Page:An Australian language as spoken by the Awabakal.djvu/344

 24 AN' AUSTRALIAK LANGUAGE.

Dukkai — dead; a dead man ; 'a dead woman' is touaragnn. The word tabuUen is often used to mean 'dead,' instead of dukkai and t o u a i' a g u n, It is a participle from some verl ) not at present used. In some dialects, duggai, prol>abIy the same word, means a kind of ' hsh '; in the Turrubul dialect it means 'man.' This may have given rise to the idea that some of the aborigines believe that, when they die, they become fishes.

Ducffcerriicai — white man ; duggerrigaigun — white woman. Per- haps this word comes from dukkai, 'dead,' but it does not mean 'ghost' or 'spirit.' For 'spirit,' there are two terras, guru and wagai. After a man dies, he is spoken of as guru wanden, 'above'), where they live on murrabil, a kind of celestial food. Murrabil is from the Kamilaroi word murraba, 'good.' ■G-uru in some dialects means 'dark' or 'night,' and a word derived from it means 'emu.' Dawson, in his "Australian Aborigines " (page 51), states, that, if a native " is to die from the bite of a snake, he sees his wraith in the sun ; but, in this case, it takes the form of an emu." Wagai means 'shadow,' and has a more superstitious use than guru. When a person is ill, the warrima, 'wizard,' is sent for to throAV on him a good spell, called bunyarama warrima. The warrima takes something like a rope out of his stomach (!), and climbs up to waijog to have an interview with the wagai. On his return, if the man is to recover, he says, 'Your wagai has come back and you will soon be well'; but if he is to die, he says, 'I could not get your wagai.' The sick man is sure to die then. The w;igai are also the spirits consulted, when anyone dies suddenly, to discover by whose means the death was brought about. Yiralle is another name used by the Nyug people for 'white man'; it means, the ' one who has come.'
 * a spirit wp above.' All the guru go to waijog (from wai,

Garre — dance; cf., yerrube — sing.

Gulug, gulugbo — first; before; e.r/., gai minjen gulugbo, 'I laughed first,' i.e., before you. Gulug-gerry is 'immediately '; nyugga bukkoyen gulug-gerry, 'the sun will be up imme- diately '; gulugga we, or we gulugga buna means ' 'go thou first'; waire gurrugin, or waire guluggurrugin are those men in a tribe whom the colonists call ' kings '; each of these gets a brass plate ^vith a suitable inscription, to wear on his breast, as an emblem of his rank.

Gumma — teat. Giimmabil — milk.

Kibbara — (1) white or yellow ; (2) a half-caste, a yellow man or woman; whence kib])argun, a half-caste girl; kibbarim, a half-caste male ; (3) fig., anything young, small, or light; as, kibbara pailela, which may either mean, 'light rain falling,' or ' young lads fighting '; (4) a stringy-bark tree ; this word, in the Kamilaroi dialect, is kuburu, a 'black-box tree'; (5) the

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