AUSTRALIAN LEGENDARY TALES
FOLK-LORE OF THE NOONGAHBURRAHS
AS TOLD TO THE PICCANINNIES
COLLECTED BY MRS. K. LANGLOH PARKER
WITH INTRODUCTON BY ANDREW LANG, M.A.
DEDICATED
TO
PETER HIPPI
KING OF THE NOONGAHBURRAHS
CONTENTS
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION, BY ANDREW LANG, M.A.
1 DINEWAN THE EMU, AND GOOMBLEGUBBON THE BUSTARD
2 THE GALAH, AND OOLAH THE LIZARD
3 BAHLOO THE MOON, AND THE DAENS
4 THE ORIGIN OF THE NARRAN LAKE
5 GOOLOO THE MAGPIE, AND THE WAHROOGAH
6 THE WEEOOMBEENS AND THE PIGGIEBILLAH
7 BOOTOOLGAH THE CRANE AND GOONUR THE KANGAROO RAT, THE FIRE MAKERS
8 WEEDAH THE MOCKING BIRD
9 THE GWINERBOOS THE REDBREASTS
10 MEAMEI THE SEVEN SISTERS
11 THE COOKOOBURRAHS AND THE GOOLAHGOOL
12 THE MAYAMAH
13 THE BUNBUNDOOLOOEYS
14 OONGNAIRWAH AND GUINAREY
15 NARAHDARN THE BAT
16 MULLYANGAH THE MORNING STAR
17 GOOMBLEGUBBON, BEEARGAII, AND OUYAN
18 MOOREGOO THE MOPOKE, AND BAHLOO THE MOON
19 OUYAN THE CURLEW
20 DINEWAN THE EMU, AND WAHN THE CROWS
21 GOOLAHWILLEEL THE TOPKNOT PIGEONS
22 GOONUR, THE WOMAN-DOCTOR
23 DEEREEREE THE WAGTAIL, AND THE RAINBOW
24 MOOREGOO THE MOPOKE, AND MOONINGUGGAHGUL THE MOSQUITO BIRD
25 BOUGOODOOGAHDAH THE RAIN BIRD
26 THE BORAH OF BYAMEE
27 BUNNYYARL THE FLIES AND WURRUNNUNNAH THE BEES
28 DEEGEENBOYAH THE SOLDIER-BIRD
29 MAYRAH, THE WIND THAT BLOWS THE WINTER AWAY
30 WAYAMBEH THE TURTLE
31 WIRREENUN THE RAINMAKER
NATIVE TEXT OF THE FIRST TALE (APPENDIX)
GLOSSARY
PREFACE
A neighbour of mine exclaimed, when I mentioned that I proposed making a
small collection of the folk-lore legends of the tribe of blacks I knew
so well living on this station, "But have the blacks any legends?" - thus
showing that people may live in a country and yet know little of the
aboriginal inhabitants; and though there are probably many who do know
these particular legends, yet I think that this is the first attempt
that has been made to collect the tales of any particular tribe, and
publish them alone. At all events, I know that no attempt has been made
previously, as far as the folklore of the Noongahburrahs is concerned.
Therefore, on the authority of Professor Max Muller, that folk-lore of
any country is worth collecting, I am emboldened to offer my small
attempt, at a collection, to the public. There are probably many who,
knowing these legends, would not think them worth recording; but, on
the other hand, I hope there are many who think, as I do, that we
should try, while there is yet time, to gather all the information
possible of a race fast dying out, and the origin of which is so
obscure. I cannot affect to think that these little legends will do
much to remove that obscurity, but undoubtedly a scientific and patient
study of the folk-lore throughout Australia would greatly assist
thereto. I, alas! am but an amateur, moved to my work by interest in
the subject, and in the blacks, of whom I have had some experience.
The time is coming when it will be impossible to make even such a
collection as this, for the old blacks are quickly dying out, and the
young ones will probably think it beneath the dignity of their
so-called civilisation even to remember such old-women's stories. Those
who have themselves attempted the study of an unknown folk-lore will be
able to appreciate the difficulties a student has to surmount before he
can even induce those to talk who have the knowledge he desires. In
this, as in so much else, those who are ready to be garrulous know
little.
