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His masterpiece is not original. Indeed he claims no title to the gifts of a composer. "Jacky," a Mackay boy, taught Mickie his favourite romance, and it came to Jacky in a dream. Mickie explains "Cousin alonga that fella die. Jacky go to sleep. That fella dead man all a same like debil-debil come close up and tell 'em corrobboree close up ear belonga Jacky." "What that debil-debil say?"
Bootoolgah warned her to be careful and not forget she had it. But as the corrobboree went on, so absorbed did she become that she forgot the comebee, which slipped from her arm.
When the old people had been patrolling the bough shed as the clouds rose overhead, Wirreenun had gone to the waterhole and taken out the willgoo willgoo and the stones, for he saw by the cloud that their work was done. When the rain was over and the country all green again, the blacks had a great corrobboree and sang of the skill of Wirreenun, rainmaker to the Noongahburrah.
One of the blacks remarked, not without reason, "Me tink dis white fellows' corrobboree." It is a painful thing to see a race so degenerate as to be willing to show themselves for money before their supplanters, and to see the former "lords of the soil" begging a copper from the passer-by. One cannot but desire that their extinction in these parts, which is certain, may be also speedy.
On these occasions they are accustomed to exhibit themselves in their native antics and dances for a little gain. At this time was expected a large muster, and in order to accommodate as many visitors as possible, the Adelaide Cricket Club had induced the natives to hold their corrobboree on the cricket ground, of course themselves looking for a large money return.
The grey beards proposed to so astonish Bootoolgah and Goonur as to make them forget to guard their precious comebee. As soon as they were intent on the corrobboree and off guard, some one was to seize the comebee, steal the firestick and start fires for the good of all. Most of them had tasted the cooked fish brought into the camp by the fire makers and, having found it good, hungered for it.
His "corrobboree" of the Australian wilds reappears in De Maurier's Belgravian ballrooms, with clothes and the smirk of civilization added; Botticelli's "Spring" is the "corrobboree" further idealized, but with fewer clothes and more smirk. And well enough as to intention, but my word! The aboriginal can make a fire by friction. I have tried that.
On one occasion, after the murder of a white man by two blacks, a band of troopers, in the dead of night, stealthily surrounded the tribe to which the murderers belonged, whilst it was holding a corrobboree, and, at a given signal, fired a volley into the midst of the dancing crowd a blind and ruthless revenge, from which, however, the two murderers escaped.
Then shall we hold a corrobboree, and if your daughters fell at his hand Narahdarn shall be punished." The mother of the Bilbers said: "Well have you spoken, oh my relation. Now speed ye the young men lest the rain fall or the dust blow and the tracks be lost." Then forth went the fleetest footed and the keenest eyed of the young men of the tribe.
Great distinction and pride, however, are the lot of the athlete who secures the snowy down of the young birds to stick in tufts on his dirty head with fat, gum or beeswax, for he will be the admired of all admirers at the CORROBBOREE. Vanity impels human beings to extraordinary exertions, trials and risks, and the black who desires to outshine his fellows, and who has the essential of strength and length of limb, will make a loop of lawyer vine round the tree, and with his body within the loop begin the ascent.
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