Page:Aboriginesofvictoria02.djvu/45

Rh

[Mr. Bulmer gives a farther explanation of these phrases in a letter to me. He says that he has used the word Jack for "bird" as well as for "meat," and this is the way the blacks always use it when they speak of birds. Tarlo jack is "little meat." If they were going to hunt kangaroo, they would use the term Woorngana jacka, meaning thereby that they were going to get "meat." He says he has failed to render one sentence, because he could not get it satisfactorily translated. It is this:—"I am going to sharpen my spear." The term ge jenat he thinks—he says he is almost sure—is as he has rendered it. Nat at the end of the word Gejen is a personal pronoun, first person singular; and, he supposes, is used to render the sentence emphatic. He finds that the blacks commonly use pronouns in this manner. To translate some sentences literally is nearly impossible—the corresponding English words would appear to be without sense. For instance, the sentence "I am going to burn a stick (or wood)" would be "I am going I burn a stick"—the ngi being, like nat, a pronoun, first person singular.]