I have confined this little book to the legends of the Narran tribe,
known among themselves as Noongahburrahs. It is astonishing to find,
within comparatively short distances, a diversity of language and
custom. You may even find the same word in different tribes bearing a
totally different meaning. Many words, too, have been introduced which
the blacks think are English, and the English think are native. Such,
for example, as piccaninny, and, as far as these outside blacks are
concerned, boomerang is regarded as English, their local word being
burren; yet nine out of ten people whom you meet think both are local
native words.
Though I have written my little book in the interests of folk-lore, I
hope it will gain the attention of, and have some interest for,
children - of Australian children, because they will find stories of old
friends among the Bush birds; and of English children, because I hope
that they will be glad to make new friends, and so establish a free
trade between the Australian and English nurseries - wingless, and
laughing birds, in exchange for fairy godmothers, and princes in
disguise.
I must also acknowledge my great indebtedness to the blacks, who, when
once they understood what I wanted to know, were most ready to repeat
to me the legends repeating with the utmost patience, time after time,
not only the legends, but the names, that I might manage to spell them
so as to be understood when repeated. In particular I should like to
mention my indebtedness to Peter Hippi, king of the Noongahburrahs; and
to Hippitha, Matah, Barahgurrie, and Beemunny.
I have dedicated my booklet to Peter Hippi, in grateful recognition of
his long and faithful service to myself and my husband, which has
extended, with few intervals, over a period of twenty years. He, too,
is probably the last king of the Noongabburrahs, who are fast dying
out - , and soon their weapons, bartered by them for tobacco or whisky,
alone will prove that they ever existed. It seemed to me a pity that
some attempt should not be made to collect the folk-lore of the quickly
disappearing tribe - a folk-lore embodying, probably, the thoughts,
fancies, and beliefs of the genuine aboriginal race, and which, as
such, deserves to be, indeed, as Max Muller says, "might be and ought
to be, collected in every part of the world."
The legends were told to me by the blacks themselves, some of whom
remember the coming of Mitchellan, as they call Major Mitchell, the
explorer of these back creeks. The old blacks laugh now when they tell
you how frightened their mothers were of the first wheel tracks they
saw. They would not let the children tread on them, but carefully
lifted them over, lest their feet should break out in sores, as they
were supposed to do if they trod on a snake's track. But with all their
fear, little did they realise that the coming of Mitchellan was the
beginning of their end, or that fifty years afterwards, from the
remnant of their once numerous tribe, would be collected the legends
they told in those days to their piccaninnies round their camp-fires,
and those legends used to make a Christmas booklet for the children of
their white supplanters.
I can only hope that the white children will be as ready to listen to
these stories as were, and indeed are, the little piccaninnies, and
thus the sale of this booklet be such as to enable me to add frocks and
tobacco when I give their Christmas dinner, as is my yearly custom, to
the remnant of the Noongahburrahs.
K. LANGLOH PARKER,
BANGATE, NARRAN RIVER, NEW SOUTH WALES,
June 24th, 1895.
INTRODUCTION
Australia makes an appeal to the fancy which is all its own. When
Cortes entered Mexico, in the most romantic moment of history, it was
as if men had found their way to a new planet, so strange, so long
hidden from Europe was all that they beheld. Still they found kings,
nobles, peasants, palaces, temples, a great organised society, fauna
and flora not so very different from what they had left behind in
Spain. In Australia all was novel, and, while seeming fresh, was
inestimably old. The vegetation differs from ours; the monotonous grey
gum-trees did not resemble our varied forests, but were antique,
melancholy, featureless, like their own continent of rare hills,
infrequent streams and interminable deserts, concealing nothing within
their wastes, yet promising a secret. The birds and beasts - kangaroo,
platypus, emu - are ancient types, rough grotesques of Nature, sketching
as a child draws. The natives were a race without a history, far more
antique than Egypt, nearer the beginnings than any other people. Their
weapons are the most primitive: those of the extinct Tasmanians were
actually palaeolithic. The soil holds no pottery, the cave walls no
pictures drawn by men more advanced; the sea hides no ruined palaces;
no cities are buried in the plains; there is not a trace of
inscriptions or of agriculture. The burying places contain relics of
men perhaps even lower than the existing tribes; nothing attests the
presence in any age of men more cultivated. Perhaps myriads of years
have gone by since the Delta, or the lands beside Euphrates and Tigris
were as blank of human modification as was the whole Australian
continent.
