time wandered over the earth, making the deep springs which are to be seen in otherwise waterless parts of Western Queensland. After he did this he went up to the sky.
Paltjura is, in the Wonkamala language, "an expanse"; in Dieri, Palara. According to the statements of the native informants, Paltjura is to be understood as being the Gulf of Carpentaria, a distance of over five hundred miles from the Wonkamala country in a straight line. The wanderings recorded in these several legends are mainly in a general north and south direction. Thus, including those of the Yuri-ulu and of the Mankara-waka-ya-pirna, the total range is from the country west of Spencer Gulf in the south to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north.
Anti-etya and Ngardu-etya[1]
Part I
This legend consists of three parts. The first and second belong exclusively to the localities Kadri-pairi and Innamincka,[2] and are in the Yantruwunta language. The third is in Dieri, but is found also in the Yaurorka and Yantruwunta. The songs belonging to this legend are sung at the ceremonies held near Kudna-ngauani, which are referred to later on.
Two Mura-muras lived together at Kadri-pairiwilpa,[3] one being a Nardoo-gatherer, and the other a hunter, and both were in the relation of Tidnara.[4] One day, when they returned to their camp at evening with food, the hunter undertook to grind the Nardoo, while the other prepared the game The latter observed that his Tidnara, while grinding the Nardoo, ate some of it, and upbraided him with doing so. But as he denied having done it, the other thrust his hand down his throat into his stomach and brought up a lump of Nardoo, which he then ate himself. Then he ate the remainder of the Nardoo which his Tidnara had ground, and finally devoured all the game, so that the other Mura-mura had to remain with an empty stomach.
- ↑ Anti or Nganti is "flesh," and etya is "recurrence" or "persistence." Ngardu, or, as it is usually spelled, Nardoo, is the Marsilia sp., on which the explorers Burke and Wills endeavoured to support themselves at Cooper's Creek. Anti-etya is one who eats much game; he who is often in connection with game; a hunter. Ngardu-etya is one who collects Nardoo and lives mainly upon it.
- ↑ Innaminka, or properly Yidni-minka, means "You (are a) hole," from Yidni, "you," and Minka, "a hole."
- ↑ Kadri-pairiwilpa is the Milky Way, the "river-bed of the sky," Kairi being "river."
- ↑ That both could be Tidnara is to be understood when one considers the peculiar system of relationship of the Dieri. Ego being a Dieri, my mother's mother (Kanini) is equally my elder sister (Kaku), so that her son (my mother's brother) is my Tidnara, for he is my sister's son. In an analogous manner two such men may be both Kaka, that is, mother's brother.
