Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/333

Rh somewhat better character than Baiame; for, says Mr. Howitt, he "seems to have been regarded much in the light in which William Beiruk described to me the Ngŭrŭngæta, or headman of his tribe, "a man who did no one any harm, and who spoke straight." In common with Baiame and Daramulun he is called "Father;" and, as in the case of Daramulun, there is a disinclination to utter his name "when speaking of his supernatural powers," though not so much when repeating the "folklore" in which he plays a part. This, as I have already explained, seems to arise less from the sacredness of the name than from a fear that the speaker may be taken to be summoning Bunjil to display his remarkable powers, a display that would often be highly inconvenient, not to say dangerous.

The word Bunjil is known and used over a considerable area of the south-eastern part of the Australian continent. Among many tribes of Victoria it means Eaglehawk, and is not only the name of their "Great Spirit," but also of one of their two primary class-divisions, just as among the Murring tribes Yibai, or Iguana, the name of their class-divisions, is a synonym of Daramulun. In both cases it probably indicates ancestral relation to the tribe. This is confirmed by the fact that six of the totems of the Woiworung, one of the Kulin tribes, which are various animals and birds, are called "sons of Bunjil." For Bunjil, like Daramulun, is married and has two wives. At a certain period in his history he "left the earth with all his people, and went aloft in a furious wind, which tore the trees up by the roots." It must not, however, be thought that this was an exhibition of the "Supreme