Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/453

CH. VIII A Wotjobaluk legend runs that at first the sky rested on the earth and prevented the sun from moving, until the magpie (goruk) propped it up with a long stick, so that the sun could move, and since then "she" moves round the earth. The Wurunjerri also believe that the earth is flat, as do the Jajaurung, and also that it was in darkness until the sun was made by Pupper-imbul, who was one of the race which inhabited the earth at that time, and whom they called the Murrumbung-uttias (old spirits). They both believed too that the sky was propped up by poles where it rested on the mountains in the north-east. Before the "white men came to Melbourne" a message was passed from tribe to tribe, until it reached the Wurunjerri, that the props were becoming rotten, and that unless tomahawks were at once sent up to cut new ones, the sky would fall and burst, and all the people would be drowned. This same belief is mentioned by Buckley, but in a different form, namely, that the earth was supported by props, which were in charge of a man who lived at the end of the earth.

A similar message reached the Wiimbaio, having been passed from tribe to tribe down the River Murray. It was to the effect that the props were becoming rotten, and that unless some tomahawks were sent at once the sky would fall and kill every one.

The sun is seemingly everywhere thought to be a woman. The Dieri have several legends bearing on this subject. One is that a Mura-mura at a place called Palunkurana had sexual intercourse with a young Dieri woman, who became the mother of Dietyi, the sun; and in consequence of this shame, sank into the earth at a place called Killa-wilpa-nina, about eight miles from the place before mentioned. Another legend is that the sun sets in a hole about twenty-five miles from Killalpanina, towards Lake Eyre, called by the Dieri Dityi-minka, or the "Hole of the sun." Then it travels underground to the east, where it rises in the morning. It