358 R. H. MATHEWS. 



The Moon and its Halo. — Two women were carrying 

 the moon, ghva, seated on a pole between them, across the 

 Oulgoa River. In midstream the moon was either thrown 

 off, or tumbled off the pole into the water and was washed 

 down and drowned. After a while he came to life again, 

 and went out into the mulga country near the Warrego 

 River. He stripped a lot of bark off leopard-wood trees, 

 and his reflection can be seen on the bark of this kind of 

 tree ever since. He carried all the bark which he had 

 stripped a long way, to a place on what is now known as 

 the MultagUDa run, and made a large camp for himself. He 

 saw a mob of blacks and invited them to come and see him 

 corroboreeing. 



He had his bark propped up with forks all round the 

 corroboree ground, and asked the people, men and women, 

 to come inside the ring of bark. One man was outside and 

 the moon said to bring him in also. A woman who had 

 just given birth to a baby was sitting down a little way off, 

 and giwa told them to fetch her to the corroboree too. 

 After ho had " opened the ball," he said, "Now, all of you 

 must keep your eyes cast on the ground and don't look at 

 me for a little while." He then went round and pulled 

 down his leopard-tree bark quickly, which fell on top of the 

 people, crushing and smothering them all. 



The halo, or large ring sometimes seen around the moon 

 during a moist state of the atmosphere, represents the ring 

 of leopard-wood bark under which the people were suffo- 

 cated. The scene of the catastrophe is now a small lake 

 on Multaguna Station. All the details of this story would 

 occupy many times the space I have been able to afford in 

 this article. [Kurnu Tribe, Darling River.] 



Two Young Men and the Moon. — Giwa the moon had 

 two young relatives who had been trained to know some 

 magic. He was a heavy, corpulent old man, not able to 



