Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/458

 The Wiradjuri called the Milky Way Gular, by which name they also call the Lachlan River. The Corona Australis is Kukuburra, the Laughing Jackass; and a small star in Argus is the Bidjerigang, the Shell Parakeet.

The seasons are reckoned by the Bigambul according to the time of the year in which the trees blossom. For instance, Yerra is the name of a tree which blossoms in September, hence that time is called Yerrabinda. The Apple-tree flowers about Christmas-time, which is Nigabinda. The Ironbark tree flowers about the end of January, which they call Wo-binda. They also call this time, which is in the height of summer, Tinna-koge-alba, that is to say, the time when the ground burns the feet.

Connected with the Kulin belief in a flat earth of limited extent, there was another. They thought that when the sun disappeared in the west it went into a place called Ngamat, which has been described to me as like a hole out of which a large tree has been burned by a bush-fire.

A legend in one of the tribes near Maryborough (Queensland) also tells of a hole into which the sun retired at night. It says that when Birral had placed the blackfellows on the primitive earth, "which was like a great sandbank," they asked him where they should get warmth in the day and fire in the night. He said that if they went in a certain direction they would find the sun, and by knocking a piece off it they could get fire. Going far in that direction, they found that the sun came out of a hole in the morning and went into another in the evening. Then rushing after the sun, they knocked a piece off, and thus obtained fire. Beyond the sky there is another country, which may be called the sky-land. This belief is indicated in one of the Dieri legends, which tells how Arawotya, "who lives in the sky," let down a long hair cord, and by it pulled up