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Wikisource contributes public public domain transcribed book context represented in the AusFigures archive. This page links source-grounded records to their original public URLs and preserves provenance without implying institutional endorsement.

Search-ready records
108
Public sources
1
States / territories
1
Dated span
1904–1905

The source collection is included for provenance and public-text discovery.

Representative records — first 60

  1. medicine man in Medicine Man Notes#14561905 / Wikisource / NSW / Descriptive Belief Recordse Moobir, or cuts on the bodies, some of which are tribal marks, some marks of mourning, some merely of ornamentation. Both men and women are seen with these marks in the Narran district; some huge wales on the skin fro…
  2. medicine man in Medicine Man Notes#14551905 / Wikisource / NSW / Descriptive Belief Recordse back, some on the chest and the forepart of the arms. They are cut with a stone knife, licked along by the medicine man, filled in with charcoal, and the skin let grow over. Various reasons are given for these marks:…
  3. medicine man in Medicine Man Notes#14541905 / Wikisource / NSW / Descriptive Belief RecordsWhile on the subject of personal decoration I forgot the Moobir, or cuts on the bodies, some of which are tribal marks, some marks of mourning, some merely of ornamentation. Both men and women are seen with these marks…
  4. wizard in Byamee and Wirreenun#14531905 / Wikisource / NSW / Retellings and Adaptationsebillahs burrow into the sand and leave their young there as soon as the faintest feel of a spine appears. The baby piggiebillahs look like little indiarubber toys. The opossums all disappeared from our district. When w…
  5. wizard in Byamee and Wirreenun#14521905 / Wikisource / NSW / Retellings and AdaptationsThe opossums all disappeared from our district. When we were first there they were very numerous and used to make raids at night to my rose-bushes—great havoc the result. It is said a very great wirreenun—wizard—willed…
  6. devil in Spirit Stories#14511905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person Narrativestotem, which was Beemunny's. As Yellen spoke in a hushed sad voice, suddenly, though no breath of wind was stirring, sprang up on the edge of the camp a boolee, rearing its head as if it were a living thing. Round it wh…
  7. Byamee in Spirit Stories#14501905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person NarrativesHippi said a great deal more would have been spoken and sung at the grave if the dead person had been a man. His spirit would have in a short sort of prayer been commended to Byamee, who would have been intreated to let…
  8. Byamee in Spirit Stories#14491905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person NarrativesAnd Byamee was so pleased with her for always having food for the hungry that, when at length she died, he allowed her to revisit her old gahreemai, or camp, her spirit returning in the form of the little honey-eater bi…
  9. devil in Spirit Stories#14481905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person NarrativesAs Yellen spoke in a hushed sad voice, suddenly, though no breath of wind was stirring, sprang up on the edge of the camp a boolee, rearing its head as if it were a living thing. Round it whirled, snatching the dead lea…
  10. devil in Spirits and Wirreenun#14471905 / Wikisource / NSW / Retellings and Adaptationse post herself and carried it in. These posts are painted red, black, and white, with a snaky pattern, the Kurreah sign, on them. She also planted in my garden two other witch-poles, one painted red and having a cross-b…
  11. wizard in Spirits and Wirreenun#14461905 / Wikisource / NSW / Retellings and Adaptationsals like us.' We left it. That evening a messenger arrived from the sheep station to say my cook's mother had died just before sunset. The camp were firm believers in Bootha's witch-stick after that. It was just as well…
  12. wizard in Spirits and Wirreenun#14451905 / Wikisource / NSW / Retellings and AdaptationsThey say that long ago the wirreenuns always used to have a sort of totem wizard-stick guarding the front of their camps.
