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The Kurrajong bark is stripped off the trees, beaten, chewed, and then teased. Then it was taken and rubbed, principally by the women on their legs, into strands. The grass was used preferably to Kurrajong bark, as it was easier to work. The process of preparation was as follows:
He cut a piece of mubboo, or beefwood, and shaped it; he tied a piece of string to a hole in one end; he hung it up in the big Coolabah tree. Then he went and cut one out of Noongah or Kurrajong, tied a string on to that and put it beside the other on the tree, and left them swinging there. One day he came back and was camping near; his wives, came along to the big tree.
It was then chewed and worked like the Kurrajong bark, than which it was much more pliable. String was made of various thicknesses according to what it was required for. Fishing nets were always smoked before being used, and all nets had little charm songs sung over them. In netting, their only implement was a piece of wood to wind their string on.
Booreens, or shields, were of three kinds: a narrow kind made of hardwood, a broad flat kind of Kurrajong, and a medium-sized one of Birah, or whitewood, all painted in coloured designs. It is wonderful the way a man can defend himself single-handed against a number of men, he having only a narrow shield, the only defence he is allowed when he has to stand his trial for a breach of the laws.
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.
Taking with me a bountiful supply of figs, apricots, and mulberries, I laid myself out for a deal of enjoyment in the cool dense shade under the leafy kurrajong- and cedar-trees. To begin with, Harold Beecham was gone, and I missed him at every turn. I need not worry about being engaged to be married, as four years was a long, long time.
They stood beneath the dense shade of a splendid kurrajong, and lazily flicked the flies off themselves while Frank Hawden held the reins and waited for me.
She put on her head a gnooloogail, or forehead band, made of Kurrajong fibre, plaited and tied with some Kurrajong string, from over the cars to the back of the head; in this band, which she had painted white, she stuck sprays of white flowers. Sweetly scented Budtha and clustering Birah were the flowers most used for this ceremony.
We pegged out a claim on which we worked, camped under the shade of a "Kurrajong" tree, close above a large granite rock on which we depended for our water; and here we spent several months busy on our reef, during which time Lord Douglas went home to England, with financial schemes in his head, leaving Mr.
Now it was an old overhanging limb that had arched over the road since we were boys; then there was a rock with a big kurrajong tree growing near it. When we came to the turn off where we could see Nulla Mountain everything came back to me. I seemed to have had two lives; the old one then a time when I was dead, or next door to it now this new life. I felt as if I was just born.
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