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The young men of the Noongahburrah murmured among themselves, at first secretly, at last openly, saying: "Did not our fathers always say that the Wirreenun could make, as we wanted it, the rain to fall? Yet look at our country the grass blown away, no doonburr seed to grind, the kangaroo are dying, and the emu, the duck, and the swan have flown to far countries.
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.
They are a savage edition of the METAMORPHOSES, and few unbiased students now doubt that the METAMORPHOSES are a very late and very artificial version of traditional tales as savage in origin as those of the Noongahburrah. I have read Mrs. Parker's collection with very great interest, with "human pleasure," merely for the story's sake.
The next name of connection is local, based on belonging to one country or hunting-ground; this name a child takes from its mother wherever it may happen to be born. Any one who is called a Noongahburrah belongs to the Noongah-Kurrajong country; Ghurreeburrah to the orchid country; Mirriehburrah, poligonum country; Bibbilah, Bibbil country, and so on.
We shall have no food soon; then shall we die, and the Noongahburrah be no more seen on the Narrin. Then why, if he is able, does not Wirreenun inake rain?" Soon these murmurs reached the ears of the old Wirreenun.
Should a number of stars shoot off from a falling star, it is a sign that a man has died leaving a large family. When a star is seen falling in the day-time, it is a sign that one of the Noongahburrah tribe dies. In the olden time some of the tribes would keep a body at least five days.
She wanders through these forests and round the lake, the dead baby still in the goolay on her back, and sometimes her voice is heard mingling with the voices of the forest; and as the shadows fall, she may be seen flitting past, they say. Noorahgogo is a very handsome bronze and peacock-blue beetle, said to embody a spirit which always answers the cry of a Noongahburrah in the bush.
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