The manners and rites of the natives were far the most archaic of all
with which we are acquainted. Temples they had none: no images of gods,
no altars of sacrifice; scarce any memorials of the dead. Their worship
at best was offered in hymns to some vague, half-forgotten deity or
First Maker of things, a god decrepit from age or all but careless of
his children. Spirits were known and feared, but scarcely defined or
described. Sympathetic magic, and perhaps a little hypnotism, were all
their science. Kings and nations they knew not; they were wanderers,
houseless and homeless. Custom was king; yet custom was tenacious,
irresistible, and as complex in minute details as the etiquette of
Spanish kings, or the ritual of the Flamens of Rome. The archaic
intricacies and taboos of the customs and regulations of marriage might
puzzle a mathematician, and may, when unravelled, explain the less
complicated prohibitions of a totemism less antique. The people
themselves in their struggle for existence had developed great
ingenuities. They had the boomerang and the weet-weet, but not the bow;
the throwing stick, but not, of course, the sword; the message stick,
but no hieroglyphs; and their art was almost purely decorative, in
geometrical patterns, not representative. They deemed themselves akin
to all nature, and called cousins with rain and smoke, with clouds and
sky, as well as with beasts and trees. They were adroit hunters,
skilled trackers, born sportsmen; they now ride well, and, for savages,
play cricket fairly. But, being invaded by the practical emigrant or
the careless convict, the natives were not studied when in their prime,
and science began to examine them almost too late. We have the works of
Sir George Grey, the too brief pamphlet of Mr. Gideon Lang, the more
learned labours of Messrs. Fison and Howitt, and the collections of Mr.
Brough Smyth. The mysteries (Bora) of the natives, the initiatory
rites, a little of the magic, a great deal of the social customs are
known to us, and we have fragments of the myths. But, till Mrs. Langloh
Parker wrote this book, we had but few of the stories which Australian
natives tell by the camp-fire or in the gum-tree shade.
These, for the most part, are KINDER MARCHEN, though they include many
aetiological myths, explanatory of the markings and habits of animals,
the origin of constellations, and so forth. They are a savage edition
of the METAMORPHOSES, and few unbiased students now doubt that the
METAMORPHOSES are a very late and very artificial version of
traditional tales as savage in origin as those of the Noongahburrah. I
have read Mrs. Parker's collection with very great interest, with
"human pleasure," merely for the story's sake. Children will find here
the Jungle Book, never before printed, of black little boys and girls.
The sympathy with, and knowledge of beast-life and bird-life are worthy
of Mr. Kipling, and the grotesque names are just what children like.
Dinewan and Goomblegubbon should take their place with Rikki Tikki and
Mr. Kipling's other delightful creatures. But there is here no Mowgli,
set apart in the jungle as a man. Man, bird, and beast are all blended
in the Australian fancy as in that of Bushmen and Red Indians. All are
of one kindred, all shade into each other; all obey the Bush Law as
they obey the Jungle Law in Mr. Kipling's fascinating stories. This
confusion, of course, is not peculiar to Australian MARCHEN; it is the
prevalent feature of our own popular tales. But the Australians "do it
more natural:" the stories are not the heritage of a traditional and
dead, but the flowers of a living and actual condition of the mind. The
stories have not the ingenious dramatic turns of our own MARCHEN. Where
there are no distinctions of wealth and rank, there can be no
CINDERELLA and no PUSS IN BOOTS. Many stories are rude aetiological
myths; they explain the habits and characteristics of the birds and
beasts, and account in a familiar way for the origin of death ("Bahloo,
the Moon, and the Daens"). The origin of fire is also accounted for in
what may almost be called a scientific way. Once discovered, it is, of
course, stolen from the original proprietors. A savage cannot believe
that the first owners of fire would give the secret away. The inventors
of the myth of Prometheus were of the same mind.
On the whole the stories, perhaps, most resemble those from the Zulu in
character, though these represent a much higher grade of civilisation.
The struggle for food and water, desperately absorbing, is the
perpetual theme, and no wonder, for the narrators dwell in a dry and
thirsty land, and till not, nor sow, nor keep any domestic animals. We
see the cunning of the savage in the devices for hunting, especially
for chasing honey bees. The Rain-magic, actually practised, is of
curious interest. In brief, we have pictures of savage life by savages,
romances which are truly realistic. We understand that condition which
Dr. Johnson did not think happy - the state from which we came, and to
which we shall probably return. "Equality," "Liberty", "Community of
Goods," all mean savagery, and even savages, if equal, are not really
free. Custom is the tyrant.
