the Moobir, orcuts on the bodies, some of which are tribal marks, some marks ofmourning, some merely of ornamentation. Both men and women are seenwith these marks in the Narran district; some huge wales on the skinfrom the shoulders half-way down the back, some on the chest and theforepart of the arms. They are cut with a stone knife, licked along bythe medicine man, filled in with charcoal, and the skin let grow over. 

Various reasons are given for these marks: some say they are to givestrength, others as a tribal sign, others just to took pretty. Somegive the final reason for everything, 'Because Byamee say so. '

In summer the blacks are great bathers, and play all sorts of games inthe water. Their soap is clay; they rub themselves with that, the womenplastering it under their arms again and again; the little children rubthemselves all over with it, then tumble into the water to wash it off. 

In winter they forgo bathing, and rub themselves with liberalapplications of grease. 

The old blacks used to have very good teeth; they never ate withoutafterwards rinsing out their mouths, and sometimes munched up charcoalto purify them. But the younger generation have discarded themouth-rinsing habit, and not yet attained to a tooth-brush: result, gradual deterioration in teeth, a deterioration probably helped by thedrinking of hot liquids. Blacks of the old time drank nothing hot. Perhaps, too, their tough meats gave muscular strength to their jaws. 

To blacks, kissing is a 'white foolishness, ' also handshaking; in oldentimes even to smell a stranger was considered a risk. 

CHAPTER XV

THE AMUSEMENTS OF BLACKS

A very favourite game of the old men was skipping--Brambahl, theycalled it. 

They had a long rope, a man at each end to swing it. When it is in fullswing in goes the skipper. After skipping in an ordinary way for a fewrounds, he begins the variations, which consist, amongst other things, of his taking thorns out of his feet, digging as if for larv' of ants, digging yams, grinding grass-seed, jumping like a frog, doing a sort ofcobbler's dance, striking an attitude as if looking for something inthe distance, running out, snatching up a child, and skipping with itin his arms, or lying flat down on the ground, measuring his fulllength in that position, rising and letting the rope slip under him;the rope going the whole time, of course, never varying in pace norpausing for any of the variations. 

The one who can most successfully vary the performance is victor. Oldmen of over seventy seemed the best at skipping. 

There is great excitement over Bubberah, or come-back boomerangthrowing. 

Every candidate has a little fire, where, after having rubbed hisbubberah with charred grass and fat, he warms it, eyes it up and downto see that it is true, then out he comes, weapon in hand. He looks atthe winning spot, and with a scientific flourish of his arm sends hisbubberah forth on its circular flight; you would think it was goinginto the Beyond, when it curves round and comes gyrating back to thegiven spot. Here again the old ones score. 

Wungoolay is another old game. 

A number of black fellows arm themselves with a number of spears, orrather pointed sticks, between four and five feet long, calledwidyu-widyu. Two men take the wungoolays, which are pieces of bark, either squared or roughly rounded, about fifteen inches in diameter. These men go about fifty yards from each other; first one and thenanother throws the wungoolays, which roll swiftly along the ground pastthe men with the spears, who are stationed midway between the other twoa few yards from the path of the wungoolays, which, as they comerolling rapidly past, the men try to spear with their widyu-widyu; hewho hits the most, wins the game. It looks easy enough, but here againthe old men scored. 

For Gurril Boodthul, if a bush is not at hand, a bushy branch of a treeis stuck up. The men arm themselves with small boodthuls, or miniaturewaddies, then stand a few feet behind the bush, which varies from fiveto eight feet or so in height at competitions. They throw theirboodthuls in turn; these have to skim through the top of the bush, which seems to give them fresh impetus instead of slackening them. Thedistance they go beyond is the test of a good thrower; over threehundred yards is not unusual. As practice in this game is kept up, theyoung men hold their own. 

There is another throwing stick somewhat larger than the gurrilboodthul, which only weighs about three ounces, and is about a foot inlength. The other stick is thrown to touch the ground, then bound on, sometimes making one high long leap, sometimes a series of jumps, as aflat pebble does when thrown along the water in the game children call'ducks and drakes. '

Yahweerh is a sort of sham trial fight. One man has a bark shield, andhe has to defend himself with it from the bark toy boomerangs theothers throw. Here again the old men win. Their games, which old andyoung alike play, are distinctly childish. 

