Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/419

VII (3) Batti-batti at Dairgo, that is, of the Dairgo division of the Brabralung clan.

(4) Takit-berak in the district round what is now called Rosedale, that is, of the Bunjil-kraura division of the Brayakaulung clan.

(5) Brewin of the Ngarawut division of the Tatungalung clan.

(6) Bunjil-narran at Boney Point, on the Lower Avon River, that is of the Bunjil-nullung division of the Brayakaulung clan.

(7) Bunjil-bamarang at the Inlet from Lake Victoria called Newlands Backwater, of the Dairgo division of the Brabralung clan.

(8) There was also at least one Birraark belonging to the Brataualung clan, but whose name I was unable to ascertain.

Men like the Birraarks were also found in the tribes of the Wotjo nation. I take the following from the Mukjarawaint tribe. The medicine-man in question was the maternal grandfather of my informant. He was of great repute in the tribe because of his power of communication with Nung-yim or ghosts, that is with the spirits of deceased tribesmen. He occasionally disappeared from the camp, saying on his return that he had been up to the Nung-yim, and he brought back with him an account of their deceased relations and friends. My informant remembered one moonlight night in particular, when his grandfather went from the camp, and disappeared from sight. After a time the sound as of some one jumping down on to the ground was heard, and the medicine-man walked into the camp, and told of his meeting with the Nung-yim, and what they had said to him. But this man was not merely a medium, he also practised the curative branch of the medicine-man's art, extracting from those afflicted with pain, quartz, broken glass, or a tooth, in the manner I have described. Having extracted such substances, he rubbed them with red ochre, and placed them in his bag where he kept his magical things.

In this tribe there was also a female seer, who went up aloft, being supported, as it was believed, by ghosts, from whom she gleaned information as to the dead.