Page:The Native Tribes of South Australia (1879).djvu/323

Rh those sandhills which testify to this day the vastness of the undertaking.

IV.—Renowned as a fierce warrior and immoderate lover is Welu, who, being foiled in his amours by the Nauo people, determined to exterminate the whole tribe. He succeeded in spearing all the men except Karatantya and Yangkunu, two young men, who flew for shelter into the top of a tree. Welu climbed after them with the intent to murder them also; but they had the cunning to break the branch on which he was standing, when, tumbling headlong to the ground, a tamed native dog seized and killed him. He has since been changed into the bird that now bears his name, and which in English is called the curlew, while the memory and names of the two young men who escaped his fury are perpetuated by two species of hawk.

V.—A small kind of lizard, the male of which is called Ibirri, and the female Waka, is said to have divided the sexes in the human species; an event that would appear not to be much approved of by the natives, since either sex has a mortal hatred against the opposite sex of these little animals, the men always destroying the waka and the women the ibirri.

The natives have many more similar tales among them; the above, however, which seemed to possess more of an interest than any of the rest, will be sufficient to show their monstrous and in every respect ridiculous character.

AMUSEMENTS.

Singing and dancing are the favourite and almost only amusements of the Aborigines of these parts. They have a variety of songs, all consisting of only two or three verses each, as for instance the following:

In singing these and similar songs, each verse is repeated twice or even three times, and when they have finished the last verse