  13. devil in Spirits and Wirreenun#14441905 / Wikisource / NSW / Retellings and Adaptations'I get the spirits to help me,' she said, and started a little sing-song, then shouldered the post herself and carried it in. These posts are painted red, black, and white, with a snaky pattern, the Kurreah sign, on the…
  14. Wirreenun in Spirits and Wirreenun#14431905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person NarrativesBootha got up then, came over to the patient, took her hand, rubbed it round the wrist several times, muttering an incantation; then saying she would see her again next day, off she went, taking, she told us, all the sp…
  15. Wirreenun in Spirits and Wirreenun#14421905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person NarrativesIn this Minggah, Guadgee said, were swarms of bees invisible to all but wirreenuns, and they are ready always to resent any insult to the Minggah or its shadow. These spirit-bees had entered Adelaide and secreted some w…
  16. Wirreenun in Spirits and Wirreenun#14411905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person NarrativesGuadgee answered all she was asked. She said Adelaide was made ill because she had offended the spirits by bathing in the creek under the shade of a Minggah, or spirit-tree, a place tabooed to all but wirreenuns, or suc…
  17. Wirreenun in Spirits and Wirreenun#14401905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person Narratives'Wahl you frightened, wahl me hurt you. I only womba—mad—all yowee—spirits—in me tell me gubbah—good-I lib 'long a youee; bimeby I come back big feller wirreenun; wahl you frightened? I not hurt you.'
  18. spirit in Introductory Belief Context#14391905 / Wikisource / NSW / Ghost and Apparition Accountsey were on very good terms with me. They would exchange gifts with me: I might receive a carved weapon, and one of them some tobacco. The giving was not all on my side, by any means. My anthropological reading was scant…
  19. spirit in Introductory Belief Context#14381905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person Narrativess the tribes, on Lake Eyre, and the southernmost Arunta of the centre. Thus, there is a limited and modified shape of the central and northern belief in reincarnation, and there is a great development of what are called…
  20. Byamee in Introductory Belief Context#14371905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person Narrativeseir south-east, but is clearly allied with it, many names of animals being the same in both tongues. A few names of animals are shared with the Wirádjuri speech, as Mullian, Eagle Hawk; Pelican, Goolayyahlee (Wirádjuri,…
  21. spirit in Introductory Belief Context#14361905 / Wikisource / NSW / Ghost and Apparition AccountsMy anthropological reading was scanty, but I was well acquainted with and believed in Mr. Herbert Spencer's 'Ghost theory' of the origin of religion in the worship of ancestral spirits. What I learned from the natives s…
  22. spirit in Introductory Belief Context#14351905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person NarrativesThere is a belief in spirit-haunted trees, as among the Arunta, and there is a form of the Arunta myth of the 'Dream Time,' the age of pristine evolution.
  23. Byamee in Introductory Belief Context#14341905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person NarrativesHowitt is also the term used by the Wirádjuri and Kamilaroi, 'Baiame' or 'Byamee.' The Euahlayi, however, possess myths, beliefs, and usages not recorded as extant among the Kamilaroi, but rather forming a link with the…
  24. ghost in Glossary and Belief Terms#14291905 / Wikisource / NSW / Ghost and Apparition Accountseaten by the ​enemy. Their young widows spent days searching for them, after the tribe had given up hope of finding them. At last the widows—who had refused to marry again, declaring their husbands yet lived, and that o…
  25. ghost in Glossary and Belief Terms#14281905 / Wikisource / NSW / Ghost and Apparition Accountsidows—who had refused to marry again, declaring their husbands yet lived, and that one day they would find them—disappeared. Time passed; they did not return, so were supposed to be dead too. Then arose the rumour that…
  26. ghost in Glossary and Belief Terms#14271905 / Wikisource / NSW / Ghost and Apparition AccountsTime passed; they did not return, so were supposed to be dead too. Then arose the rumour that their ghosts had been seen, and to this day it is said the plain of Weawarra is haunted by them.
