Oro Tora Tona, cooking,
In the embers savoury morsels,
Came the strangers, Plukman holo
Bum, Bum.”
An impromptu chorus here came in from all the men present of—
“Paramana, oh poor fellows,
Bum, Bum.”
With the ready appreciation of Australian aboriginals, all those present took in immediately the significance of the above words, and saw in them the singer’s wish to warn his brethren that the approaching strangers were of the same kind as those mentioned in his song. As, however, the difficulty of true translation and the obscureness of the meaning may puzzle our white readers and prevent them culling the poet’s idea, we will explain that the trader had, in these terse lines, pictured how some poor black fellows, having obtained some savoury morsels, were cooking the same over the fire, when the dreaded strangers surrounded and destroyed them by means of smoke-emitting fire-sticks, that made a great noise, the imitation of which formed the chorus of the song “Bum, Bum.”
There is a cessation of the song, and a feeling of insecurity saddens each face, for it is only before whites, and the natives of other and possibly hostile districts, that the stolid, expressionless physiognomy, sometimes mentioned as characteristic of the American Indian, is seen in Australian aborigines.
The old man has taken a plug of a tobacco-like compound from behind his ear and is chewing it, growing excited meanwhile. He is seeking for inspiration from a sort of hasheesh, formed of the dried and powdered leaves of the Pitchurie mixed with the ashes of the Montera plant.