When the opossums were about the blacks used to see their scratched tracks on the trees, and chop or burn them out. They miss the opossums very much, for not only were they a prized food, but their skins made rugs, their hair was woven into cords of which were made amulets worn on the forearm or head against sickness, and with no modern instrument can they so well carve their weapons, as with an opossum tooth. Naturally their desire is to see Moodai, the opossum, return; to that end a wirreenun is now singing incantations to charm him back.
Opossum hunters had a way of bringing them home strung round their necks; very disagreeable, I should think, but custom, that tyrant, rules it so. The old gins dug out yams vigorously; some were eaten raw, others were kept for cooking.
To cook them they dug out a hole, made a fire in it, put some stones on the fire, then, when the stones were heated and the fire burnt down, they laid some leaves and grass on the stones, sprinkled some water, then put on the yams, on top of them more grass, sprinkled more water, then more grass and a. thick coating of earth, leaving the yams to cook.
Several other roots they cooked and ate. Raw they ate thistle tops, pigweed, and crowfoot, with great relish. Their game they cooked as follows. Kangaroo were first singed, cleaned out, and filled with hot stones, then put on the top of a burnt-down fire, hot ashes heaped all over them. The blacks like their meats with the gravy in, very distinctly red gravy. Emu were plucked, the insides taken out, and the birds filled up with hot stones, box leaves, and some of their own feathers. A fire was made in a hole; when it was burnt down, leaves and emu feathers were put in it, on top of these the bird, on top of it leaves and feathers again, then a good layer of hot ashes, and over all some earth.
The piggiebillahs were first smoked so that their quills might be easily knocked off. This done, the insides were taken out, then the piggiebillahs were put in little holes made beside the fire, and covered over with hot ashes, as were also opossums, ducks and other birds, iguanas and fish.
Ducks were plucked by our tribe, but in some places they were encased thickly in mud, buried in the ashes to cook, and, when done, the plaster of mud would be knocked off, and with it would come all the feathers.
The insides of iguanas and fish are taken out all in one piece. Each fish carries in its inside a representation of its Minggah—spirit tree; by drying the inside and pressing it you can plainly see the imprint of the tree.
When we go bathing, the blacks tell me that the holes in the creek filled with gum leaves are codfish nests. They say too, that when they beat the river to drive the fish out towards the net waiting for them, that they hear the startled cod sing out.
Mussels and crayfish are cooked in the ashes.
The seagulls, which occasionally we used to see inland, are said to have brought the first mussels to the back creeks.