The Man with a Tail.
The Coranderrk blacks say that there is one man (Kooleen) under the ground (Beek) who has a long tail. He has a great many wives and many children. He is a very bad man, and always laughs at the blacks because they have no tails. The Yarra blacks believe also that when the kidney-fat is taken away by sorcery, and a person dies, the spirit goes to Bund-jel. The body will rise again if the deceased has drunk water belonging to Menyan (the Moon), but if the person has drunk water belonging to Mongabarra, (the Pigeon), the body will not rise again.
Origin of the Sea.
The doctors or priests say that the sea was created by Bund-jel. The sea—Bullarto warreen—has waters different from those that flow in the creeks and rivers, and very different from those that descend from the sky. Woo-too-no, Woo-too-no, Woo-too-no Per-reen Ngervein—many long ages past Bund-jel was very angry with the blacks. Bund-jel was very angry with all black people, because they had done evil and wicked things; and Bun-jel Bulgo-Lou-er-ner[1] many days on the earth, and all the black people were drowned, except such as Bund-jel favored, and these were caught up by him and fixed in the sky as stars. One Koolin and one Baggarook—one man and one woman—who had climbed a high tree on a mountain, escaped the flood which Bund-jel had made, and they lived; and all the people now existing are descended from these two.
How Water was first Obtained.
The Aborigines of Lake Tyers say that at one time there was no water anywhere on the face of the earth. All the waters were contained in the body of a huge Frog, and men and women could get none of it. A council was held, and
- ↑ Bund-jel oceanum creavit minctione plures per dies in terrarum orbem. Bullarto Bulgo magnam lotii copiam indicat.
first began to exist there were two beings, male and female, named Wal-lyne-yup (the father), and Doronnop (the mother); that they had a son, named Bin-dir-woor, who received a deadly wound, which they carefully endeavoured to heal, but totally without success; whereupon it was declared by Wal-lyne-yup that all who came after him should also die in like manner as his son died. Could the wound but have been healed in this case, being the first, the natives think death would have had no power over them. The place where the scene occurred, and where Bin-dir-woor was buried, the natives imagine to have been on the southern plains, between Clarence and the Murray; and the instrument used is said to have been a spear, thrown by some unknown being, and directed by some supernatural power. The tradition goes on to state that Bin-dir-woor, the son, although deprived of life, and buried in his grave, did not remain there, but rose and went to the west, to the unknown land of spirits, across the sea. The parents followed after their son, but (as the natives suppose) were unable to prevail upon him to return, and they consequently have remained with him ever since. Mr. Armstrong says of this tradition that it is the nearest approach to truth and the most reasonable he has yet heard among the natives, and it is certainly highly curious, as showing their belief that man originally was not made subject to death, and as giving the first intimation we have heard of their ideas of the manner in which death was introduced into the world.
