who is a man. He once said something very improper, and has been laughing at his joke ever since. As he scint

ld man, that L

sky haze the smoke from them, which spirits of the dead have lit on their journey acr

hen you see that he has turned round as the position of the Milky W

will see along the same cour

catch the spirits of the dead; sometimes even coming to earth, when they animate whirlwinds and strike terror into t

t out the fire. The two ice-maidens were miserable on earth with him, and eventually escaped by the aid of one of their 'multiplex totems,' the pine-tree. Wurrunnah had told them to get him pine bark. Now the Meamei-Pleiades-belong to the Beewee totem, so does the pine-tree. They chopped the pine bark, and as they did so

earth, but they kept themselves unspotted from the world, wi

cky mountain, their mother an icy mountain stream. But when they were translated to the sky the Berai-Berai were inconsolable. They would not hunt, they would not eat, they pined away and died. The spirits pitied them and placed them in the sky within sound of the singing of

some tribes, are two

ey might not reach him; but they followed, and are travelling after him to this day, and after them the wizard Beereeun, their evil g

nd hooked one spear on to another until he made a ladder up which h

dancer of the tribes. They almost caught her, but her tribe pursued them too quickly; when, determined that if they lost her so should her people, they chanted an incantation and changed h

in his holes down and drowns them, but goes every night to his sky-camp, the Coalpit, a da

an who died on earth to the sky. The white cockatoos which used to roost in this tree when they saw it moving skywards followed it, and are following it still as Mouyi, the p

y a woman's fault that d

is tree; the women coveted the honey, but the men forbade them to go near it. But at last one woman determined to get that honey; chop went her tomahawk into

d whom now she tries to kill, but the spirits intervene, dreading a return to a dark world. Some say the enemies have managed to get evil spirits into each o

ky, telling the spirits who stand round the sky holding it up, that if they let him escape past them to earth, she will throw down the spirit who sits in the s

the creation of baby girls, has to sneak down as an emu pas

important perso

ee a halo round t

n. Bahloo building a ho

ate. When storms were threatening, some of the clouds have a netted sort of look, something like a mackerel sky, only w

ld a trail follow them, the dea

ds, so causing a drought; their tails being huge families all

peculiarity in bird life, every peculiarity in the trees and stones. Besides there are ma

carry a legend

but it is left to a black's legend to tell of a whole

uld see a belt with weapons in it, a forehead band too, perhaps, but no waist nor forehead, a water-vessel invisibly held: a man was there, an invisible Mayrah. One of these Mayrah men chummed with one of the Doolungaiyah tribe; he was a splendid mate, a great hunter, and all that was desirable, but for his invisibility. The Doolungaiyah longed to see him, and began to worry him on the subject until at last the Mayrah became enrage

k owns Gooroongoodilbaydilbay, and flies with her in the shape of high clouds. Yarragerh is a man, and he has for wives the Budtha, Bibbil, and Bumble tre

nd Kurrajong, who flower after th

they have stolen, whom they can only meet twice a year at the great corroboree of the winds, when they all come together,

erh, the spring, or as a woman kissed into life by Yarragerh putting such warmth into her that she blows the winter away. But these are poetical licences, for Y

, too, of old tribal fights. Just in front of our station store was a gnarled old Coolabah tree cov

wind blows you could hear them wailing. Their cruel husband chopped their arms off beca

es, and the first to see the sea, brought back. No one would dare to touch the shell. The tribe of a neighbouring creek, when we were first at the stati

ave told you of before. Furth

he sacred tree of Byamee burnt by the white devils! There are trees, too, considered sacred, from which Byamee cut honey and marked them for his

who had hundreds of dogs; with them she used to round up blacks and kill them, and she and her dogs ate them. At last she was outwitted and killed herself, an

rain would come soon, and it did. In another drought when the rainmakers had failed,

re was a devil in diamonds, making women do all sorts of evil to possess them. The blacks told me that a Queensland tribe had a marvellous stone which at great gatherings they show. Taking those who are privileged to see it into the dark, there they sudde

this is the work of Byamee and his giant sons, t

shows that in those days were giants. There it was that Byamee brought to bay the crocod

ller stone, that his dog might have a drinking-place too. This recurrence of the mention of dogs in the leg

and to these rocks are still sticking the hairs he pulled from his

s; first, a widely spreading gum, then another kind, next a pine, and lastly a midgee, in which was Mullyan's camp, out of which the relations of his victims burnt him and his wives, and they now form the Northern Crown constellation. The roots of this gigantic tree travelled for miles, fo

happened, until at last it seemed as if the tribes would be exterminated. The Yanta-spirits-saw what was happening and felt grieved, so they determined to come and live on the earth again to try and bring relief to the drought-stricke

made was at Yantabulla, which

Yantas were not contented with this nor with the other springs they made. They determined to excavate a whole pla

me, for one after another wearied and died, until at last nothing was left on the plain but the mud springs under the surface and the

an ordinary men succeed? But indeed it is not ordinary men who do, but our 'Western heroes,' as Will Ogilvie