Page:The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina.djvu/127

122 in the rays of the sun or within the influence of fire light, and triumphantly ask whether better proof could be. It is only wasted time to make them understand that the mica possesses no light or glitter of its own, but merely has the property of reflecting the light which proceeds from some other body, as the sun or fire light. They sagely shake their heads at what they deem a very clumsy endeavour to shake the belief which has endured, amongst them, for generations beyond number, and wisely ejaculate—"Oh! too much you white fellow. Plenty bumhammn wirrimpoola (stupid ears), you!" According to their computation the moon lasts as many nights as three times the number of their fingers, or thirty days; they compare it to an opossum cloak after this fashion:—

When a native has a rug to make he does not wait until he has acquired a sufficient number of skins to complete it, for as soon as he has two or three skins he sews them together and wears them mantilla fashion across his shoulders' going on day by day adding thereto as he procures the skins, but wearing it all the time, until it becomes a finished cloak. Shortly after the completion (in fact frequently before that achievement) of the cloak, as a matter of course it generally begins to fray at the edges, until by use, like the moon, it is worn completely out, necessitating the commencement of a new one after the same manner.

According to the mythology of these people, panmarootoortie (pleiads) is composed of seven mooroongoors (young virgins), being sisters, who were translated to their proud position in their sky because the whole of them, from the eldest even to the youngest born, retained their virgi