Year by year the old black tribes are dying out, and many of their legends and beliefs are dying with them. These legends deal with the world as the blacks knew it; with the Bush animals and birds; the powers of storm, flood, fire, thunder, and magic, and the beings who they thought controlled these powers; with the sun, moon and stars; and with the life and death of men and women.
Many of the old tales are savage enough, but through them runs a thread of feeling for the nobler side of life, so far as these wild people could grasp it. The spirit of self-sacrifice is seen in them, and greed, selfishness and cruelty are often punished as they deserve. We are apt to look on the blacks as utter barbarians, but, as we read their own old stories, we see that they were boys and girls, men and women, not so unlike us in many ways, and that they could admire what we admire in each other, and condemn what we would condemn. The folk-tales of a people are the story of its soul, and it would be a pity if the native races of our country were to vanish altogether before we had collected enough of their legends to let their successors know what manner of people lived in Australia for thousands of years before the white man came. Some valuable collections have indeed been made, but they are all too few; and there must even to-day be many people, especially in the wilder parts of Australia, who are in touch with the aborigines, and could, if they would, get the old men and women to tell them the stories which were handed down to them when they were children.
In the hope of persuading all young Australians who have the opportunity to collect and preserve what they can of the ancient life and legends of Australia, I have put into modern English a few of the tales which may still be had from some old blackfellow or gin.
M.G.B.
CONTENTS
I [The Stone Axe of Burkamukk]
II [Waung, the Crow]
III [The Emu who would Dance]
IV [Booran, the Pelican]
V [The Story of the Stars]
VI [How Light Came]
VII [The Frog that Laughed]
VIII [The Maiden who found the Moon]
IX [Mirran and Warreen]
X [The Daughters of Wonkawala]
XI [The Burning of the Crows]
XII [Kur-bo-roo, the Bear]
XIII [Wurip, the Fire-Bringer]
I
THE STONE AXE OF BURKAMUKK
CHAPTER I
The camp lay calm and peaceful under the spring sunlight. Burkamukk, the chief, had chosen its place well: the wurleys were built in a green glade well shaded with blackwood and boobyalla trees, and with a soft thick carpet of grass, on which the black babies loved to roll. Not a hundred yards away flowed a wide creek; a creek so excellent that it fed a swamp a little farther on. The blacks loved to be near a swamp, for it was as good as a storehouse of food: the women used to go there for lily-pads and sedge-roots, and the men would spear eels in its muddy waters, while at times big flocks of duck settled on it, besides other water-fowl. Burkamukk was a very wise chief, and all his people were fat, and therefore contented.