The designs are from the sketch-book of an untaught Australian native;
they were given to me some years ago by my brother, Dr. Lang, of
Corowa. The artist has a good deal of spirit in his hunting scenes; his
trees are not ill done, his emus and kangaroos are better than his men
and labras. Using ink, a pointed stick, and paper, the artist shows an
unwonted freedom of execution. Nothing like this occurs in Australian
scratches with a sharp stone on hard wood. Probably no other member of
his dying race ever illustrated a book.
ANDREW LANG.
* * * * *
1. DINEWAN THE EMU, AND GOOMBLEGUBBON THE BUSTARD
Dinewan the emu, being the largest bird, was acknowledged as king bythe
other birds. The Goomblegubbons, the bustards, were jealous of the
Dinewans. Particularly was Goomblegubbon, the mother, jealous of the
Diriewan mother. She would watch with envy the high flight of the
Dinewans, and their swift running. And she always fancied that the
Dinewan mother flaunted her superiority in her face, for whenever
Dinewan alighted near Goomblegubbon, after a long, high flight, she
would flap her big wings and begin booing in her pride, not the loud
booing of the male bird, but a little, triumphant, satisfied booing
noise of her own, which never failed to irritate Goomblegubbon when she
heard it.
Goomblegubbon used to wonder how she could put an end to Dinewan's
supremacy. She decided that she would only be able to do so by injuring
her wings and checking her power of flight. But the question that
troubled her was how to effect this end. She kn ew she would gain
nothing by having a quarrel with Dinewan and fighting her, for no
Goomblegubbon would stand any chance against a Dinewan, There was
evidently nothing to be gained by an open fight. She would have to
effect her end by cunning.
One day, when Goomblegubbon saw in the distance Dinewan coming towards
her, she squatted down and doubled in her wings in such a way as to
look as if she had none. After Dinewan had been talking to her for some
time, Goomblegubbon said: "Why do you not imitate me and do without
wings? Every bird flies. The Dinewans, to be the king of birds, should
do without wings. When all the birds see that I can do without wings,
they will think I am the cleverest bird and they will make a
Goomblegubbon king."
"But you have wings," said Dinewan.
"No, I have no wings." And indeed she looked as if her words were true,
so well were her wings hidden, as she squatted in the grass. Dinewan
went away after awhile, and thought much of what she had heard. She
talked it all over with her mate, who was as disturbed as she was. They
made up their minds that it would never do to let the Goomblegubbons
reign in their stead, even if they had to lose their wings to save
their kingship.
At length they decided on the sacrifice of their wings. The Dinewan
mother showed the example by persuading her mate to cut off hers with a
combo or stone tomahawk, and then she did the same to his. As soon as
the operations were over, the Dinewan mother lost no time in letting
Goomblegubbon know what they had done. She ran swiftly down to the
plain on which she had left Goomblegubbon, and, finding her still
squatting there, she said: "See, I have followed your example. I have
now no wings. They are cut off."
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Goomblegubbon, jumping up and dancing round with
joy at the success of her plot. As she danced round, she spread out her
wings, flapped them, and said: "I have taken you in, old stumpy wings.
I have my wings yet. You are fine birds, you Dinewans, to be chosen
kings, when you are so easily taken in. Ha! ha! ha!" And, laughing
derisively, Goomblegubbon flapped her wings right in front of Dinewan,
who rushed towards her to chastise her treachery. But Goomblegubbon
flew away, and, alas! the now wingless Dinewan could not follow her.
Brooding over her wrongs, Dinewan walked away, vowing she would be
revenged. But how? That was the question which she and her mate failed
to answer for some time. At length the Dinewan mother thought of a plan
and prepared at once to execute it. She hid all her young Dinewans but
two, under a big salt bush. Then she walked off to Goomblegubbons'
plain with the two young ones following her. As she walked off the
morilla ridge, where her home was, on to the plain, she saw
Goomblegubbon out feeding with her twelve young ones.
After exchanging a few remarks in a friendly manner with Goomblegubbon,
she said to her, "Why do you not imitate me and only have two children?
