Why The Turtle Has No Tail : WHY THE TURTLE HAS NO TAIL The Australian aborigines believed that the Milky Way was a "pukkan" or track, along which many spirits of departed blacks travelled to heaven, and that the dark place that we call Magellan's Cloud was a hole or split that occurred when the universe was frightfully shaken...
Title Page : AUSTRALIAN LEGENDS TALES HANDED DOWN FROM THE REMOTEST TIMES BY THE AUTOCTHONOUS INHABITANTS OF OUR LAND C. W. PECK Sydney: Stafford [1925] Crimson bloom a verdant shrub, Set in every bower; On clouded heights in coastal scrub, Hail! Greetings to this flower! Crags and glebes it aye enhances, All...
At Low Tide : AT LOW TIDE This is a story of, in part, the coming of white men to Australia. Whether it is wholly true or not does not, perhaps, matter much. It is true this far-that since the earliest times the aborigines did believe that a black man was taken by a great white spirit and he became the ancest...
Prelude. A Princess : PRELUDE. A PRINCESS In a little settlement for aborigines not far from Sydney lives the last full-blooded person of the once-powerful Cammary Tribe. She lives in the past. The present has no lure for her, and very little interest. She has to eat and she has to sleep and she has to dress. She looks...
Mist And A Fringe Flower : MIST AND A FRINGE FLOWER It is said that many departed aborigines return to this earth in human form. A legend has already been written in which is the thought that blackfellows often slipped during their journey along the Milky Way through Magellan's Clouds, and came back here. Dense mists were...
A Star Legend : A STAR LEGEND The group of stars known to us as the Pleiades gave food for much thought to the aborigines. There are several legends surrounding these heavenly bodies. One is that the Kamilaroys of the North Coast were at enmity with those of the mountains, and a messenger had been sent from group...
How The Pistils Of The Waratah Became Firm : HOW THE PISTILS OF THE WARATAH BECAME FIRM Of all the flowers in our Austra one which was most revered by the blacks (in fact the only one so far as we know) was the watarah. No other flower was ever sufficiently noticed by them to be plucked and given, or shown, to whites, with a sense...
The First Crayfish : THE FIRST CRAYFISH Perhaps no white man, hunter, or fisher, was so clever at catching any sort of game as the blacks, and perhaps no "native race," not even the red men of America, about whom we have read so much, who were so painstaking in their snaring, their stalking, their lying in ambush, so...
Two Waratah Legends : TWO WARATAH LEGENDS There are many legends concerning the waratah--Australia's most glorious flower and all her own, for it does not occur in any other part of the world, while its supposed rival, the wattle, is as common in all parts of the Southern Hemisphere as it is in Australia. The aborigines...
The Clinging Koala : THE CLINGING KOALA There was but little of the habits of the indigenous fauna and avifauna of Australia that the aborigines did not well understand. How many white people gave our native animals credit for the possession of the same senses and emotions as the human race has? The blacks had a legend...
Another Legend : ANOTHER LEGEND One still, hot day in the alcheringa, the people of a tribe that inhabited the same part of Australia as those written of in the preceding story were so prostrated with the intense heat as to be unable to eat. They lay in whatever of shade they could find and awaited the thunderstorm...
The Struggle For Supremacy Between Birds : THE STRUGGLE FOR SUPREMACY BETWEEN BIRDS AND ANIMALS. There was a time when Australian animals and Australian birds-the fauna and the avifauna-lived in the greatest harmony, and the thought of vieing one with the other to prove which was the stronger never entered their heads. But a chief arose...
The Smilax : THE SMILAX In the Australian bush there is a stiff climbing plant with hard prickles sparsely placed along its entire length, and with broad shining leaves that have little tendrils at their bases. The vine climbs trees and twines itself about shrubs in such a way that it often makes travelling...
How The White Waratah Became Red : HOW THE WHITE WARATAH BECAME RED There is really a white waratah. It occurs in New South Wales and in Tasmania. It is not a distinct variety unless we consider a flower a variety simply because of its colour. The white of New South Wales and that of Tasmania are speciosissima and trunc...
Mulgani : MULGANI This is a true tale about some black people who lived in this country before any white people set foot in it--long before. Unlike the other stories which are legends that have actually been told as legends, this was not told regarding one specific happening nor one particularised person n...
What The Moon Is : WHAT THE MOON IS There are very many legends concerning the moon, and the writer has succeeded in collecting fully a dozen of them. There is, strangely, much similarity about them all, though some are from parts as far distant from this one, which belongs to the Murray, as Central Queensland. This...
The Second Kangaroo Story : THE SECOND KANGAROO STORY Away in the Kowmung and around the rugged peaks under which lie the great lodes containing the silver of Yarranderie, roamed a tribe of blacks who have their own tale of the first kangaroo. These people said that one day a woman hid from her husband. This man was a very...
The Flood : THE FLOOD The natives of the head waters of the Murray River, or as it is more correctly called, the Hume River, had a story of a Deluge. Whether this is identical with our Biblical story of the Flood, when Sisit, or Noah, was advised to build an Ark and take animals into it for the preservati...
The Bubbling Spring : THE BUBBLING SPRING Away on the South Coast of South Australia there is a very interesting natural spring. It emerges from between two limestone rocks. In very wet times the flow is much less than during a period shortly before rain comes. Especially is this so when a drought is on the point...
