n - University of Newcastle

K u r r i m i 1 b An, the name of his wife ; she has a long horn on
each shoulder, growing upwards, with which s11e pierces the
aborigines, and then shakes herself until they are impaled on
her shoulders, when she carries them to a deep valley, roasts,
and eats her victims. She does not kill the women, for they are
always taken by her husband for himself. Y a h o has, br
some means, come to be used by the blacks as a name for this
being.
M 6 r r am a i, m., the name of a round ball, about the size of a
cricket-ball, mhich the aborigines carry in a small net sus-
pended from their girdles of opossum yzm. The women are
not allowed to see the internal part of the ball. It is used
as a talisman against sickness, and it is sent from tribe to
tribe for hundreds of miles, on the sea-coast and in the interior.
One is now here from Moreton Bay, the interior of which a
black shomecl me privately in my study, betraying consider-
able anxiety lest any female should see the contents. After
he had unrolled many yards of woollen cord, made from the
fur of the opossum, the contents proved to be a quartz-like
substance of the size of a pigeon's egg. He allowed me to
break it and retain a part. It is transparent, like white
sugar-candy. The natives smallom any small crystalline particles
that crumble off, as a preventive of sickness. It scratches glass,
and does not effervesce n-ith acids. From another specimen,
the stone appears to be agate, of a milky hue, semi-pellucid,
and it strilies fire. The vein from which it appears to have
been broken off is one and a quarter inch thick. A third
specimen colltailled a portion of carnelian partially crpstallised,
a fragmenl of chalcedony, and a fragment of a crystal of white
quartz.
Dl u r r o k u n, ?la., the name of a mysterious magical bone, nrl~ich
is obtained by the k a r B k a 1 s, q.v. Three of these sleep on
tlre grave of a recently interred corpse ; in the night, during
their sleep, the dead person inserts a nlysterious bone into
each thigh of the three ' doctors,' n-ho feel the puncture not
more severe than that of the sting of an ant. The bones
remain in the flesh of the doctors, without any inconvenience
to them, until they wish to kill any person, when by magical
power, it is said and beliered, they destroy their ill-fated
vlctim, causing the mysterious bone to enter into his body,
and so occasion death.
IS a u w ai, nt., a canoe ; p u 11 a, nt., bark, a canoe. The canoes
are made of one sheet of bark, taken whole from the tree and
softened with fire, and then tied up in a folded point at each
encl. A quantity of earth forms a hearth, on mhich the natires:
roast their bait and fish, when fishing.
THE VOCABULARY. 49
Nu g - g iin, gn., a song. There are poets among the tribes, who
compose songs ; these are sung and danced to by their own
tribe in the fist place, after which other tribes learn the song
and dance; and so the thing itinerates from tribe to tribe
throughout the country, until, from change of dialect, the very
words are not understood correctly by distant blacks.
P 6 r o b u g, the name of a mystic ring, in which certain cere-
monies of initiation are performed ; from p.5-5 ' to drop down,
to be born.'
P u n t i nl a i, m., a messenger, an ambassador. These Inen are
generally decorated with the down of the swan or of the
hawk on their heads, when on an embassy. They arrange the
time, place, and manner of preparations for a battle or for the
punishing of a supposed offender or real ?ggressor. They
bring intelligence of the movements of hostile tribes, or the
last new song and dance (cf. n u g - gun). When they travel at
night, a fie-stick is aln-ays carried by them as a protection
against the powers of darkness, the evil spirits, of mhich they
are in continual dread.
P u t t i k an, another imaginary being, like a horse, having a
large mane and a tail sharp like a cutlass ; wheuever he meets
the blacks, they go towards him and dram up their lips to show
that the tooth is knocked out * ; then he rill not injure them ;
but should the tooth be still there, he runs after them, and kills
and eats them. He does not n-alk, but bounds like a kangaroo,
and the noise of his leaps on the ground is as the report of a gun;
hecalls outasheadvances, 'Pirrolbg, Pirroldg.'
" Ti 1 m 6 n, ot., a small bird of the size of a thrush. It is supposed
by the women to be the first maker of women; or to be
a woman transformed after death into the bird ; it runs up
trees like a woodpecker. These birds are held in veneration
by the women only. The bat, k o 1 u g -k o 1 u g, is held ii:
reneration on the same ground by the men, who Vppose the
animal a mere transformation.
Tippakalin, Mailkun, and Bimp6in, are namesof the
wife of K o i n, p.v. She is a much more terrific being than her
husband ; him the blacks do not dread, because he does not kill
them; but this female being not only carries off the natives in a
large bag-net and drags them beneath the earth, but she spears
the children through the temples ; she thus kill them, and no
one ever sees again those mhonl she obtains.
T u r r am a, m., an instrument of war, called by Europeans a
' b o o m e r a n g.' It is of a half-moon shape ; when thrown
in the air it revolves on its own centre and returns, forming
*This is a proof that the black Iunn has been dd3- initiated at the ceremonies of the
Bora. See 8.v. Yarro.-ED.