Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: September 2, 2025
'Water come down. Water come down. Or should it be raining too much, the last possible child of a woman can stop it by burning Midjeer wood. Bootha told me after one rain that she had sent one of her tutelary spirits to tell Boyjerh Byamee is called by women and children Boyjerh that the country wanted rain.
Ridley translated our 'God' by 'Baiame. He supposed that native term, which he found and did not introduce, to be a derivative from the verb BAIA, or BIAI, 'to make. Literally, however, at least in Euahlayi, the word BYAMEE means 'great one. In its sense as the name of the All Father it is not supposed to be used by women or by the uninitiated.
During the day-time the boys might wander at will, so as they kept clear of the general camp. They might not receive food from nor speak to a woman for twelve months, as if they were monks of Byamee in training. At his second Boorah a young man was allowed to see the sacred fire ceremony, throwing in of weapons, walking on burning coals, and the rest.
When their camp was ready for the coming of Byamee, who having wooed his wives with a nullah-nullah, kept them obedient by fear of the same weapon, then went the girls to the spring to bathe. Gladly they plunged in, having first divested them selves of their goomillahs, which they were still young enough to wear, and which they left on the ground near the spring.
Byamee has sent the manna by the little Dulloorah birds and the black ants, because there will be no flowers for the bees to get honey from, so he has sent this manna. Each time he has done so, a great drought has followed, and indeed it was followed by one of the worst droughts Australia has ever known.
These bull roarers sound curiously uncanny I did not wonder the uninitiated accepted the spirit theory as to their origin. The bush of Australia is a good background for superstition; there is such a non-natural air about its Nature, as if it has been sketched in roughly by a Beardsley-like artist. The function of the Gayandi is to inspire awe, and it fulfils it. Byamee himself made the first.
Byamee said, "Something has happened, or the bee would not stay here and refuse to be moved on towards its nest. I must go to Coorigel Spring and see if my wives are safe. Something terrible has surely happened." And Byamee turned in haste towards the spring.
At the end of about six months he may come back to his tribe, but the effect of his isolation is that he is too wild and frightened to speak even to his mother, from whom he runs away if she approaches him, until by degrees the strangeness wears off. But at this borah of Byamee the tribes were not destined to meet the boys at the little borah.
Hurrying along with them, a dog of Byamee's, which would fain have lain by the roadside rather than have travelled so swiftly, but Byamee would not leave her and hurried her on. When they reached the springs of Noondoo, the dog sneaked away into a thick scrub, and there were born her litter of pups. But such pups as surely man never looked at before.
The women had murmured that they were not allowed to get this; but the men were firm, and would neither touch it nor let them touch it, which so pleased Byamee that he sent the manna, and said he always would when a long drought threatened. A great chorus of 'My Jerhs' would tell something was sighted. It might be the track of a piggiebillah porcupine.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking