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430 overtaking them. Now he is up in the sky, still chasing them, and still behind. I have not been able to identify the star Boamberik, but as it must be one not far from the Pleiades, it seems not unlikely that it may be Aldebaran. According to the Wurunjerri, the Pleiades are a group of young women, the Karat-goruk, about whom there is a legend which recounts that they were digging up ants' eggs with their yam-sticks, at the ends of which they had coals of fire, which Waang, the crow, stole from them by a stratagem. They were ultimately swept up into the sky, when Bellin-Bellin, the musk-crow, let the whirlwind out of his bag, at the command of Bunjii, and remained there as the Pleiades, still carrying fire on the ends of their yam-sticks. Thomas speaks of the Pleiades as Karakarook, who was the daughter of Bunjil. When he made two men, his son Binbeal caused two women to come out of the water as wives for them, and Karakarook gave each of them a kunnan (woman's stick).

The Aurora signified with the Wotjobaluk that, at some great distance, a number of blacks were being slaughtered, and that the Aurora colour is the blood rising up to the sky. When the Aurora was seen by the Kurnai, all in the camp swung the Brett (dead hand) towards the alarming portent, shouting such words as "Send it away; do not let it burn us up." The Aurora is, according to one of their legends, Mungan's fire.

The Ngarigo had much the same idea of the Aurora as the Wotjo. They said that it was like blood, and told that a number of blacks had died somewhere. When a meteorite was seen to fall, they watched it, and listened for the explosion. It was believed that this betokened that the blacks at the place towards which its path was directed were gathering together for war. Their neighbours, the Wolgal, thought that the Aurora showed that the blacks a long way off were fighting, and that a number of them had been killed.