Twelve are too many to feed. If you keep so many they will never grow
big birds like the Dinewans. The food that would make big birds of two
would only starve twelve." Goomblegubbon said nothing, but she thought
it might be so. It was impossible to deny that the young Dinewans were
much bigger than the young Goomblegubbons, and, discontentedly,
Goomblegubbon walked away, wondering whether the smallness of her young
ones was owing to the number of them being so much greater than that of
the Dinewans. It would be grand, she thought, to grow as big as the
Dinewans. But she remembered the trick she had played on Dinewan, and
she thought that perhaps she was being fooled in her turn. She looked
back to where the Dinewans fed, and as she saw how much bigger the two
young ones were than any of hers, once more mad envy of Dinewan
possessed her. She determined she would not be outdone. Rather would
she kill all her young ones but two. She said, "The Dinewans shall not
be the king birds of the plains. The Goomblegubbons shall replace them.
They shall grow as big as the Dinewans, and shall keep their wings and
fly, which now the Dinewans cannot do." And straightway Goomblegubbon
killed all her young ones but two. Then back she came to where the
Dinewans were still feeding. When Dinewan saw her coming and noticed
she had only two young ones with her, she called out: "Where are all
your young ones?"
Goomblegubbon answered, "I have killed them, and have only two left.
Those will have plenty to eat now, and will soon grow as big as your
young ones."
"You cruel mother to kill your children. You greedy mother. Why, I have
twelve children and I find food for them all. I would not kill one for
anything, not even if by so doing I could get back my wings. There is
plenty for all. Look at the emu bush how it covers itself with berries
to feed my big family. See how the grasshoppers come hopping round, so
that we can catch them and fatten on them."
"But you have only two children."
"I have twelve. I will go and bring them to show you." Dinewan ran off
to her salt bush where she had hidden her ten young ones. Soon she was
to be seen coming back. Running with her neck stretched forward, her
head thrown back with pride, and the feathers of her boobootella
swinging as she ran, booming out the while her queer throat noise, the
Dinewan song of joy, the pretty, soft-looking little ones with their
zebra-striped skins, running beside her whistling their baby Dinewan
note. When Dinewan reached the place where Goomblegubbon was, she
stopped her booing and said in a solemn tone, "Now you see my words are
true, I have twelve young ones, as I said. You can gaze at my loved
ones and think of your poor murdered children. And while you do so I
will tell you the fate of your descendants for ever. By trickery and
deceit you lost the Dinewans their wings, and now for evermore, as long
as a Dinewan has no wings, so long shall a Goomblegubbon lay only two
eggs and have only two young ones. We are quits now. You have your
wings and I my children."
And ever since that time a Dinewan, or emu, has had no wings, and a
Goomblegubbon, or bustard of the plains, has laid only two eggs in a
season.
2. THE GALAH, AND OOLAH THE LIZARD
Oolah the lizard was tired of lying in the sun, doing nothing. So he
said, "I will go and play." He took his boomerangs out, and began to
practise throwing them. While he was doing so a Galah came up, and
stood near, watching the boomerangs come flying back, for the kind of
boomerangs Oolah was throwing were the bubberahs. They are smaller than
others, and more curved, and when they are properly thrown they return
to the thrower, which other boomerangs do not.
Oolah was proud of having the gay Galah to watch his skill. In his
pride he gave the bubberah an extra twist, and threw it with all his
might. Whizz, whizzing through the air, back it came, hitting, as it
passed her, the Galah on the top of her head, taking both feathers and
skin clean off. The Galah set up a hideous, cawing, croaking shriek,
and flew about, stopping every few minutes to knock her head on the
ground like a mad bird. Oolah was so frightened when he saw what he had
done, and noticed that the blood was flowing from the Galah's head,
that he glided away to hide under a bindeah bush. But the Galah saw
him. She never stopped the hideous noise she was making for a minute,
but, still shrieking, followed Oolah. When she reached the bindeah bush
she rushed at Oolah, seized him with her beak, rolled him on the bush
until every bindeah had made a hole in his skin. Then she rubbed his
skin with her own bleeding head. "Now then," she said, "you Oolah shall
carry bindeahs on you always, and the stain of my blood."
"And you," said Oolah, as he hissed with pain from the tingling of the
prickles, "shall be a bald-headed bird as long as I am a red prickly
lizard."
So to this day, underneath the Galah's crest you can always find the
bald patch which the bubberah of Oolah first made. And in the country
of the Galahs are lizards coloured reddish brown, and covered with
spikes like bindeah prickles.