Boogalah, or ball, is one. In playing this all of one Dhe, or totem, are partners. The ball, made of sewn-up kangaroo skin, is thrown in theair; whoever catches it goes with his or her division--for women joinin this game--into a group in the middle, the other circling round. Theball is thrown in the air, and if one of the circle outside the centrering catches it, then his side namely, all his totem--go into themiddle, the others circling round, and so on. The totem keeping itlongest wins. 

Goomboobooddoo, or wrestling, is a great Boorah-time entertainment. Family clan against clan. Kubbee against Hippi, and so on. A Hippi, forexample, will go into a ring and plant there a mudgee, or painted stickwith a bunch of feathers at the top. In will run a Kubbee and try tomake off with the stick; Hippi will grapple with him, and a wrestlingmatch comes off. Into the ring will go others of each side wrestling intheir turn. The side that finally throws the most men, and gets themudgee, wins. Before wrestling matches, there is much greasing ofbodies to make them slippery. 

Wimberoo was a favourite fireside game. A big fire was made of leafybranches. Each player got a dry Coolabah leaf, warmed it until it benta little, then placed it on two fingers and hit it with one into wherethe current of air, caused by the flame, caught it and bore it aloft. They all jerked their leaves together, and anxiously watched whosewould go the highest. Each watched his leaf descend, caught it, andbegan again. So on until tired. 

Woolbooldarn is an absolutely infantile game. A low, overhanging branchof a tree is chosen, and as many as it will bear, old and young, menand women, straddle it; and, holding on to the higher overhangingbranches, they swing up and down with as much spring as they can getout of the branch they are on. 

Whagoo is just like our I hide and seek. '

Gooumoorhs, or corroborees, are of course their greatest entertainment, their opera, ballet, and the rest; only they reverse the usual order ofthings obtaining elsewhere. The women form the orchestra, the men arethe dancers, as a rule, though women do on occasions take part too. Thedancers rarely sing while performing their evolutions, though they willend up a measure at times with a loud 'Ooh! Ooh!' or 'Wahl Wah!'

There are two dances they think very clever: one a sort of in and outmovement with the knees, while keeping the feet close together. Another, which they called I shivering of the chest, ' a sort of drawingin and out of their breath, causing a vibratory motion. 

Then they give a sort of Sandow performance all in time to the music. They first start the muscles of their legs showing, then the arms, anddown the sides of the chest. I am afraid I was not educated up to beappreciative of any of these special wonders, though Matah and otherssaid their muscular training was marvellous. 

From a spectacular point of view I thought much more interesting acorroboree illustrating the coming of the first steamer up the Barwon. 

The steamer was made--for the corroboree, I mean--of logs with mudlayered over them, painted up, a hollow log for a funnel in the middle. There was a little opening in the far side of the steamer in which afire was made, the smoke issuing through the hollow log in the mostrealistic fashion. The blacks who first came on the stage were allsupposed to represent various birds disturbed by this strangesight--cranes, pelicans, black swans, and ducks. The peculiarities ofeach bird were well imitated; and as each section in turn was startled, their cries were realistically given. Hearing which, on the scene camesome armed black fellows, who, seeing what the birds had seen, startedback in astonishment, seemed to have a great dumb-show palaver, thenone by one, clutching their weapons, they came forward to more closelyexamine the new 'debbil debbil. ' Here some one would stoke the fire, out would belch through the funnel a big smoke and a lapping flame, away went the blacks into the bush as if too terrified to stay. But youcan't describe a corroboree, it wants the scenic effects of the grimbush: tapering, dark Belahs, Coolabahs contorted into quaint shapes andexcrescences by extremes of flood and drought, and their grotesquenesslit up by the flickering fires, until the trees themselves look likedemons of the night, and the painted black fellows their attendantspirits stealing into the firelight from what seems a vast, dark, unknown Beyond. 

The sing-song seems to suit it, and the well-timed clicking of theboomerangs and thudding of the rolled-up rugs. The blacks are greatpatrons of art, and encourage native talent in the most praiseworthyway; although, judging from one of their legends, you might think theywere not. 

This legend tells how Goolahwilleel had the soul of an artist, and whenhis family sent him out to hunt their daily dinner, he forgot his questand perfected his art, which was the modelling of a kangaroo in gum. When his work was finished, with the pride of a successful artist hereturned for applause. 

His family demanded of him meat; he showed his kangaroo. 

His masterpiece was unappreciated. Even as did Palissy's--of potteryfame--wife, so did Goolahwilleel's family revile him. 

