Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/423

VII paste, which is then placed between two pieces of bark and put under the surface of the water in some river or lagoon, and kept there by means of pointed stakes driven into the ground. When the mixture is all dissolved away, the blackfellows say that a great cloud will come, bringing rain. From the time that this ceremony takes place until the rain comes, the men are tabooed from their wives, or the charm will be spoiled, and the old men say that if this prohibition were properly respected, rain would come every time that it is done. In a time of drought, when rain is badly wanted, the whole tribe meets and performs this ceremony.

Among the Kurnai there were rain-makers, and also those who caused rain and storms to cease. The former were to be found in each clan, and the methods used for producing rain by the Bunjil-willung, or rain-men, were to fill the mouth with water and then squirt it in the direction appropriate to the particular clan, and each one sang his especial rain-song. The Brayaka squirted water, and sang, towards the south-west (Krauun); the Brayaka and Tatungalung did this in the same direction; the Brabralung and the Krauatungalung squirted water towards the direction of the south-east, the east winds (Belling) being from their rainy quarter. From these several directions the rain came in Gippsland; and when, for instance, a south-westerly rain came to the Brabralung they said that it was the Brayaka who sent it, and so on with the others. These rain-makers could also bring thunder, and it was said of them, as of the other medicine- men, that they obtained their songs in dreams. I have before spoken of one of the Brayaka Headmen who was credited with the power of calling up the furious west winds, whence he derived his name of Bunjil-kraura. His song by which he stopped the gales which prevented his tribes-people from climbing the tall trees in the western forest, ran thus—