97
In this we are not very unlike you whitefellows, as you tell us that the only whites who are able to hold converse with your good and bad spirits, and who have power over the bad one, are the missionaries.[1]
When the nowie (sun) has been very angry in the summer time, parching the grass and drying up the yallums[2] (wells), we have seen the whitefellows going to the house of your good Spirit, not on Sunday either, and on asking them for what purpose they were going on that day, were told it was to pray for rain to come, so that the grass might be refreshed, and spring up green and sweet, and the dried up yallums be filled, for the poor, starving sheep, cattle, and kangaroos to feed upon and drink, so that they might stop dying. But, after all that, we did not see the rain come, so all kinds of poor starved beasts continued to die, until one of our bangals spoke to Ngondenout about it, and cut off some of his own hair, and placed it in the river, after first having oiled it with the kidney fat of a wretched bukeen. Then, indeed, but not till then, the big black clouds came up from where the nowie goes to sleep, and covered all the face of tyrilly (sky) with much blackness, from whence in a short time the rain burst forth; and such a rain it was,
- ↑ The aborigines term all clergymen, and those also, whatever may be their status, who strive to impart religious instruction to them, missionaries.
- ↑ Yallum.—A small waterhole, or well. The term is usually applied to such as have been made or enlarged from natural crab-holes by the natives, a spot which has a good clay bottom, together with a fairish fall thereto, is the kind generally selected for aboriginal reservoirs. The natives puddle the bottoms and sides of these wells to prevent absorption, and as their positions are usually of a low-lying character, there is in most cases an abundant growth of polygonum, which, in a considerable measure, lessens the evaporation which the summer sun would induce.