His freedom to wander at will, seeking inspiration and giving it form, was taken from him. He was driven out: daily to slay, that his familymight feed, and never again was he let go alone--a crowd of relationswent with him!

Figure to yourself what a damper to inspiration must have been thatcrowd of relations; how it must have slain the artist in Goolahwilleel. 

How the old legend repeats itself, and now as then, how often theartist is woman--slain that she by the caterer may live. Surely in theinterests of intellect was the prayer made: 'Give us our daily bread. '

Perhaps the old legend of Goolahwilleel was originally told with amoral, and that may be: why black artists are so well treated now. 

A maker of new songs or corroborees is always kept well supplied withthe luxuries of life; it may be that such an one is a little feared asbeing supposed to have direct communication with the spirits who teachhim his art. A fine frenzy is said to seize some of their poets andplaywrights, who, for the time being, are quite under the domination ofthe spirits--possessed of devils, in fact. When the period of mentalincubation is over and the song hatched out, the possessed ones returnto their normal condition, the devils are cast out, and the songs areall that remain in evidence that the artist was ever possessed. 

Some songs do not require this process of fine frenzy they come alongin the course of barter, handed from tribe to tribe. 

Ghiribul, or riddles, play a great part in their social life, and hewho knows many is much sought after. 

Most of these ghiribul are not translatable, being little songsdescribing the things to be guessed, whose peculiarities the singeracts as he sings--a sort of one-man show, pantomime in miniature, witha riddle running through it. 

Some which I will give indicate the nature of others. 

What is it that says to the flood-water, 'I am too strong for you; youcan not push me back'? ANS. Goodoo, the codfish. 

What is it that says, 'You cannot help yourself; you will have to goand let me take your place; you cannot stay when I come'? ANS. The greyhairs in a man's beard to the black ones. 

'If a man hide himself so that his wife could not see him, and hewanted her to know where he was, yet had promised not to speak, laugh, cry, sneeze, cough, nor move his hands nor feet, how could he do so?'ANS. Whistle. 

'The strongest man cannot stand against me. I can knock him down, yet Ido not hurt him. He feels better for my having knocked him down. Whatam I?' ANS. Sleep. 

'I am not water, yet all who are thirsty, seeing me, come toward me todrink, though I am no liquid. What am I?' Ans. Mirage. 

'What is it that goes along the creek, across the creek, underneath it, and along it again, and yet has left neither side?' ANS. Theyellow-flowering creeping water-weed. 

'Here I am, just in front of you. I can't move; but if you kick me, Iwill knock you down, though I will not move to do it. Who says this?'ANS. A stump that any one falls over. 

'You cannot walk without me, yet you grease your body and forget me andlet me crack, even though but for me you could neither walk nor run. Who says that?' ANS. A black fellow's feet, which he neglects to greasewhen doing the rest of his body. 

With riddles ends, I think, the list of the blacks' amusements, unlessyou count fights. The blacks are a bit Celtic in that way; some arereal fire-eaters, always spoiling for a row. But in most everyday rowsthe feelings are more damaged than the bodies. 

An old gin in a rage will say more in a given time, without takingbreath, than any human being I have ever seen; it is simplyphysiologically marvellous. From the noise you would think murder atleast would result. You listen in dread of a tragedy; you hear thetotem and multiplex totems of her opponent being scoffed at, strung outone after another, deadly insult after deadly insult. The insultedreturns insult for insult; result, a lively cross fire. 

It lulls down; the insults are exhausted, quietude reigns. Some onemakes a joke, all are laughing together in amity. From impendingtragedy to comedy the work of a few minutes. A mercurial race indeed, but not a forgetful one. A black fellow never forgives a brokenpromise, and he can cherish a grudge from generation to generation aswell as remember a kindness. 

Though, when high pitched in quarrels, their voices lose their naturaltones, as a rule those of the blacks are remarkably sweet and soft, quite musical; their language noticeable for its freedom from harshsounds. 

CHAPTER XVI

BUSH BOGIES AND FINIS

Weeweemul is a big spirit that flies in the air; he takes the bodies ofdead people away and eats them. That is why the dead are so closelywatched before burial. 

Gwaibooyanbooyan is the hairless red devil of the scrubs, who kills andeats any one he meets, unless they are quick enough to get away beforehe sees them, as one woman of this tribe is said to have done on theEurahbah ridge. It would really seem as if there were a debbil debbilon that ridge; every boundary rider who lives there takes to drink. Ithink the red spirit must be rum. 

