“As o’er Kuldrie, the salt-lake, thou risest.
“Kouta, the waves, koolkamuna, dance round you,
“Apoouna, Apoouna, bathing thy face.
“Murieami mungarina, farewell, thou silent one!
“Mungamarow mungara, let my soul speak!”
Chorus: “Mungamarow mungara!”
As the last vibrations of the chorus die away, the aged vocalist suddenly turns, and, filled with the spirit of prophecy, cries aloud in a different tone of voice, “The strangers are coming,” and then proceeds to march rapidly up and down beneath the Walke trees, his limbs quivering with excitement, and his staring eyeballs almost flashing with the wild madness of intoxication.
“I hear them crush the Yedede with their feet,” he howls. “No more shall our women gather the food-seed of Warrangaba.” Then stopping, and raising his arms, he continues in a lower tone: “High above my head soars the hawk Kerrek-i, laughing as he smells the slaughter.” Then mournfully, as he goes on with his promenade: “No more shall the emu seek the Nunyakaroo for its young ones. Both the Yeraga and Galga, will disappear from the land. What does Tounka, the crayfish, whisper in the waters of Palieu? Why does Mol-la, the crab, cry Kow-wah! come here! Kow-wah! come hither?”
The old man goes on marching and gesticulating, as he continues his prophetic lament; and the frightened boys, huddling together near the women, have ceased to laugh, and can hardly breathe with terror. The mothers hug their fat little offspring closer to their breasts, and dismay is pictured on all faces save that of the travelled bearer of the dreadful news. He had already owned to feeling timid, when two days since he found himself alone in the proximity of the dreaded white-faced devils from the south, of whose cruelty and far-reaching lightnings he had heard account on his travels. But he is with his friends and brethren now, he thinks, and besides, the new-comers will not arrive at the village yet awhile, perhaps not at all. The white-faced ones were not always victorious either; he had heard of a party of them, who had been on a slave-making expedition, being attacked, and their prisoners rescued, at Congabulla Creek, to the south-east. To-morrow the signal fires could be lighted, and the whole tribe collected for a grand consultation upon the subject of the invaders. Three hundred braves could surely defy the handful of approaching Purdie (locusts). The Pulara (women who collect the braves and hunters together) should start at day break. Just as the thinker’s meditations gave birth to a more hopeful view of things, the old prophet of evil ends his harangue from sheer exhaustion, and sinks theatrically upon the sandy soil, lying there motionless in a state of coma.
Nearly every emergency produces its hero. Stepping forward into the open space before the other natives, bold-hearted Deder-re-re, of the red stripes, expresses aloud his hopes and plans, and winds up with a kind of nasal chant, that only a few of his audience—wonderful linguists as most of them are—can understand, as it is of southern origin, and in the language of the Warangesda tribe of New South Wales. The words have, as in most native songs, a hidden meaning,—a double entendre,—and in this case they are intended to illustrate the fact that a tribe is safest when its members are collected, or “rolled together,” much after the manner of the fable of the bundle of sticks. The song sung and explained has a visibly cheering effect upon all. At the risk of being tiresome, we place the words before our readers, with a fair translation of it, as another example of Australian aboriginal poetry:—