beside it became in half an hour apparently dead. After a while the corpse of the Mohammedan, which had been removed from the grave, showed signs of reviving, and the Pandit saw sparks of fire issuing from its eyes. Finally the Mohammedan rose and told him that the soul of the Yogi had entered into him. The two then buried the Yogi in the grave, and left the place. The Mohammedan subsequently was recognised by his friends in a distant city, and when, to make things sure, the grave was opened it was found to contain the corpse of an aged man, not that of the original occupant. (Madras Times, Oct. 7, 1909.)
Australian Folk-tales.
The first of the following tales was told to me by an old blackfellow whom the white people called "Jerry." He spoke the Jirringan language, a grammar of which I published in 1902,[1]
with the habitat of the Jirringañ tribe. The story of the Wahwee is current among the Wiradjuri, Kamilaroi, Wailwan, and other tribes of New South Wales. It was related to me by an old Kamilaroi black-fellow, named "Jimmy Nerang," whom I met at the Bora ceremony held at Tallwood in 1895.[2] The Rev. Wm. Ridley mentions the Wawi (my Wahwee) as a monster living in deep waterholes.[3] I gave a drawing of the Wahwee represented on the ground at the Burbung ceremonies of the Wiradjuri tribe in 1893.[4] (The two tales have, since their despatch to Folk-Lore, been printed in the Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales.)
I. The Yarroma.—Yar'-ro-mas are men of gigantic stature, with their body covered with hair, and having a large mouth which enables them to swallow a blackfellow alive. There are always two of these creatures together, and they stand back to
- ↑ Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of N.S. Wales, vol. 36, pp. 160-167.
- ↑ Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, N.S., vol. ix., pp. 137-173.
- ↑ Kamilaroi and Other Australian Languages, 1875, p. 138.
- ↑ Journal of the Anthropological Institute, etc., vol. xxv,, p. 315.