Marahgoo are man-shaped devils, to be recognised by the white swansdowncap they wear, and the red rugs they carry. Red is a great devil'scolour amongst blacks some will never wear it on that account. 

These Marahgoo always have with them a mysterious drink, which theyoffer to any one they meet. It is like drinking dirt, and makes thedrinker dream dreams and see visions, in which he is taken down to theunderground spirit-world of the Marahgoo, where anything he wishes forappears at once. The entrance to this world is said to be near anever-drying waterhole, in a huge scrub, near Pilliga. If a man drinksthe draught, unless he is made Marahgoo, he dies. 

Each totem is warned by its bird sub-totems of the coming of Marahgoo, and after such a warning tribes take care, if wise, to stay in camp; orshould a man go out, he will smear his face with black, and put ringsof black round his wrists and ankles, and probably have a little charmsong sung over him. 

Birrahmulgerhyerh are blacks with devils in them, who, armed with bagsfull of poison-sticks, or bones--called gooweera--are invisible to allbut wirreenuns or wizards. Others are warned of their coming by hearingthe rattle of the gooweeras knocking together. When the Birrahmulgerhyerhare about, all are warned not to carry firesticks, which at other timesafter dark they are never without in order to scare off spirits, but nowsuch a light would show the Birrahmulgerhyerh where to point theirgooweeras. They are said only to point these poison-sticks atlaw-breakers, and even then only against persons in a strange country. Their own land is down Brewarrina way, but there they make no punitiveexpeditions, travelling up the Narran and elsewhere for that purpose. 

The Euloowayi, or long-nailed devils, are spirits which live where thesun sets. Just as the afterglow dies in the sky, they come outvictim-hunting. These Euloowayi demand a tribute of young black menfrom the camp, to recoup their own ranks. 

When this tribute has to be paid, the old men get some ten or so youngones, and march them off to a Minggah at about ten or fifteen milesfrom the camp. There they make them climb into the Ming-ah, to sitthere all day. They must not move, not even so much as wink an eyelid. At night time they are allowed to come down, and are given some meat, which they must eat raw. 

The old men from the camp go back leaving their victims with theEuloowayi, who keep the boys up the tree for some days, bringing themraw meat at night. At last they say:

'Come and try if your nails are long and strong enough. See who canbest tear this bark off with them. '

They all try, and if all are equally good, the old Euloowayi say:

'You are right. How do you feel?'

'Strong, ' they answer. 

They are kept on the tree about a month, then taken into the bush tohunt human beings, to deceive whom they take new forms at times. Acouple of blacks may be hunting--one will be after honey, another afteropossums. The one after opossums will go to a tree, see an opossum, chop into the tree, seize the opossum by the tail as usual. He cannotmove him. He'll seize him by the hind legs, still he cannot move him. Then he will hear a voice say, 'Leave him alone, you can't move him. '

The hunter will look down, see nothing but a rainbow at the foot of thetree. Wonderingly he'll come down, and immediately the Euloowayi, whohave been in the form of the opossum in the tree and the rainbow on theground, seize him, tear him open with their long nails, take out allhis fat, stuff him up again with grass and leaves, and send him back tothe camp. When he reaches there, he starts scolding every one. Probablythey guess by his violent words and actions that he is a victim of theEuloowayi. If so, they are careful not to answer him; were they to doso he would drop dead. Any way, he will die that night. When themagpies and butcher-birds sing much it is a sign the Euloowayi areabout. 

Gineet Gineet, so called from his cry, is the bogy that black childrendread. He is a black man who goes about with a goolay or net across hisshoulders, into which he pops any children he can steal. 

Several waterholes are taboo as bathing-places. They are said to behaunted by Kurreah, which swallow their victims whole, or by Gowargay, the featherless emu, who sucks down in a whirlpool any one who dares tobathe in his holes. 

Nahgul is the rejected Gayandil who was found by Byamee too destructiveto act as president of the Boorahs. 

He principally haunts Boorah grounds. He still has a Boorah gubberrah, a sacred stone, inside him, hence his strength. 

He sets string traps for men, touching which they feel ill, andsuddenly drop down never to rise again. The wirreenuns know then thatNahgul is about. They find out where he is. Circling, at a gooddistance, the spot he is on, they corroboree round it. Hearing them, Nahgul comes out. They close in and seize him, kill him, drink hisblood, and eat him; by so doing gaining immense additional strength. 

