LEGENDS OF LAKE EYRE TRIBES. 527 
round about him, and made themselves merry over his 
crooked legs and arms. He, however, secretly watched 
where they had placed the wonderful tayi-stone which, with 
so little rubbing, had ground so much paua. When all the 
people had gone to sleep, Ngura-tu lu-turu luru rose up, and, 
taking some glowing coals and a piece of fungus,’ he 
powdered both and scattered it over the whole camp, to 
make everyone unable to awake from sleep. After he had 
spoken his spell, to make sure that everyone was fast asleep, 
he shouted ‘“ Bai, Bai,” loudiy, but no one moved. Then he 
touched each one with a burning coal to rouse him, but 
without effect, and taking the grindingstone out of the damp 
earth where it had been hidden, washed the mud off it, and 
about mid-day walked away quietly with it on his head. When 
he had gone a long way from the camp the people woke up, 
and to their sorrow found that the stranger had disappeared 
with their tayi Then they formed a pinya,® and having 
found the track of the thief they followed him hastily. At 
Ngapa-kangu9 they met with a man whom they killed, 
thinking him to be Ngura-tu lu-tu luru, and it was only after 
he was dead that they found out their mistake. Then they 
again followed the tracks to Malka-malkara,!®© where they 
overtook and fell upon him from two directions. When he 
saw himself suddenly surrounded by a pinya, he took the 
tayi from his head, and using it as a shield he stopped all 
the boomerangs thrown at him. Then collecting these he 
attacked the pinya, and pursued a part of them as far as 
Pinya-maru," jwhere he killed them and turned them into 
stones, which are black, because the men of the pinya were 
painted of that colour. Going back for the tayi, which he 
had left behind, he was attacked by the rest of the pinya, 
whose weapons he stopped, using the stone for a shield, and, 
as before, having gathered them, he killed all the men. So 
deeply did he strike them into the ground that a deep pit 
was formed, from which that place has been called Yidni- 
minka,1*® Having done this he went back, and, on his way, 
7 This fungus |s called ‘‘ wona-waru,” that is *‘ white mound,” “ wona”’ 
or “wonpa” being “hill or mound,” aud ‘‘waru’ “white”’ It grows 
near eucalyptus trees. 
8 Pinya is an armed party sent out usnally to avenge death. See the 
Dieri and other kindred tribes of Central Australia, A. W. Howitt, Journal 
Anthrop Inst., Vol. XX, p. 31. 
°Ngapa-kangu is, in Yaurorka and Dieri, “ flax in water,” from ‘“ ngapa,”’ 
“water,” and ‘‘ kangua,”’ flax-like fibre. 
0 From ‘t malka,” the Acacia aneura. The word means a fre hly- 
shooting mulga bush. 
4 Maru is “‘ black.” 
12 Now shown on the inaps as Innamincka. 
