United States or El Salvador ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
For headaches or pains which do not yield to the vegetable medicine, the wirreenuns tie a piece of opossum's hair string round the sore place, take one end in their mouths, and pull it round and round until it draws blood along the cord.
The wirreenun who has charge of this is one of the most feared of wirreenuns; he is a great magician, who, with his wonder-working glassy stones, can conjure up visions of the old fleshly habitations of the captured Doowees. He has Gubberahs, or clever stones, in which are the active spirits of evil-working devils, as well as others to work good.
The yunbeai has hitherto been scarcely remarked on among Australian tribes. Mr. Perhaps attention has not been directed to the animal familiar in Australia, or perhaps it is really an infrequent thing among the tribes. I used to wonder how the wirreenuns or doctor-wizards of the tribe attained their degrees. I found out that the old wizards fix upon a young boy who is to follow their profession.
They say that long ago the wirreenuns always used to have a sort of totem wizard-stick guarding the front of their camps. To begin at the beginning, Bahloo, the moon, is a sort of patron of women. He it is who creates the girl babies, assisted by Wahn, the crow, sometimes.
Nahgul is the rejected Gayandil who was found by Byamee too destructive to act as president of the Boorahs. He principally haunts Boorah grounds. He still has a Boorah gubberrah, a sacred stone, inside him, hence his strength. He sets string traps for men, touching which they feel ill, and suddenly drop down never to rise again. The wirreenuns know then that Nahgul is about.
But sometimes the wirreenuns use whirlwinds as mediums of transit for their Mullee Mullees, or dream spirits, sent in pursuit of some enemy, to capture a woman, or incarnate child spirit; women dread boolees, more even than men, on this account. Great wirreenuns are said to get rid of evil spirits by eating the form in which they appear.
Delah boombee. Nulgah delah boombee boombee. Buddereebah . . . . . . Eumoolan. Dooar wullah doo. Boombee nulgah delah. The old fellow said wherever Byamee had travelled this song was known, but no one now knew the meaning of the whole, not even the oldest wirreenuns. Another stone was given to a Boorahbayyi when he first heard this song.
The wirreenuns said it was he who had placed in the forks of trees round the big ring heaps of dry wood, which they said, when the ceremonies began, he would light, making a dazzling illumination of the scene. In the middle of the Boorah ring was placed a mudgee, a painted stick or spear, with a bunch of hawk's feathers on the top.
When the trials were over and the old wirreenuns said to the boys who had not quailed, 'You are brave; you shall be boorahbayyi first and afterwards yelgidyi, and carry the marks that all may know. Then they made on the shoulder of each boy a round hole with a pointed stone; this hole they licked to feel no splinter of stone remained, then filled it with powdered charcoal.
The wirreenuns, they say, swallow their stones to keep them safe. At each Boorah a taboo is taken off food. After a third Boorah a man could eat fish, after a fourth honey, after a fifth what he liked. He was then, too, shown and taught the meanings of the tribal message-sticks, and the big Boorah one of Byamee. As few men now have ever been to five Boorahs, few know anything about these last.
Word Of The Day