Page:The Native Tribes of South Australia (1879).djvu/125

 DEMONS. 63 have often wondered myself what the noise is really caused by, which they ascribe to Mulgewanke. I have heard it dozens of times, and so have many other persons. It resembles the boom of a distant cannon, or the explosion of a blast. Sometimes, however, it is more like the sound made by the fall of a huge body into deep water. It cannot be the peculiar sound made by the Murray bittern, as I have often beard that too, and it is not at all like the noise in the Lake. At first I ascribed it to people blasting wood on the opposite side, hut since then I have been convinced that this cannot be the case. One peculiarity of the sound ascribed to the Mulgewanke is, that although it is sometimes louder than at others, yet it is never near, always distant. I have no doubt but at some time or other the natural cause of it will be discovered, but I have never yet heard the phenomenon explained. There is another superstition believed in by the Narrinyeri. Every tribe has its ngaitye; that is, some animal which they regard as a sort of good genius, who takes an interest in their welfaresomething like the North American Indian totem. Some will have a snake, some a wild dog, some a bird, and some an insect. No man or woman will kill her ngaitye, except it happens to be an animal which is good for food, when they have no objection to eating them. Nevertheless, they will be very careful to destroy all the remains, lest an enemy might get hold of them, and by his sorcery cause the ngaitye to grow in the inside of the eater, and cause his death. I know several persons whose ngaityar are different kinds of snakes, consequently they do not like to kill them; but when they meet with them they catch them, pull out their teeth, or else sew up their mouths, and keep them in a basket as pets. Once I knew of a man catching his ngaitye in the person of a large female tiger snake, and, after pulling out the teeth, he put it in a basket, and hung it up in his wurley. The nest morning they found that she had brought forth sixteen young ones. This increase of family was too much for those blacks to whom she did not stand in the relation of