Page:Dawson - Australian aborigines (1900).djvu/126

 "Me think, great big one master"—pointing to the sky—"want smoke him pipe. Him strike him match," suiting the action to the words, "and puff, puff," pretending to smoke. Then he made a movement as though he slowly dropped a match through the air. The comical assumption of gravity with which this was said, and the quickness with which the impromptu explanation was invented, showed that if he did not understand my religious teaching, it was certainly not from lack of intelligence.' BUCKLEY'S WIDOW. The following account has been kindly communicated by Mr. Goodall, the Superintendent of the Aboriginal Station at Framlingham, who has in several other ways assisted the writer in obtaining information from the aborigines under his charge:— There is, at the Aboriginal Station at Framlingham, a native woman named Purranmurnin Tallarwurnin, who was the wife of the white man Buckley at the time he was found by the first settlers in Victoria. She belonged originally to the Buninyong tribe, and was about fifteen years old when she became acquainted with Buckley. She says that one of the natives discovered immense footprints in the sand hummocks near the River Barwon, and concluded that they had been made by some unknown gigantic native—a stranger, and therefore an enemy. He set off at once on the track and soon discovered a strange-looking being lying down on a small hillock, sunning himself after a bath in the sea. A brief survey, cautiously made, was sufficient. The native hurried back to the camp and told the rest of the tribe what he had seen. They at once collected all the men in the neighbourhood, formed a cordon, and warily closed in on him. When they came near he took little or no notice of them, and did not even alter his position for some time. They were very much alarmed. At length one of the party finding courage addressed him as muurnong guurk (meaning that they supposed him to be one who had been killed and come to life again), and asked his name, "You Kondak Baarwon?" Buckley replied by a prolonged grunt and an inclination of the head, signifying yes. They asked him a number of other questions, all of which were suggested by the idea that he was one of themselves returned from the dead, and to all the questions Buckley gave the same reply. They were highly gratified, and he and they soon became friends. They made a wuurn of leafy branches for him, and lit a fire in front of it, around which they all