Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/423

 COLLECTANEA.

. [The special interest of these legends lies in the fact that "Mooramoora" was described by a previous witness, Mr. Gason (The Dieyerie Tribe in Mr. Curr's The Australian Race, ii., 44-107), as a single being, not as a race of beings. "Mooramoora is a Good Spirit or Divine Being; and although they have no form of religious worship, they speak of the Mooramoora with great reverence." In a language which possesses no article, and, apparently, no verbal plural (see Curr, The Australian Race, i, 10, 11), it is obvious that a noun of multitude might easily be mistaken by a foreigner for a proper name. Mr. Gason's further statement, that the Dieri "have no form of religious worship," is hardly consistent with his description of the rain-making ceremony, part of which he says is designed to be seen by the Mooramoora, "and immediately he causes clouds to appear in the heavens." If none appear, "they say the Mooramoora is cross with them." Mr. Howitt, moreover (J. A. I., xx., 92), quotes Mr. Gason for the following: "In the rare seasons which are too wet, the Dieri also have recourse to supplications to Mura Mura to restrain the rain, and Mr. Gason has seen the old men in a perfect state of frenzy, believing that their ceremonies had caused Mura-mura to send too much rain."

Otherwise the account of the Muramura by Mr. Gason (who was a police-trooper stationed many years in the district) agrees in the main with Mr. Siebert's ætiological myths. He gives Dieri legends crediting "the Mooramoora" (sing, no.) with the making of the sun, emus, mankind (who were first black lizards, made to walk erect with their tails cut off), the organisation into tribes and families, the marriage rules, the foundation of the various ceremonies, of the custom of knocking out teeth, &c. Some of the ceremonies are performed within a circle traced with sand, within which the Mooramoora "is" supposed to be present, but which keeps out an evil being called Kootchie, which Mr. Gason translates by devii ("the devil is called Kootchie"). Mr. Gason's evidence is cited and discussed in the Golden Bough, i., 72 n, 86, 87, and in Magic and Religion, pp. 50, 56, 57, 62, 63.—.]

(Selected by Mary E. B. Howitt.)

The following legends are taken from a large collection made by the Rev. Otto Siebert, for a comprehensive work on the