f you think any one has
suddenly changed his character unaccountably, there has been some
hankey-pankey with that person's Doowee. One of the greatest warnings
of coming evil is to see your totem in a dream; such a sign is a herald
of misfortune to you or one of your immediate kin. 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.

When he is consulted as to the return of the missing Doowee, he will
order the one who has lost it to Sleep, then the Doowee, should the
terms made suit the wirreenun, re-enters the body. Should it not do so,
the Doowee-less one is doomed to die.

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. 'May your shadow never be
less!'

The shadow of a wirreenun is, like his head, always mahgarl, or taboo;
any one touching either will be made to suffer for such sacrilege.

A man's Minggah is generally a tree from amongst his multiplex totems,'
as having greater reason to help him, being of the same family.

In his Minggah a wirreenun will probably keep some Wundah, or white
devil spirits, with which to work evil. There, too, he often keeps his
yunbeai, or animal spirit--that is, his individual totem, not
hereditary one. All wirreenuns have a yunbeai, and sometimes a special
favourite of the wirreenuns is given a yunbeai too--or in the event of
any one being very ill, he is given a yunbeai, and the strength of that
animal goes into the patient, making him strong again, or a dying
wirreenun leaves his yunbeai to some one else. Though this spirit gives
extra strength it likewise gives an extra danger, for any injury to the
animal hurts the man too; thus even wirreenuns are exposed to danger.

No one, as we have said, must eat the flesh of his yunbeai animal; he
may of his family totem, inherited from his mother, but of his yunbeai
or individual familiar, never.

A wirreenun can assume the shape of his yunbeai; so if his yunbeai
were, for example, a bird, and the wirreenun