3. BAHLOO THE MOON AND THE DAENS
Bahloo the moon looked down at the earth one night, when his light was
shining quite brightly, to see if any one was moving. When the earth
people were all asleep was the time he chose for playing with his three
dogs. He called them dogs, but the earth people called them snakes, the
death adder, the black snake, and the tiger snake. As he looked down on
to the earth, with his three dogs beside him, Bahloo saw about a dozen
daens, or black fellows, crossing a Creek. He called to them saying,
"Stop, I want you to carry my dogs across that creek." But the black
fellows, though they liked Bahloo well, did not like his dogs, for
sometimes when he had brought these dogs to play on the earth, they had
bitten not only the earth dogs but their masters; and the poison left
by the bites had killed those bitten. So the black fellows said, "No,
Bahloo, we are too frightened; your dogs might bite us. They are not
like our dogs, whose bite would not kill us."
Bahloo said, "If you do what I ask you, when you die you shall come to
life again, not die and stay always where you are put when you are
dead. See this piece of bark. I throw it into the water." And he threw
a piece of bark into the creek. "See it comes to the top again and
floats. That is what would happen to you if you would do what I ask
you: first under when you die, then up again at once. If you will not
take my dogs over, you foolish daens, you will die like this," and he
threw a stone into the creek, which sank to the bottom. "You will be
like that stone, never rise again, Wombah daens!"
But the black fellows said, "We cannot do it, Bahloo. We are too
frightened of your dogs."
"I will come down and carry them over myself to show you that they are
quite safe and harmless." And down he came, the black snake coiled
round one arm, the tiger snake round the other, and the death adder on
his shoulder, coiled towards his neck. He carried them over. When he
had crossed the creek he picked up a big stone, and he threw it into
the water, saying, "Now, you cowardly daens, you would not do what I,
Bahloo, asked you to do, and so forever you have lost the chance of
rising again after you die. You will just stay where you are put, like
that stone does under the water, and grow, as it does, to be part of
the earth. If you had done what I asked you, you could have died as
often as I die, and have come to life as often as I come to life. But
now you will only be black fellows while you live, and bones when you
are dead."
Bahloo looked so cross, and the three snakes hissed so fiercely, that
the black fellows were very glad to see them disappear from their sight
behind the trees. The black fellows had always been frightened of
Bahloo's dogs, and now they hated them, and they said, "If we could get
them away from Bahloo we would kill them." And thenceforth, whenever
they saw a snake alone they killed it. But Babloo only sent more, for
he said, "As long as there are black fellows there shall be snakes to
remind them that they would not do what I asked them."
4. THE ORIGIN OF THE NARRAN LAKE
Old Byamee said to his two young wives, Birrahgnooloo and
Cunnunbeillee, "I have stuck a white feather between the hind legs of a
bee, and am going to let it go and then follow it to its nest, that I
may get honey. While I go for the honey, go you two out and get frogs
and yams, then meet me at Coorigel Spring, where we will camp, for
sweet and clear is the water there." The wives, taking their goolays
and yam sticks, went out as he told them. Having gone far, and dug out
many yams and frogs, they were tired when they reached Coorigel, and,
seeing the cool, fresh water, they longed to bathe. But first they
built a bough shade, and there left their goolays holding their food,
and the yams and frogs they had found. When their camp was ready for
the coming of Byamee, who having wooed his wives with a nullah-nullah,
kept them obedient by fear of the same weapon, then went the girls to
the spring to bathe. Gladly they plunged in, having first divested them
selves of their goomillahs, which they were still young enough to wear,
and which they left on the ground near the spring. Scarcely were they
enjoying the cool rest the water gave their hot, tired limbs, when they
were seized and swallowed by two kurreahs. Having swallowed the girls,
the kurreahs dived into an opening in the side of the spring, which was
the entrance to an underground watercourse leading to the Narran River.
Through this passage they went, taking all the water from the spring
with them into the Narran, whose course they also dried as they went
along.
Meantime Byamee, unwitting the fate of his wives, was honey hunting. He
had followed the bee with the white feather on it for some distance;
then the bee flew on to some budtha flowers, and would move no further.
Byamee said, "Something has happened, or the bee would not stay here
and refuse to be moved on towards its nest. I must go to Coorigel
Spring and see if my wives are safe. Something terrible has surely
happened." And Byamee turned in haste towards the spring. When he
reached there he saw the bough shed his wives had made, he saw the yams
they had dug from the ground, and he saw the frogs, but Birrahgnooloo
and Cunnunbeillee he saw not. He called aloud for them. But no answer.
