The Euahlayi Tribe: A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia

erson. When she was, I suppose, considerably

pecially about the head. She would speak to no one, used to spend her time about the grave, round which she f

rded all her clothes and roamed the bush A LA Eve bef

posts which she erected in front of her 'Muddy wine,' as she called her ca

good utensils too; all used to be secreted in the underground camp. She never talked to any one, but used

t she was

oboreed round him and said she wanted to see me. I have the most morbid horror of lunacy in any form. I was once induced to go over a lunatic asylum-the horror of it haunts me still. However, I though

-spirits-in me tell me gubbah-good-I lib 'long a youee; bimeby I c

ough figure, dancing and crooning as she went towards her camp; and not unt

ha's camp. I looked about as we neared it but saw nothing of her. Suddenly from the ground, as it seemed, out dashed the weird old figure, arms full of things, jabbering away at a great rate.

e could see the attack was kept up. Coming back we saw no

d. They said she was all right, the spirits were looking after her.

clothed as usual, came

; not only recovered but seemed rejuvenated. We heard of wonderful cures she made; how she always consulted the spirits about an

generally make much of her. There is no doubt she could diagnose a case well enough. Matah suffered a good deal with a cons

him, put him on hot rag; you drink

sing a few days afterwards with an i

ed, poultices, a cooling draught. There's a stoppage

ght to have been ca

the drawing-room, where she would lie back on the cushions of a lounge looking dreadfully limp and utterly washed out. Hear

sympathetic sentences, then she said she would ask the s

of voice, to which she responded, evidently interrogating. Again the whistling voice from further away. Bootha then told me she had asked a dead black fellow, Big Joe, to tell her what she wanted to know; but he could not, so now she was goi

girl who had been one of my first favourites in

ird direction, though all the time

ffended the spirits by bathing in the creek under the shade of a Minggah, or spirit-

e blacks, to disturb a sha

are ready always to resent any insult to the Minggah or its shadow. These spirit-bees had ent

a Minggah; for, going as you always do with the house-girls, you are bou

s it a big Coolabah betwee

es

k-but-Comelys, and as the sun was hot I went further round the point and bathed in the s

eating but as much cold water as she liked, especially a long drink before going to bed. Guadgee said she would come in t

went, taking, she told us, all the spirits away inside her, whence at desire they could be returned to such Minggah in their own Noorunbah, or hereditary hunting-grounds, as wirreenu

ked a better colour the next m

ventriloquist, only I believe it is said ventriloqu

rarely, though wirreenuns are said to have the power

miling or crowing as if to themselves; it's to

again quickly, smiling all the while, tha

owl suddenly and you see nothing about

o drink anything hot or heating, such would drive out the spirits at once

it was this spirit which had cured her, and if she kept his commands she would live for ever. The commands were never to drink 'grog,' never to wear red,

s, or crocodiles. As these spirits required water I might be certain my tanks would never go dry while they were on guard. She asked one of my Black-but-Comelys, a very stalwart young woman,

d white, with a snaky pattern, the Kurreah sign, on them. She also planted in my garden two other witch-poles, one painted red and having a cross-bar about midway d

isfortune; or if she were any time away, when she was returning she would send her Mullee Mullee to sit on the top and bend it just to let us know. This pole would also keep away the spirits of the dead from the hou

Armed with this stick, a piece of crystal, some green twigs, and sometimes a stick with a bunch of feathers on top, and a large flat stone, she goes out to make rain. The crystal

ry wilted. I asked Bootha to make rain, but just then she was very offended with Matah. One of her dogs had been poisoned, she would make no rain on his country. However, at last she said she would make some for me. I bound

so angry with the white people who were driving away all emu, kangaroo, and opossums, the black fellow's food, and yet made a fuss if their dogs killed a sheep for them sometimes, that he put his rain-stone i

ootha's witch-poles in my garden, the pole whose falling

nd see a curious sky. Looking towards the west I saw a golden ball of a sun piercing the grey clouds which seemed like a spangled veil over its face; shooting from the sun was a perfect halo of golde

nt these clouds, as it did, from shrimp pink and heliotrope to v

ad better leave it alone and let the old girl fix it up ag

lef

o say my cook's mother had died just before sunset. The c

ick; had we done so, Bootha says we should h

ways used to have a sort of totem wizard