Marmbeyah are tree spirits, somewhat akin to the Nats of Burmah. One, ahuge, fat spirit--if you can imagine a fat spirit--carried a greenboondee, or waddy, with which he tapped people on the backs of theirnecks: result, heat apoplexy. A few years ago, an old black fellow laidwait for him and 'flattened him out, ' since which there has been noheat apoplexy. We think it is because the bad times have made peopletoo poor to overheat themselves with bad spirits of a liquid kind. Theblacks differ, and certainly there were some cases of even totalabstainers falling victims to the heat wave. 

Hatefully frequent devil visitors are those who animate the boolees, orwhirlwinds. If these whirl near the house they smother everything withdebris and dust. 

The Black-but-Comelys say, as they clear the dirt away: 'I wish whoeverin this house those boolees are after would go out when they come, notlet 'em hunt after 'em here and make this mess. '

The Wurrawilberos chiefly animate these. But sometimes the wirreenunsuse whirlwinds as mediums of transit for their Mullee Mullees, or dreamspirits, sent in pursuit of some enemy, to capture a woman, orincarnate child spirit; women dread boolees, more even than men, onthis account. Great wirreenuns are said to get rid of evil spirits byeating the form in which they appear. I'm sure we all swallowed a goodshare of the dust devils, but still they came; evidently we were notwizards or witches. 

The plain of Weawarra is haunted. Once long ago there was a fightthere. Two young warriors but lately married were slain. As theirbodies were never recovered, they were supposed to have been stolen andeaten by the enemy. Their young widows spent days searching for them, after the tribe had given up hope of finding them. At last thewidows--who had refused to marry again, declaring their husbands yetlived, and that one day they would find them--disappeared. 

Time passed; they did not return, so were supposed to be dead too. Thenarose the rumour that their ghosts had been seen, and to this day it issaid the plain of Weawarra is haunted by them. 

Should men camp there at night, these women spirits silently steal intothe camp. The men, thinking they are women from some tribe they do notknow, speak to them; but silently there they sit, making no answer, andvanish again before the dawn of day, to renew their search night afternight. 

The high ridges above Warrangilla are haunted by two women, whotradition says were buried alive. Their spirits have never rested, butcome out at all times from the huge fissure in the ridges where theirbodies were put. Their anguished cries as the stones and earth fell onthem are still to be heard echoing through the scrub there; andsometimes it is said one, keener sighted than his fellows, sees theirspirit forms flitting through the Budtha bushes, and hears again theirtragic cries, as they disappear once more into the fathomless fissure. 

There is a tradition--common, I believe, to many black tribes, evenoutside Australia--that, long before the coming of the white peopleinto this country, two beautiful white girls lived with the blacks. They had long hair to their waists. They were called Bungebah, and werekilled as devils by an alien tribe somewhere between Noorahwahgean andGooroolay. Where their blood was spilled two red-leaved trees havegrown, and that place is still haunted by their spirits. 

Amid the Cookeran Lake still wanders the woman who arrived late at thebig Boorah, having lost her children one by one on the track, arrivingat last with only her dead baby in the net at her back. As she died shecursed the tribes who had deserted her, and turned them into trees. Some of the blacks were in groups a little way off; those, too, shecursed, and they were changed into forests of Belah, which look darkand funereal as you drive through them; and the murmuring sound, as thewind wails through their tops, has a very sad sound. She wandersthrough these forests and round the lake, the dead baby still in thegoolay on her back, and sometimes her voice is heard mingling with thevoices of the forest; and as the shadows fall, she may be seen flittingpast, they say. 

Noorahgogo is a very handsome bronze and peacock-blue beetle, said toembody a spirit which always answers the cry of a Noongahburrah in thebush. The bright orange-red fungi on the fallen trees are devils'bread, and should a child touch any he will be spirited away. 

Very mournful are the bush nights if you happen to be alone on yourverandah. Away on the flat sound the cries of curlews; past flies anight heron; then the discordant voice of a plover is heard. In allthese birds are embodied the spirits of men of the past; each has itslegend. 

Perhaps some passing swans will cry 'Biboh, biboh, ' reminding in vainthe camp wizards that they too were once men, and long to be again. Poor enchanted swans! to whose enchantment we owe the lovely flannelflowers of New South Wales, and the red epacris bells. 

