Page:The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina.djvu/98

93 tendency towards his aboriginal children, and the bad spirit (Ngambacootchala) has to bear the blame of whatever untoward event circumstances may bring round.

These good and bad spirits never by any means clash; neither having any control or power of any kind over the other; therefore, it is a sort of let alone, for let alone, position, which they hold towards each other, each acting independently on all occasions.

If a native has been fairly successful whilst hunting, and has consequently bagged a satisfactory haul, he gives Ngowdenout all the credit of his luck, inasmuch as he in his great-heartedness had made the game less wary than usual, so that the hunter might have to display but very little cunning in circumventing them.

If, however, whilst trudging back to his camp, well laden with the result of his morning's sport, and full of rejoicings by reason of his successful endeavours, he should chance to stab his foot with a projecting stump, or dry branch with sharp point, Ngambacootchala gets the blame for guiding his erring footsteps that way, and is therefore heartily anathametised, in no measured terms either, the aborigines having a wonderful talent for the construction and launching of gross expletives, against who, or whatever may offend their dignity, or hurt their person.

Should it happen that a wild dog, in his foraging rambles, finds and scrapes out a lowna's nest (which had been marked down by an aborigine whilst the bird was building), and eats the eggs; or a known swan's nest has been robbed by a predatory crow, or if even a great codfish smashes many meshes of a net, and escapes, the ever evil-doing