Page:The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina.djvu/145

140 The operation of milling was always performed by women, and the method thereof was by rubbing the clumsy pestal round and round on seed in the hollow slab, with, of course, an occasional thump or two.

This grinding or bruising, or in fact a combination of both motions, requires two operators, one to use the pestal and the other to stir the meal during the process. The meal would stick to the mill by reason of the thumping were it not constantly kept stirred As the clumsy pestal if wielded for long by one person, becomes fatiguing the lyoor millers change alternately from that implement to the stirring culk (stick).

They do not possess any means whereby the husks can be separated from the meal, it is therefore used as it leaves the mill. They seldom convert the meal into bread, but when they do, it is formed into thin cakes and baked on the hot coals, as bush men do their leather jackets.

The way in which the meal is commonly prepared for consumption by the aborigines is by mixing it with water until it is of the consistency of gruel, in which state it is greedily consumed by old and young. 

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE LEGEND OF THE courtenie (NATIVE COMPANION) AND kurwie (EMU); OR, HOW THE WICKED ONE WAS PUNISHED.

Before the blessing of the sun's cheering rays was vouchsafed to the earth, when the days and nights were alike dreary and dark, and long prior to the advent of man;