But in spite of their sadness the bush nights are lovely, when thelandscapes are glorified by the magic of the moon. Even the gum leavesare transmuted into silver as the moonlight laves them, making theblacks say the leaves laugh, and the shimmer is like a smile. 

No wonder trees have such a place in the old religions of the world, and wirreenuns, even as do Buddhists, love to linger beneath theirbranches--the one holding converse with his spirit friends, the othercultivating the perfect peace. 

There would not be much perfect peace about a wirreenun's communingwith the spirits if it happened to be in mosquito time. The blacks saya little grey-speckled bird rules the mosquitoes, and calls them fromtheir swamp-homes to attack us. In the mythological days this bird--awoman--was badly treated by a man who translated her sons to the sky;having revenged herself on him, she vowed vengeance on all men, and inthe form of the mosquito bird wreaks that vengeance. Her mosquitoslaves have just the same spots on their wings as she has. 

I dare say little with an air of finality about black people; I havelived too much with them for that. To be positive, you should neverspend more than six months in their neighbourhood; in fact, if you wantto keep your anthropological ideas quite firm, it is safer to let theblacks remain in inland Australia while you stay a few thousand milesaway. Otherwise, your preconceived notions are almost sure to totter totheir foundations; and nothing is more annoying than to haveelaborately built-up, delightfully logical theories, played ninepinswith by an old greybeard of a black, who apparently objects to hisbeliefs being classified, docketed, and pigeon-holed, until he has hadhis say. 

After all, when we consider their marriage restrictions, their totems, and the rest, what becomes of the freedom of the savage? As with us, asMontague says, 'Our laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derivedfrom Nature, proceed from custom. '

I have often thought the failure of the generality of missionaries layin the fact that they began at the wrong end. Not recognising thetyranny of custom, though themselves victims to it, they ignore, as arule, the religion into which the black is born, and by which he lived, in much closer obedience to its laws than we of this latter-dayChristendom. It seems to me, if we cannot respect the religion ofothers we deny our own. If we are powerless to see the theism behindthe overlying animism, we argue a strange ignorance of what crept overother faiths, in the way of legends and superstitions quite foreign tothe simplicity of the beginnings. 

To be a success, a missionary, I think, should--as many do, happily--before he goes out to teach, acquaint himself with the makingof the world's religions, and particularly with the one he is going tosupplant. He will probably find that elimination of some savageries isall that is required, leaving enough good to form a workable religionunderstanded of his congregation. 

If he ignores their faith, thrusting his own, with its mysteries whichpuzzle even theologians, upon them, they will be but as whitedsepulchres, or, at best, parrots. 

