"NEXT TRAVELOGUE ABOUT THE ABORIGINALS..." Utrecht Travelogue by eden_teuling

It was a time when food was in short supply and many survived by catching and eating the red kangaroo , but 1 man remembered the words of the great BYAMEE (He who brought the Law for the All-Father) : "the red kangaroo is forbidden flesh".

So it was that this righteous man would sooner starve than break the law.
In his wanderings he approached a tree hoping he might find food there.
A yowee spirit descended from it, picked up the man and took him into the tree which uprooted itself and rose up to the heavens.
It then manifested as the constellation YARANDOO (the Southern Cross).

Red kangaroos seem to be associated with star making, as is the mischievous bird WAHN, the crow who tricked PEWINGI , the swamp walk, into jumping on a bunch of echidna spines he had planted in a red kangaroo's nest.
But once they had grown into PEEWINGY's claws , this only helped him to better catch the red kangaroo.
Byamee ultimately put an end to his mischief by turning him into a star.
The crows have never since ceased to laugh at Wahn's comeuppance - they greet each morning with WahWahWah......

CROCODILE DREAMING.....

This creature, wherever he appears, is a revered totem.
He was a close companion of the Seven Sisters (in the Milky Way) when, as the result of a curse, they lived as Watergirls.
But his real claim to fame is that each month, at full moon, he begins to tear strips from the Moon Man until he has completely devoured him.
Wherupon, the Moon Man is reborn and the cycle begins again.

BAHLOO, the Moon, was also a victim of WAHN the crow.
Bahloo lived in a cave way up in the side of a hill where he made Girl Babies and sent them down to married women in any quantity they required.
Because he wouldn't let Wahn make the Boy Babies , Wahn tricked him into climbing a tree for a feed of grubs.
The trickster crow then uttered an incantation that made the tree grow up to the stars where Bahloo is now still stuck.

GOANNA AND SNAKE....

These 2 creatures make frequent joined appearances in Aboriginal Art.
This is because, in her feminine aspect, Snake is an excavator of river beds and Goanna Man was the inventer of the canoe.
As an expert tree cimber, he stripped the bark from a mess-mate tree and patiently sewed it into a boat which gave fishermen access to the deeper and more rewarding parts of the rivers.

Goannas were originally very industrious creatures who had arrived with the first migration from the 1000 islands in the canoe belonging to WHALE.
But as they move south through Australia they gave up planting and reaping the vegetables they loved so much and took to preying upon small and defenceless creatures.

After childbirth , women were restricted to remaining by a fire; Snake, being a Water Spirit , would not molest them if they were close to the fire.

THE BOOMERANG THAT CAPTURED THE SUN...

BILA was the Sun Woman who daily sent out her dogs to capture victims which she would cook on her fire and eat.
On one momentous occasion her dogs wiped out an entire tribe and brought the corpses to her as a gift.
This incident was witnessed by MUDA the Gecko and KUDNA the Lizard who decided it was time to bring an end to Bila's shenanigans.

They set off on their journey to her camp, all the while swearing they would avenge the death of their friends.
As they approached her she reached for a boomerang, but KUDNA was faster than Bila and, when struck by his weapon she turned nto a fireball and vanished, leaving the world in darkness.

Fearful of the gloom and what they had done, these 2 fellows began throwing boomerangs to all points of the compass until one of them, thrown to the east, brought back the sun.

KANGAROO'S LEGS....

When he first arrived in AUSTRALIA on Whale's Canoe , Kangeroo walked and ran just like any other four-legged creature, but he quickly found that men were eager to hunt him as a source of food.
On one occasion he spied a hunter approaching with spear in hand and took off into the bush, fully believing that his 4 legs would be faster than the man's 2 , but he was wrong and the chase persisted all day!
It only ended when darkness fell.
Kangeroo lay collapsed in an exhausted heap when he saw the hunter lighting a fire.

"I had better move quickly and quietly before the light exposes me", said Kangeroo to himself.
He raised himself on his hind legs to minimize the noise, and stealthily hopped away.

Realizing how easily he was moving he decided that 2 legs - as with men - were obviously better than 4!
From that moment, his hind legs got stronger and his fore paws got shorter.
That is why the kangeroo is as he is today!

MARMOO'S JEALOUSY....

BYAMEE had made the world and both he and it were at peace.

Cristal clear streams ran down from majestic mountains with peaks covered in snow.
The great planes were covered with a lush green carpet and a multitude of flowers painted every imaginable colour.
The only things that had not been made were the birds and insects.
Meanwhile Marmoo, the Dark Spirit, looked down on the scene in jealousy and rage.
"I could have done better in less time", he told his wife.
Her simple response was: "show me".
"I will", he said, "but first I must destroy BYAMEE's handiwork".

In a cave where none could see, Marmoo created a vaste hoard of creeping, crawling, flying insects, which, when he released them, proceeded to ravage the land and lay it to waste.

Byamee was desolate and came to see NUNGEENA, the Spirit Woman, he had left to supervise his creation.
"Don't worry, Father Byamee", she said.
"I hid some flowers behind that waterfall".
Working with deft fingers she quickly fashioned many birds from the flowers , and these flew off to feast upong the insects whose ravages the Earth was able to quickly overcome.

HOW DEATH CAME INTO THE WORLD....

The CURLEW men and women emerged from a crevice in a rock, but the women emerged first and this caused the dissent and jealousy, which was aimed at the first man to appear.

Ultimately the dissention turned to anger, the women separated from the men and the bone that brings death was pointed at this first man.

Racked with pain, he died and was buried in the stony soil.
But on the following day the ground began to shake and he pushed head and shoulders out of the grave all the while looking accusingly at the dumpstruck men around him.
But URBURA the magpie, raced to the rescue: he speared the undead men in the throat and stromped on him until he sank back into the ground.

Urbura then flew off with the CURLEW women.
Had the magpie not killed this man a second time, death would not have come into the world....