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Updated: June 14, 2025
And proud were the Mullyans of the prowess and cunning of their chief. At the beginning of winter, the iguanas hide themselves in their homes in the sand; the black eagle hawks go into their nests; the garbarlee or shingle-backs hide themselves in little logs, just big enough to hold them; the iguanas dig a long way into the sand and cover up the passage behind them, as they go along.
Then other sheep men began to lose lambs, and a close watch was set, with the result that iguanas, which are very numerous in this part of the country, were discovered to be the murderers of the little "baa-baa's."
Ducks were plucked by our tribe, but in some places they were encased thickly in mud, buried in the ashes to cook, and, when done, the plaster of mud would be knocked off, and with it would come all the feathers. The insides of iguanas and fish are taken out all in one piece.
They abound, however, in land turtle and enormous iguanas; there was also abundance of sea turtle. So numerous, indeed, were the land turtle, that a large ship's company might subsist on them for many months together. Depositing a portion of their flour in a hut built on one of the islands, they again sailed for the mainland.
In that part of New South Wales in which the writer was born one of the tidal rivers on the northern coast both snakes and iguanas were plentiful, and a source of continual worry to the settlers. On one occasion some boyish companions and myself set to work to build a raft for fishing purposes out of some old and discarded blue gum rails which were lying along the bank of the river.
This the boys did, but they brought only the fat, having eaten the rest of the iguanas from which they had taken the fat.
Dressed in the fashionable desert costume of nothing at all, excepting a band of string round his forehead, and a similar belt round his waist, from which hung all round him the spoils of the chase, with a spear in one hand and throwing-sticks in the other he looked a queer figure in the setting sun iguanas and lizards dangling head down from his hair and his waist-string indeed a novel way of carrying game.
I have seen them on snakes and iguanas, on many of the large birds, especially on the curassows. They abound on all the large mammals, and on many of the small ones. Sick and weak animals are particularly infested with them, probably because they have not the strength to rub and pick them off, and they must often hasten, if they do not cause their death.
We passed by herds of hippopotami, some with young ones on their backs, and although they sank as we approached, they soon came to the surface to breathe. On the trees overhead were numbers of iguanas, which, on seeing us, splashed into the water. The chief canoeman carried a light javelin, with which he speared a couple, the flesh proving to be tender and gelatinous.
Iguanas burrow into the soft sand ridges and there remain during the winter, only coming out after the Curreequinquins butcher birds one of their sub-totems, sing their loudest to warn them that the winter is gone, calling Dooloomai, the thunder, to their aid lest their singing is not heard by their relations, who after the storms come out again in as good condition as when they disappeared.
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