GLOSSARY

 Bahloo, moon (masculine). Bibbil, poplar-leaved box-tree. An Eucalyptus. Byamee, their god; culture hero 'Great One. ' Boorak, initiation ceremony. Boonal, a sort of flail. Boobeen, wooden cornet. Bootha, woman's name; divisional family name. Boahdee, sister. Beealahdee, father and mother's sisters' husbands. Bargie, grandmother on mother's side. Boothan, last possible child of a woman. Beewun, motherless girl, Boomerang, weapon. Bubberah, a 'come-back' boomerang. Billah, spear. Belah, swamp oak. Booreen, shield. Birah, whitewood tree. Boodthul, toy waddy. Boondee, heavy-headed club. Binguie, Coolamon; canoe-shaped wooden vessel. Beewee, brown and yellow iguana. Bunbul, little boorah ring. Boormool, shrimps. Boolooral, a night owl. Byahmul, a black swan. Beerwon, bird like a swallow. Bunnyal, flies. Binnantayah, big saltbush. Bohrah, kangaroo. Boogodoogadah, rainbird. Buln Buln, green parrot. Boogahroo, a tree where poison-sticks are kept. Boondurr, wizard's bag of charms. Budtha, shrub EREMOPHILA. Bumble, shrub CAPPARIS MITCHELLIENSIS. Brambahl, skipping. Boogalah, ball. Bayarrh, green-head ants. Bingahwingul, shrub needlebush. Boondoon, kingfisher. Bilber, sandhill rat. Boothagullagulla, bird like seagull. Booroorerh, bulrushes. Burrengeen, peewee; white and black bird. Bouyoudoorimmillee, grey cranes. Bouyougah, centipede. Bubburr, large brown and yellow snake. Beeargah, crane. Buggiloo, girl's name; little yam. Boolee, whirlwind. Boogurr, things belonging to a dead person. Bullimah, sky-camp; heaven. Bulleerul, breath. Boorboor, come down. Boyjerh, father, or relation of father. Brigalow, an acacia. Birroo Birroo, bird; sand-builders. Booloon, white crane. Boonburr, poison tree. Boorgoolbean, a shrub with creamy flowers. Birrahlee, baby. Bahnmul, betrothal of babies. Boomayahmayahmul, a wood lizard. Brewarrina, name of place; place of Myall trees. Boorool, big, great, many. Birrahgnooloo, woman's name meaning hatchet-faced. Booloowah two emus. Bibbilah, belonging to the Bibbil country. Barahgurree, girl's name; a kind of lizard. Bogginbinnia, girl's name; a kind of lizard. Billai, crimson-wing parrot. Birriebunger, small diver-bird Burrahwahn, a rat now extinct. Bralgah, bird; native companion. Bean, Myall tree; a weeping acacia. Beebuyer, yellow flowering broom, shrub. Beeleer, black cockatoo. Bibbee, woodpecker, Bullah Bullah, butterfly. Beeweerh, bony bream. Buggila, leopard wood. Bunbundoolooey, a little brown bird. Brumboorah, boorah song. Boorahbayyi, boy undergoing initiation. Boodther, a meeting where presents are exchanged. Berai Berai, the boys; Orion's sword and belt. Beereeun, lizard. Birrahmulgerhyerh, devils with poison-sticks. Byjerh, expression of surprise. Buckandee, native cat. Coolabah, flooded box; Eucalyptus. Curreequinquin, butcher-bird; piping shrike. Cumbee, stone tomahawk. Cocklerina, a rose and yellow crested cockatoo. (Major Mitchell. ) Carbeen, an Eucalyptus. Collarene, Coolabah blossom. C-ngil, ugly, nasty, bad. Cunnumbeillee, woman's name meaning pigweed root. Dhe, hereditary totem. Dheal, sacred tree. Dayoorl, grinding-stone. Doonburr, grass seed. Dheelgoolee, a bird-trapping place. Dardurr, a camp shelter of bark. Dheala, girl's name. Dayadee, half-brother. Dadadee, grandfather on mother's side. Doore-oothai, a lover. Dillahga, an elderly man of same totem as person speaking of or to him. Dooloomai, thunder. Dillee, treasure bag. Deenyi, ironbark. Doowee, any one's dream-spirit. Dinahgurrerhlowah, death-dealing stone. Dumerh Dumerh, smallpox. Dumerh, brown pigeon. Doolungaiyah, sandhill rat, bilber. Douyougurrah, earthworms. Deereeree, willy wagtail. Durrooee, spirit-bird. Dinewan, emu. Dunnia, wattle tree. Deenbi, diver. Deegeenboyah, soldier-bird. Dayahminyah, small carpet snake. Douyouie, ants. Dulibah, bald. Dulleerin, a lizard. Douran Douran, north wind. Dunnee Bunbun, a very large green parrot. Dibbee, sort of sandpiper. Durrahgeegin, green frog. Dooroongul, hairy caterpillar. Durramunga, little boorah. Doolooboorah, boorah message-stick. Dulloorah, tree manna-bringing birds. Eerin, little night owl. Euloowayi, long-nailed devils. Euahlayi, name of the Narran tribe. Euloowirree, rainbow. Eeramooun, uninitiated boy. Eleanbah wundah, spirits of the lower world. {One page missing from the scanned edition} Hippi, man's