Page:The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina.djvu/101

96 You tell us that our good and bad spirits are all gammon, but we do not believe you, because we know better. Your not being a blackfellow is the reason of your lack of knowledge on the subject, and your ignorance induces you to say what you do about it.

You do not like us to tell you that all your accounts of your good and bad spirits, and their various wonderful works, as described by you, are, in our opinions, just so many lyoors' stories, well fitted to be told to the wirtiwoos by the camp fires to keep them quiet; and we fail to see how you can be astonished at our disbelief either, inasmuch as you have never shown us the performance of any of the great wonders done by Ngondenout.

When we go on a hunting or fishing expedition, we usually invoke the aid of Ngondenout, not by playing music, singing, and much talk, as you do when you ask a favour from your good Spirit. We simply say: "Pray, let us be successful." And on most occasions we are so. When we chance not to have any luck, however, as will happen now and again, we know that the wicked Ngambacootchala has been disturbing the game, or making the water muddy, so that the blackfellows might labour all day, and return to the camp at night with tired limbs, and without anything to fill the bellies of their hungry lyoors and squalling wirtiwoos.

None of the us aborigines have seen either the good or bad spirits, unless the bangals of the tribes, and they can see and converse with them whenever they may have the inclination; and it is from them that we have gained all our knowledge on the subject.