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CHAPTER VII

BIRTH--BETROTHAL--AN ABORIGINAL GIRL FROM INFANCY TO WOMANHOOD

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.

Should Wahn attempt the business on his own account the result is
direful; women of his creating are always noisy and quarrelsome.

Bahloo's favourite spot for carrying on the girl manufacturing is
somewhere on the Culgoa. On one of the creeks there is to be seen, when
it is dry, a hole in the ground. As water runs along, the bed of this
creek, gradually a stone rises from this hole. As the water rises it
rises, always keeping its top out of the water.

This is the Goomarh, or spirit-stone, of Bahloo. No one would dare to
touch this stone where the baby girls' spirits are launched into space.

In the same neighbourhood is a clear water-hole, the rendezvous of the
snakes of Bahloo. Should a man go to drink there he sees no snakes, but
no sooner has he drunk some of the water than he sees hundreds; so even
water-drinkers see their snakes.

The name of the hole is Dahn.

Spirit-babies are usually despatched to Waddahgudjaelwon and sent by
her to hang promiscuously on trees, until some woman passes under where
they are, then they will seize a mother and be incarnated. This
resembles the Arunta belief, but with the Euahlayi the spirits are new
freshly created beings, not reincarnations of ancestral souls, as among
the Arunta. To live, a child must have an earthly father; that it has
not, is known by its being born with teeth.

Wurrawilberoo is said to snatch up a baby spirit sometimes and whirl
along towards some woman he wishes to discredit, and through the medium
of this woman he incarnates perhaps twins, or at least one baby. No
doubt were it not for signs of teeth in a spirit-baby of immaculate
conception, many a camp scandal would be conveniently nipped in the
bud.

Babies are sometimes sent directly to their mothers without the
Coolabah-tree or whirlwind medium.

The bronze mistletoe branches with their orange-red flowers are said to
be the disappointed babies whose wailing in vain for mothers has
wearied the spirits who transform them into these bunches, the red
flowers being formed from their baby blood. The spirits of babies and
children who die young are reincarnated, and should their first mother
have pleased them they choose her again and are called millanboo--t