divisional family name Hippitha, woman's divisional family name. Inga, crayfish. Innerah, a woman with a camp of her own. Illay, hop bush. Kumbo, man's divisional family name Kubbee, man's divisional family name Kubbootha, woman's divisional family name. Kummean, father's sister. Kurreah, crocodile. Kumbuy, sister-in-law. Kamilaroi, name of a tribe. Kurrajong, tree; a sterculia. Moodai, an opossum. Minggah, spirit tree. Murrahgul, a bird string trap. Murree, man's divisional family name. Matha, woman's divisional family name Mullayerh, a temporary companion. Moothie, a friend of childhood in afterlife. Mirroon, emu net. Mubboo, beefwood tree. Myall, a drooping acacia; violet-scented wood. Moornin, emu spears. Muggil, stone knife. Moorooleh, plain waddy. Moogul, only child. Mah, hand or totem. Moograbah, big black and white magpie. Mirrieh, poligonum. Mullee Mullee, dream spirit of a wizard. Mullowil, shadow spirit. Moolee, death-dealing stone. Moondoo, wasps. Murgahmuggui, spider. Mayamah, stones. Munggheewurraywurraymul, seagulls. Matah, corruption of master. Mooroobeaigunnil, spirits on the sacred mountain. Midjeer, an acacia. Mulga, an acacia. Mooregoo Mooregoo, black ibis. Mooloowerh, a shrub with cream coloured flowers. Muddurwerderh, west wind. Mungghee, mussels. Millanboo, the first again. Moobil, stomach. Mouyerh, bone through nose. Moonaibaraban, spirit sister-in-law. Mayamerh, Gayandi's camp. Mullyan, eagle-hawk. Mirriehburrah, belonging to poligonum country. Millan, small water yam. Mooregoo, swamp oak; belah, Mouyi, white cockatoo. Maira, a paddy melon. Mouninguggahgul, mosquito bird. Maira, wild currant bush. Mungoongarlee, Largest iguana. Mooregoo, mopoke. Mounin, mosquito. Mungahran, hawk. Mien, dingo. Munthdeegun, man in charge of initiate at boorah. Meamei, the girls; Pleiades. Mayrah, wind. Marahgoo, man-shaped devil. Marmbeyah, tree spirits. Moorilla, pebbly ridge. Mahmee, old woman. Nimmaylee, girl's name; young porcupine. Nurragah, an exclamation of pity. Noongah, Kurrajong. Numbardee, mother and mother's sisters. Niune, wild melon. Noongahburrah, belonging to the country of the Noongah. Noorumbah, hereditary bunting ground. Noodul Noodul, whistling duck. Nummaybirrah, wild grape; Namoi. Narahdarn, bat. Noorunglely, a setting emu. Nahgul, a devil haunting boorah grounds. Oganahbayah, a small eagle-hawk. Ooboon, blue-tongued lizard. Oobi Oobi, sacred mountain. Oonahgnai, give to me. Oonahgnoo, give to her or him. Oonahmillangoo, give to one. Oogowahdee goobelaygoo, flood to swim against. Oogle oogle, four emus. Oonaywah, black diver. Ouyan, curlew. Piggiebillah, porcupine. Quarrian, yellow and red breasted grey parrot. Tuckandee, a young man of the same totem reckoned a kind of brother. Tekel barain, large white amaryllis. Tekkul, hair. Talingerh, native fuchsia. Tucki, a kind of bream. Wirreenun, medicine man, wizard. Wunnarl, food taboo. Wirreebeeun, young woman. Wirree, canoe-shaped bark vessel for drinking from, or holding things in. Wambaneah, full brother. Wulgundee, uncle's wife. Woormerh, a boorah boy messenger. Waywah, man's belt. Wongin, a string breastplate. Wogarrah, hatchet-shaped weapon, Wi, clever. Weedah, bower-bird. Wundah, white devil. Wi-mouyan, magic stick. Wungoolay, a game with discs and spears. Widyu Widyu, toy-spear. Wahl, no. Wa-ah, shells. Woggoon, scrub turkey. Wimberoo, game with leaf and fire. Woolbooldarn, game; riding on bent branch. Whagoo, game; hide-and-seek. Wahn, crow. Wurrawilberoo, the whirlwind devils. Waddahgudjaelwon, a birth-presiding spirit. Wahl nunnoomahdayer, do not steal Wahl goonundoo, no water. Weedegah, bachelor's camp. Wir djuri, name of a tribe. Waggestmul, kind of rat. Wungghee, white night owl. Willerhderh, north wind. Wi, small fish. Wayarah, wild grapes. Womba, mad, deaf. Weeweemul, a body-snatching spirit. Wayambah, turtle. Yhi, the sun (feminine). Yarragerh, spring wind, north-east. Yunbeai, individual totem. Yarmmara, barley grass. Yubbil, large bark vessel. Yungawee, sacred fire. Yumbean, kangaroo teeth fixed in grim, ornaments. Yumbui, fatherless boy. Yaraan, an Eucalyptus. Yowee, a soul equivalent. Yahweerh, sham fight. Youayah, frogs. Yelgayerdayer deermuldayer, leave all such alone. Yudthar, feather. Yubbah, carpet snake. Yelgidyi, fully initiated young man. Yowee bulleerul, spirit breath.