He went towards the spring; on the edge of it he saw the goomillahs of
his wives. He looked into the spring and, seeing it dry, he said, "It
is the work of the kurreahs; they have opened the underground passage
and gone with my wives to the river, and opening the passage has dried
the spring. Well do I know where the passage joins the Narran, and
there will I swiftly go." Arming himself with spears and woggarahs he
started in pursuit. He soon reached the deep hole where the underground
channel of the Coorigel joined the Narran. There he saw what he had
never seen before, namely, this deep hole dry. And he said: "They have
emptied the holes as they went along, taking the water with them. But
well know I the deep holes of the river. I will not follow the bend,
thus trebling the distance I have to go, but I will cut across from big
hole to big hole, and by so doing I may yet get ahead of the kurreahs."
On swiftly sped Byamee, making short cuts from big hole to big hole,
and his track is still marked by the morilla ridges that stretch down
the Narran, pointing in towards the deep holes. Every hole as he came
to it he found dry, until at last he reached the end of the Narran; the
hole there was still quite wet and muddy, then he knew he was near his
enemies, and soon he saw them. He managed to get, unseen, a little way
ahead of the kurreahs. He hid himself behind a big dheal tree. As the
kurreahs came near they separated, one turning to go in another
direction. Quickly Byamee hurled one spear after another, wounding both
kurreahs, who writhed with pain and lashed their tails furiously,
making great hollows in the ground, which the water they had brought
with them quickly filled. Thinking they might again escape him, Byamee
drove them from the water with his spears, and then, at close quarters,
he killed them with his woggarahs. And ever afterwards at flood time,
the Narran flowed into this hollow which the kurreahs in their
writhings had made.
When Byamee saw that the kurreahs were quite dead, he cut them open and
took out the bodies of his wives. They were covered with wet slime, and
seemed quite lifeless; but he carried them and laid them on two nests
of red ants. Then he sat down at some little distance and watched them.
The ants quickly covered the bodies, cleaned them rapidly of the wet
slime, and soon Byamee noticed the muscles of the girls twitching.
"Ah," he said, "there is life, they feel the sting of the ants."
Almost as he spoke came a sound as of a thunder-clap, but the sound
seemed to come from the ears of the girls. And as the echo was dying
away, slowly the girls rose to their feet. For a moment they stood
apart, a dazed expression on their faces. Then they clung together,
shaking as if stricken with a deadly fear. But Byamee came to them and
explained how they had been rescued from the kurreahs by him. He bade
them to beware of ever bathing in the deep holes of the Narran, lest
such holes be the haunt of kurreahs.
Then he bade them look at the water now at Boogira, and he said:
"Soon will the black swans find their way here, the pelicans and the
ducks; where there was dry land and stones in the past, in the future
there will be water and water-fowl, from henceforth; when the Narran
runs it will run into this hole, and by the spreading of its waters
will a big lake be made." And what Byamee said has come to pass, as the
Narran Lake shows, with its large sheet of water, spreading for miles,
the home of thousands of wild fowl.
5. GOOLOO THE MAGPIE, AND THE WAHROOGAH
Gooloo was a very old woman, and a very wicked old woman too, as this
story will tell. During all the past season, when the grass was thick
with seed, she had gathered much doonburr, which she crushed into meal
as she wanted it for food. She used to crush it on a big flat stone
with small flat stones - the big stone was called a dayoorl. Gooloo
ground a great deal of the doonburr seed to put away for immediate use,
the rest she kept whole, to be ground as required.
Soon after she had finished her first grinding, a neighbouring tribe
came along and camped near where she was. One day the men all went out
hunting, leaving the women and the children in the camp. After the men
had been gone a little while, Gooloo the magpie came to their camp to
talk to the women. She said, "Why do you not go hunting too? Many are
the nests of the wurranunnahs round here, and thick is the honey in
them. Many and ripe are the bumbles hanging now on the humble trees;
red is the fruit of the grooees, and opening with ripeness the fruit of
the guiebets. Yet you sit in the camp and hunger, until your husbands
return with the dinewan and bowrah they have gone forth to slay. Go,
women, and gather of the plenty that surrounds you. I will take care of
your children, the little Wahroogabs."
"Your words are wise," the women said. "It is foolish to sit here and
hunger, when near at hand yams are thick in the ground, and many fruits
wait but the plucking. We will go and fill quickly our comebees and
goolays, but our children we will take with us."
