sicken and die. On the other side we saw Baiame sitting in his camp. He was a very great old man with a long beard. He sat with his legs under him and from his shoulders extended two great quartz crystals to the sky above him. There were also numbers of the boys of Baiame and of his people, who are birds and beasts.
"After this time, and while I was in the bush, I began to bring things up, but I became very ill and cannot do anything since."
There are some few things to notice in connection with this man's statement which I shall for convenience refer to later on in this chapter.
The belief of the Kurnai is that the Mulla-mullung obtains his power in dreams. The ancestral ghosts either visited the sleeper, and communicated to him harmful or protective chants and knowledge, or they completed his education elsewhere. One of the old Kurnai explained it in this way:—He is shown the things which kill people, such as Groggin (quartz crystals) and Bulk; and songs are taught him, for there is a song for everything the Mulla-mullung uses. For instance, suppose some man has got Groggin inside him, or bottle (that is, a piece of glass) in his arm, the Mulla-mullung straightens it out, and rubs it downwards, and then sings his song, and sucks the place, and brings the Groggin out, or the bottle, or whatever it is.
Tankli, the son of Bataluk the Lace-Lizard, gave me an account of how he became a Mulla-mullung, which is as follows:—
"When I was a big boy about getting whiskers I was at Alberton camped with my people. Bunjil-gworan was there and other old men. I had some dreams about my father, and I dreamed three times about the same thing. The first and the second time, he came with his brother and a lot of other old men, and dressed me up with lyre-bird's feathers round my head. The second time they were all rubbed over with Naial (red ochre), and had Bridda-briddas on[1] The third time they tied a cord made of whale's
- ↑ A Bridda-bridda is a kind of kilt which the men wore in front and behind hanging from the cord which was wound round the waist as a belt.
