Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/823

Rh upper end, then bent it somewhat, and made it into a Turu-kuntyi. In the night the rats came in such numbers that they destroyed his camp, and prevented him from even lying down, so that he sat the whole night through holding the Turu-kuntyi before him. The next morning he went hunting Kauri, following their footprints to the hiding-places in which they had concealed themselves at day-break. Thrusting his Turu-kuntyi into a hole, he twisted it about, and thought that he heard a sound of scratching at the other end of the burrow. Then, as the rats came out, he killed them, and collected them in three great heaps. At last a Kapita came out, which he caught by the neck instead of by the tail, and it bit him in the finger. Then he let it go, and he saw it escape into another hole. The blood having stopped, and the pain abated, he returned to the three heaps of rats, but did not roast them, because by doing so he would lose all the fat. He therefore swallowed them raw, one after the other. Then he suddenly became aware that a tail was growing out of him, longer and longer, until the end of it stuck into one of his eyes and blinded him. For three days he remained sightless, until a film came off his eye, and he could see that his whole body was coloured like a rainbow. Then he sought for a shelter to live in, and coming to a suitable sandhill, he said to himself, "Shall I live upon the top of it, where people might be afraid of me, or shall I make a cave in it?" Then he made a cave in the sandhill, and lived therein. Meanwhile a man came there who was a hunter of birds, and Antietya told him to take emu feathers and other things, and carry them to the Mura-mura Andru-tampana, who lived farther to the north. He was to tell him that, after the death of Anti-etya, the Yenku (son's son) of the former should have these things, and should bring down the sacred song of Andru-tampana to be joined with that of the Mura-mura Minkani. Thus it happened that while Anti-etya, as the Mura-mura Minkani, burrowed in his sandhill deeper and deeper, the man carried the presents and the song to the Mura-mura Andru-tampana; and since that time the two songs have been combined.

This legend identifies Anti-etya with the Mura-mura Minkani, whose ceremonies are held periodically by the Dieri, Yaurorka, Yantruwunta, Marula, Yelyuyendi, Karanguru, and Ngameni, at Kudna-ngauana, on the Cooper. All that I have been able to learn so far as to the ceremonies is as follows:—