"Not so," said Gooloo, "foolish indeed were you to do that. You would
tire the little feet of those that run, and tire yourselves with the
burden of those that have to be carried. No, take forth your comebees
and goolays empty, that ye may bring back the more. Many are the spoils
that wait only the hand of the gatherer. Look ye, I have a durrie made
of fresh doonburr seed, cooking just now on that bark between two
fires; that shall your children eat, and swiftly shall I make them
another. They shall eat and be full ere their mothers are out of sight.
See, they come to me now, they hunger for durrie, and well will I feed
them. Haste ye then, that ye may return in time to make ready the fires
for cooking the meat your husbands will bring. Glad will your husbands
be when they see that ye have filled your goolays and comebees with
fruits, and your wirrees with honey. Haste ye, I say, and do well."
Having listened to the words of Gooloo, the women decided to do as she
said, and, leaving their children with her, they started forth with
empty comebees, and armed with combos, with which to chop out the bees'
nests and opossums, and with yam sticks to dig up yams.
When the women had gone, Gooloo gathered the children round her and fed
them with durrie, hot from the coals. Honey, too, she gave them, and
bumbles which she had buried to ripen. When they had eaten, she hurried
them off to her real home, built in a hollow tree, a little distance
away from where she had been cooking her durrie. Into her house she
hurriedly thrust them, followed quickly herself, and made all secure.
Here she fed them again, but the children had already satisfied their
hunger, and now they missed their mothers and began to cry. Their
crying reached the ears of the women as they were returning to their
camp. Quickly they came at the sound which is not good in a mother's
ears. As they quickened their steps they thought how soon the spoils
that lay heavy in their comebees would comfort their children. And
happy they, the mothers, would feel when they fed the Wahroogahs with
the dainties they had gathered for them. Soon they reached the camp,
but, alas! where were their children? And where was Gooloo the magpie?
"They are playing wahgoo," they said, "and have hidden themselves."
The mothers hunted all round for them, and called aloud the names of
their children and Gooloo. But no answer could they hear and no trace
could they find. And yet every now and then they heard the sound of
children wailing. But seek as they would they found them not. Then
loudly wailed the mothers themselves for their lost Wahroogahs, and,
wailing, returned to the camp to wait the coming of the black fellows.
Heavy were their hearts, and sad were their faces when their husbands
returned. They hastened to tell the black fellows when they came, how
Gooloo had persuaded them to go hunting, promising if they did so that
she would feed the hungry Wahroogahs, and care for them while they were
away, but - and here they wailed again for their poor Wahroogahs. They
told how they had listened to her words and gone; truth had she told of
the plenty round, their comebees and goolays were full of fruits and
spoils they had gathered, but, alas! they came home with them laden
only to find their children gone and Gooloo gone too. And no trace
could they find of either, though at times they heard a sound as of
children wailing.
Then wroth were the men, saying: "What mothers are ye to leave your
young to a stranger, and that stranger a Gooloo, ever a treacherous
race? Did we not go forth to gain food for you and our children? Saw ye
ever your husbands return from the chase empty handed? Then why, when
ye knew we were gone hunting, must ye too go forth and leave our
helpless ones to a stranger? Oh, evil, evil indeed is the time that has
come when a mother forgets her child. Stay ye in the camp while we go
forth to hunt for our lost Wahroogahs. Heavy will be our hands on the
women if we return without them."
The men hunted the bush round for miles, but found no trace of the lost
Wahroogahs, though they too heard at times a noise as of children's
voices wailing.
But beyond the wailing which echoed in the mothers' ears for ever, no
trace was found of the children. For many days the women sat in the
camp mourning for their lost Wahroogahs, and beating their heads
because they had listened to the voice of Gooloo.
6. THE WEEOONIBEENS AND THE PIGGIEBILLAH
Two Weeoombeen brothers went out hunting. One brother was much younger
than the other and smaller, so when they sighted an emu, the elder one
said to the younger: "You stay quietly here and do not make a noise, or
Piggiebillah, whose camp we passed just now, will hear you and steal
the emu if I kill it. He is so strong. I'll go on and try to kill the
emu with this stone." The little Weeoombeen watched his big brother
sneak up to the emu, crawling along, almost flat, on the ground. He saw
him get quite close to the emu, then spring up quickly and throw the
stone with such an accurate aim as to kill the bird on the spot. The
little brother was so rejoiced that he forgot his brother's caution,
and he called aloud in his joy. The big Weeoombeen looked round and