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Updated: May 12, 2025
Should a wirreenun, perhaps for enmity, perhaps for the sake of ransom, decide to capture a Doowee, he will send his Mullee Mullee out to do it, bidding the Mullee Mullee secrete the Doowee in his the wirreenun's Minggah, tree or rock.
In a wirreenun's Minggah, too, are often secreted shadow spirits stolen from their owners, who are by their loss dying a lingering death, for no man can live without Mulloowil, his shadow. Every one has a shadow spirit which he is very careful not to parade before his enemies, as any injury to it affects himself. A wirreenun can gradually shrink the shadow's size, the owner sickens and dies.
No wonder trees have such a place in the old religions of the world, and wirreenuns, even as do Buddhists, love to linger beneath their branches the one holding converse with his spirit friends, the other cultivating the perfect peace. There would not be much perfect peace about a wirreenun's communing with the spirits if it happened to be in mosquito time.
These various incantations are a large part of the wirreenun's education; not least valuable amongst them is the chant sung over the tracks of snakes, which renders the bites of those snakes innocuous. The wirreenuns sometimes hold meetings which they allow non-professionals to attend.
Having dealt with the supernatural part of a wirreenun's training, which argues cunning in him and credulity in others, I must get to his more natural remedies. Snakebite they cure by sucking the wound and cauterising it with a firestick. They say they suck out the young snakes which have been injected into the bitten person.
Should a Doowee once get into this wirreenun's bag, which has the power of self-movement, there is not a great chance of getting it back, though it is sometimes said to be done by a rival combination of magic. The worst of it is that ordinary people have no power over their Doowees; all they can do is to guard against their escaping by trying to keep their mouths shut while asleep.
The dying bequeath these stones, their most precious possessions, to the living wirreenun most nearly related to them. The wirreenun's health and power not only depend upon his crystals and yunbeai, but also on his Minggah; should an accident happen to that, unless he has another, he will die in any case, he will sicken. Many of the legends deal with the magic of these spirit-animated trees.
The blacks say the smell of white people makes them sick; we in our arrogance had thought it the other way on. Swansdown, shells, and woven strands of opossum's hair are valuable, and guarded as such in the boondoorr, which is sometimes kept for safety in the wirreenun's Minggah.
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