We left it.
That evening a messenger arrived from the sheep station to say my cook's mother had died just before sunset. The camp were firm believers in Bootha's witch-stick after that.
It was just as well we did not touch that stick; had we done so, Bootha says we should have broken out in sores all over our bodies.
They say that long ago the wirreenuns always used to have a sort of totem wizard-stick guarding the front of their camps.
CHAPTER VII
BIRTH—BETROTHAL—AN ABORIGINAL GIRL FROM INFANCY TO WOMANHOOD
To begin at the beginning, Bahloo, the moon, is a sort of patron of women. He it is who creates the girl babies, assisted by Wahn, the crow, sometimes.
Should Wahn attempt the business on his own account the result is direful; women of his creating are always noisy and quarrelsome.
Bahloo's favourite spot for carrying on the girl manufacturing is somewhere on the Culgoa. On one of the creeks there is to be seen, when it is dry, a hole in the ground. As water runs along, the bed of this creek, gradually a stone rises from this hole. As the water rises it rises, always keeping its top out of the water.