194 Manners and Customs of the Australian Natives , 



tion of tlie aborigines tliey were raised by two of their ancestors^, 

 named Marnpi and Jadda. A large fire proceeding from the 

 sea spread itself far and near along the coasts seeming about 

 to envelope the whole land in flames ; during the consultation 

 how to meet such a misfortune, these two persons suddenly 

 thought that the best means to extinguish the fire was by 

 heaping earth on it. They set/ therefore, to work, and raised 

 the sandhills as a lasting monument of the same. 



An aboriginal named Welu, celebrated for being a 

 furious warrior, as also a great Avoman lover, made the 

 horrible resolution of exterminating the whole tribe of 

 Nauos or Nawos. He succeeded in killing all the males, 

 by throwing one spear through all of them as they 

 stood in a single file. Two yoimg men, however, escaped, 

 having sought refuge in the top of a tree ; Welu followed 

 them to kill them likewise, but a lucky stratagem saved 

 them from his ire ; they broke the branch upon which their 

 enemy had climbed, he fell to the ground, and was attacked 

 and torn to pieces by a tame dog. Thereupon Welu was 

 changed into a bird, called in English the " Curlew," and 

 the youths who had escaped his wrath were transformed 

 into little lizards, the male of which is called Ibirri, and the 

 female Waka ; this is said to have occasioned the distinction 

 between the human sex. This procedure did not seem to have 

 been approved of by the aborigines, as each sex formed a 

 fruitless hatred against the opposite sex of this little animal, 

 the men amidst jokes and laughter striving to kill the Waka, 

 and the women the Ibirri. 



Ghost stories are not wanting amongst the aborigines. They 

 say there is a rock on the south side of Port Lincoln full of 

 deep holes, an occurrence not uncommon in the limestone 

 formations of this region, inhabited by a race of dead men, 

 who come out in the night to eat ants^ eggs (this is a favourite 

 food of the aborigines), but who during the day remained 

 concealed in the above-mentioned holes. No one seems to 

 have seen these night birds, but the natives say they have 

 sometimes heard them calling to one another, whereupon the 

 former are filled with horror, and take to their heels. They 

 possess a number of such like tales, but these which have been 

 already mentioned serve but to show the foolishness, impro- 

 bability, and the monstrosity of the same. 



Singing and dancing are the favorite and almost the sole 

 amusements of the aborigines of this region. They are in 

 the possession of a number of songs, each one consisting of 



