You hear people say they could have 'burst with rage,' but it is left to a black's legend to tell of a whole tribe bursting with rage, and so originating the winds.
There was once an invisible tribe called Mayrah. These people, men and women, though they talked and hunted with them, could never be seen by the other tribes, to whom were only visible their accoutrements for hunting. They would hear a woman's voice speak to them, see perhaps a goolay in mid-air and hear from it an invisible baby's cry; they would know then a Mayrah woman was there. Or a man would speak to them. Looking up they would see a belt with weapons in it, a forehead band too, perhaps, but no waist nor forehead, a water-vessel invisibly held: a man was there, an invisible Mayrah. One of these Mayrah men chummed with one of the Doolungaiyah tribe; he was a splendid mate, a great hunter, and all that was desirable, but for his invisibility. The Doolungaiyah longed to see him, and began to worry him on the subject until at last the Mayrah became enraged, went to his tribe, and told them of the curiosity of the other tribes as to their bodily forms. The others became as furious as he was; they all burst with rage and rushed away roaring in six different directions, and ever since have only returned as formless wind to be heard but never seen. So savagely the Mayrah howled round the Doolungaiyah's camp that he burrowed into the sand to escape, and his tribe have burrowed ever since.
Three of the winds are masculine and three feminine. The Crow, according to legend, controls Gheeger Gheeger, and keeps her in a hollow log. The Eagle-hawk owns Gooroongoodilbaydilbay, and flies with her in the shape of high clouds. Yarragerh is a man, and he has for wives the Budtha, Bibbil, and Bumble trees, and when he breathes on them they burst into new shoots, buds, flowers, and fruits, telling the world that their lover Yarragerh, the spring, has come.
Douran Doura woos the Coolabah, and Kurrajong, who flower after the hot north wind has kissed them.
The women winds have no power to make trees fruitful. They can but moan through them, or tear them in rage for the lovers they have stolen, whom they can only meet twice a year at the great corroboree of the winds, when they all come together, heard but never seen; for Mayrah, the winds, are invisible, as were the Mayrah, the tribe who in bursting gave them birth.
Yarragerh and Douran Doura are the most honoured winds as being the surest rain-bringers. In some of the blacks' songs Mayrah is sung of as the mother of Yarragerh, the spring, or as a woman kissed into life by Yarragerh putting such warmth into her that she blows the winter away. But these are poetical licences, for Yarragerh is ordinarily a man who woos the trees as a spring wind until the flowers are born and the fruit formed, then back he goes to the heaven whence he came.
Then there are the historical landmarks: Byamee's tracks in stone, and so on, and the battle-fields, too, of old tribal fights. Just in front of our station store was a gnarled old Coolabah tree covered with warty excrescences, which are supposed to be seats for spirits, so showing a spirit haunt.
In this particular tree are the spirits of the Moungun, or armless women, and when the wind blows you could hear them wailing. Their cruel husband chopped their arms off because they could not get him the honey he wanted, and their spirits have wailed ever since.
Across the creek is another very old tree, having one hollow part in which is said to be secreted a shell which old Wurrunnah, the traveller of the tribes, and the first to see the sea, brought back. No one would dare to touch the shell. The tribe of a neighbouring creek, when we were first at the station, used to threaten to come and get it, but the men of the local tribe used to muster to protect it from desecration even at the expense of their lives.
The Minggah by the garden I have told you of before. Further down the creek are others.