r Native Companions, mother
and daughter, whom the Wurrawilberoo chased in order to kill and eat
the mother and keep the daughter, who was the great dancer of the
tribes. They almost caught her, but her tribe pursued them too quickly;
when, determined that if they lost her so should her people, they
chanted an incantation and changed her from Bralgah, the dancing-girl,
to Bralgah, the dancing-bird, then left her to wander about the plains.
They translated themselves on beefwood trees into the sky, and there
they are still.

Gowargay, the featherless emu, is a debbil-debbil of water-holes; he
drags people who bathe in his holes down and drowns them, but goes
every night to his sky-camp, the Coalpit, a dark place by the Southern
Cross, and there he crouches. Our Corvus, the crow, is the kangaroo.

The Southern Crown is Mullyan, the eagle-hawk. The Southern Cross was
the first Minggah, or spirit tree a huge Yaraan, which was the medium
for the translation of the first man who died on earth to the sky. The
white cockatoos which used to roost in this tree when they saw it
moving skywards followed it, and are following it still as Mouyi, the
pointers. The other Yaraan trees wailed for the sadness that death
brought into the world, weeping tears of blood. The red gum which
crystallises down their trunks is the tears.

Some tribes say it was by a woman's fault that death came into the
world.

This legend avers that at first the tribes were meant to live for ever.
The women were told never to go near a certain hollow tree. The bees
made a nest in this tree; the women coveted the honey, but the men
forbade them to go near it. But at last one woman determined to get
that honey; chop went her tomahawk into that hollow trunk, and out flew
a huge bat. This was the spirit of death which was now let free to roam
the world, claiming all it could touch with its wings.

Of eclipses there are various accounts. Some say it is Yhi, the sun,
the wanton woman, who has overtaken at last her enemy the moon, who
scorned her love, and whom now she tries to kill, but the spirits
intervene, dreading a return to a dark world. Some say the enemies have
managed to get evil spirits into each other which are destroying them.
The wirreenuns chant incantations to oust these spirits of evil, and
when the eclipse is over claim a triumph of their magic.

Another account says that Yhi, the sun, after many lovers, tried to
ensnare Bahloo, the moon; but h