The Stone Axe of Burkamukk

by Mary Grant Bruce

He stopped, and burst out laughing, and at the sound of his merriment the other Fire-Woman glanced up sharply from her weaving, and the first one paused, with a stick of she-oak wood in her hand, and looked at him in blank astonishment. So silent was the place that Wurip's shout of laughter echoed like a thunderclap. The Fire-Women looked at the little black figure standing among the harsh tussocks of swamp-grass, and he waved to them with his withered arm. But they took no further notice, going on scornfully with their work.

Wurip had expected nothing else, and he was not discouraged. He began collecting sticks and brushwood for a wurley, singing as he went about his work, in full view of the two women. He made no further attempt to get through the invisible wall. There was not much timber about, and to find suitable material for his wurley was a difficult task. He walked slowly, using his crippled arm very little, because he hoped that the women would be less careful about him if they regarded him as a one-armed man. Sometimes he felt that they were looking at him, and then he would work with particular awkwardness. Always, however, he sang, and went about with a merry countenance, as if he had not a single care in the world.

He built his wurley and went off into the swamp to hunt, returning with some lizards and grubs, and a duck that he had caught just as it settled on a sedgy pool. Standing a little way back from the wall, he called out and threw the duck towards the fire where the women sat. But it fell before it reached them, meeting the unseen obstacle.

"What a pity—it is for you!" called Wurip, slowly, so that they could hear easily. "It is a fat duck." And saying this he laughed again, and went into his wurley, where he ate his supper contentedly—although it was not cooked—and went to sleep.

In the morning, the women were sitting as before. But the duck had gone, and, looking closely across the little space, Wurip saw that there were feathers lying about near their fire. Also there was a pleasant smell of cooking in the air. This gladdened his heart, for it showed that the women did not mind making him useful, and that was exactly what he wanted.

So the days went by, and Wurip lived in his wurley, and the women in theirs. He never saw them away from it. Neither did he try any more to go near it. From time to time he made them friendly signals, or called cheerful greetings to them, but that was all. Each day he went hunting, and good luck always attended him, because it was the time when waterfowl are plentiful, and as no others hunted there, the birds were not afraid. It was quite easy to fill the bag he had made out of rushes. And each evening he put the best of the game on a big stone some distance from his wurley, and in the morning it was always gone.

This went on for fourteen days. When he was not hunting, Wurip lay about his camp, always singing contentedly as he carved himself boomerangs or whittled heads for throwing-spears that he never used. Once he carved a bowl from a root that he found, and this also he put on the stone, for the Fire-Women, and they took it. He gathered bundles of the rushes that women of the tribes use in weaving, and left them too. So that he became very useful to them, although he had never heard their voices.

Then, after fourteen days, Wurip pretended that he had fallen sick. He did not go out hunting any more, neither did he place offerings upon the big stone. In his wurley he had hidden sufficient food for himself to last him for several days, but he did not let the Fire-Women see him eating. Instead, he crawled out, dragging himself along the ground, and cried out, sorrowfully, waving his withered arm to them. He crawled back into his wurley and ate and slept; but they did not come, as he had hoped they would.

Next day he did not go out into the open at all. He kept close within his wurley, and all the exercise he took was to groan very mournfully. He groaned nearly all day, and by the time it was evening he was more tired than if he had hunted for three days. Because he was tired he ate nearly all that remained of his food, after which he felt discouraged, for he realized that it would soon be necessary to go out hunting again, and he wanted to seem ill. So he groaned more loudly than ever, and once or twice cried out as if in pain. Then he fell asleep.

The Fire-Women were fierce creatures, but still they were women. It troubled them that this crippled little blackfellow should be ill, too ill to bring them gifts or to busy himself, singing and laughing about his camp. To sit over a fire and weave mats of white and green may, in time, become dull; and it cheered the women to see Wurip and listen to his songs. When he did not appear they took counsel together, agreeing that so small a fellow, with a withered arm, could not be dangerous.