Why Leaves Fall : WHY LEAVES FALL The natives of the Urana district in Riverina had a little story about falling leaves. No doubt other tribes had a legend about the same thing, for in most places there were legends about nearly all natural phenomena. That those who were accustomed to the deep leaf-carpets...
The End. The Aborigines : THE END THE ABORIGINES I write of those who held this land From time as far back as you will- To-day a wasted, stricken band. But yesterday a stalwart race Preserving in the gentle face The imprint of God's fingers still. Ere Ovid's parchment spread the ink The tale was legend of the lips...
The First Kangaroo : THE FIRST KANGAROO (TWO STORIES) According to the inhabitants of the South-Eastern parts of the country-around the Monaro District, Mount Kosciusko, Goulburn, the Currockbilly Ranges, Mittagong, Burragorang and as far north as the Nepean River, there was a time when no kangaroos were in the l...
The Legend Of The Pleiades : THE LEGEND OF THE PLEIADES Amongst the Mungulkabultu group of the great Chepara tribe of Queensland tbere was once a king who ruled most severely over his people, but who was extraordinarily lenient with those of any neighbouring tribe or group. There was a time when all the groups were so very...
How The Sky Was Lifted Up : HOW THE SKY WAS LIFTED UP According to the aborigines of Australia, the sky at one time in the ages ago was not up high where it is now. It was down so low that a man could not walk upright. Then, no living thing stood erect. Everything either wriggled without legs at all, or crawled like a lizard...
What Makes The Waves : WHAT MAKES THE WAVES Arrilla was of the Kamilaroi. He lived principally on the coast, not far from our present village of Coal Cliff-between that and Stanwell Park. Perhaps he was not any real individual, but only a type-creation. Be that as it may, all that is ascribed to him in this legend is...
How The Waratah Got Its Honey : HOW THE WARATAH GOT ITS HONEY Krubi was the name of the beautiful black girl who became a waratah, and amongst the aborigines of the Burragorang Valley the name is only given to one girl of any tribe, of all its branches; and then only when the mother or the father has been reckoned to be very good...
The First Waratah : THE FIRST WARATAH Why did the early arrivals in Australia imagine that the aborigines had no folk-lore, no legends, hardly any "manners, habits and customs? Is it that they really had none, or that the blacks were merely incomprehensible? I think it was the latter. Australia had much of country...
Why The Waratah Is Firm : WHY THE WARATAH IS FIRM. The whole George's River tribe were camped on the flat between the bouldered cliffs that stand up high on each side of the stream. The weather had been very dry. Hot winds brought the yellow dust from the and regions of South and Central Australia and they wilted...
The Salt Lakes : THE SALT LAKES The power that the aborigines possessed of bringing about their own deaths by an effort of will is generally looked upon by white people as one peculiar to what are mostly termed "Native Races." Just what is meant by "native races" is hard to define. But it seems to embrace those...
Why The Sun Sets : WHY THE SUN SETS Out on the Murrumbidgee there is a tale about the setting sun. The country there is very different from what it is where the aborigines had a story of the Escapees. It is flat. It seems to be below, far below, the level of the sea. And the sun can be seen setting. The land which...
A Royal Visit : A ROYAL VISIT My office was very small, and very stuffy, though under the floor covering whenever I lifted it up, it was damp and mildewed. The day was hot and steamy, and before me on the desk was a loose-leaf ledger that simply bristled and screamed with figures. The headings were such as this:...
A Bird Legend : A BIRD LEGEND The aborigines sometimes kept birds and animals as pets, but in all instances that may be enquired into it is found that the pet by some mischance or peculiar trait or impulse strayed into a camp and stayed there. However, this had nothing to do with the belief in an "affinity." N...
Shooting Stars : SHOOTING STARS There was once a very great aboriginal king who lived somewhere in the belt of basalt country where the waratah does not grow. The hard rocks of this country have once been subjected to terrific heat. In fact, they are born of fire, and this the people knew very well. For a long time...
The Black Satin : THE BLACK SATIN On the South Coast of New South Wales (not the Illawarra coast, which is not the South Coast) is a wonderful tract of deeply undulated forest, wild and jungled bush. The highlands of this big territory overhang a strip of well-scrubbed and verdant bush which rolls north and south...
The First Bush Fire : THE FIRST BUSH FIRE One of the pioneers of the Goulburn district lived near Taralga. He was an old Scot and he knew the aborigines. He was a lover of flowers and a man who learned to respect the blacks. He wrote nothing; he said but little. Very few of his friends knew that he had such knowledge...
Why The Petiole Of The Waratah Is Long : WHY THE PETIOLE OF THE WARATAH IS LONG. It was noticed by the aborigines that the leaf of a waratah has a long petiole, and the leaves of many other plants have a petiole that is very short. For instance, the waxy green leaves of the Diploglottis with its bunch of yellow berries, the Prostanther...
The Dianella Berry : THE DIANELLA BERRY We have given the rush with the pretty blue berries its name after the Goddess of the Woods--Diana--the hunter's deity. And it is strange but true that the aborigines had an idea much the same. They said that the plant at one time in the alcheringa was the hair of a certain wom...
The First Gymea Or Gigantic Lily : THE FIRST GYMEA OR GIGANTIC LILY One of the most wonderful of Australian flowers is the New South Wales variety of Gymea or Gigantic Lily (Doryanthes excelsa). This huge red bloom of ours is, as its variety name implies, the most gorgeous of the Doryanthes genus in this country. The legend...