  27. Yhi in Legends and Spirit Figures#14261905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person Narrativesvers that at first the tribes were meant to live for ever. The women were told never to go near a certain hollow tree. The bees made a nest in this tree; the women coveted the honey, but the men forbade them to go near…
  28. Wurrunnah in Legends and Spirit Figures#14251905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person Narratives, and when you see that he has turned round as the position of the Milky Way is altered, you may expect rain; he never moves except to make it. A waving dark shadow that you will see along the same course is Kurreah, th…
  29. Yhi in Legends and Spirit Figures#14241905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person Narrativests wings. Of eclipses there are various accounts. Some say it is Yhi, the sun, the wanton woman, who has overtaken at last her enemy the moon, who scorned her love, and whom now she tries to kill, but the spirits interv…
  30. Wurrunnah in Legends and Spirit Figures#14231905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person NarrativesAcross the creek is another very old tree, having one hollow part in which is said to be secreted a shell which old Wurrunnah, the traveller of the tribes, and the first to see the sea, brought back. No one would dare t…
  31. Yhi in Legends and Spirit Figures#14221905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person NarrativesAnother account says that Yhi, the sun, after many lovers, tried to ensnare Bahloo, the moon; but he would have none of her, and so she chases him across the sky, telling the spirits who stand round the sky holding it u…
  32. Yhi in Legends and Spirit Figures#14211905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person NarrativesOf eclipses there are various accounts. Some say it is Yhi, the sun, the wanton woman, who has overtaken at last her enemy the moon, who scorned her love, and whom now she tries to kill, but the spirits intervene, dread…
  33. Mullyan in Legends and Spirit Figures#13771905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person NarrativesThe Southern Crown is Mullyan, the eagle-hawk. The Southern Cross was the first Minggah, or spirit tree a huge Yaraan, which was the medium for the translation of the first man who died on earth to the sky. The white co…
  34. Wurrunnah in Legends and Spirit Figures#13761905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person NarrativesMen had desired all the sisters when once they travelled on earth, but they kept themselves unspotted from the world, with the exception of the two Wurrunnah captured by stratagem.
  35. Wurrunnah in Legends and Spirit Figures#13751905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person NarrativesThe Pleiades are seven sisters, as usual, the dimmed ones having been dulled because on earth Wurrunnah seized them and tried to melt the crystal off them at a fire; for, beautiful as they were with their long hair, the…
  36. Mullyan in The Making of Medicine Men#13741905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person Narrativeso various totems, and the rains are claimed by the totem whose wind it was that blew it up. If a storm comes up without wind it belongs to Bohrah, the kangaroo. The big mountainous clouds when they come from the south-w…
  37. Mullyan in The Making of Medicine Men#13731905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person Narrativesyou ​would insult him: it is not dust, it is the pollen off the pines, and so a multiplex totem to him! The winds belong to various totems, and the rains are claimed by the totem whose wind it was that blew it up. If a…
  38. Mullyan in The Making of Medicine Men#13721905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person NarrativesThe big mountainous clouds when they come from the south-west are said to be Mullyan, the eagle-hawk, who makes the south-west wind claimed by Maira, paddy melon totem, one of whose multiplex totems Mullyan is.
  39. devil in More About the Medicine Men#13711905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person NarrativesIn his Minggah a wirreenun will probably keep some Wundah, or white devil spirits, with which to work evil. There, too, he often keeps his yunbeai, or animal spirit—that is, his individual totem, not hereditary one. All…
  40. devil in More About the Medicine Men#13701905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person NarrativesHe has Gubberahs, or clever stones, in which are the active spirits of evil-working devils, as well as others to work good. Should a Doowee once get into this wirreenun's bag, which has the power of self-movement, there…
  41. wizard in The Medicine Men#13691905 / Wikisource / NSW / Retellings and Adaptationse, or one of its multiplex totems, and show no sign of sorrow or anger; but should any one speak evil of the Beewee, or of any of its multiplex totems, there will be a quarrel. There will likewise be a quarrel if any on…
  42. devil in The Medicine Men#13681905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person NarrativesThe children of Kubbootha will be Thus, you see, they take, if girls, their grandmother's and her sisters' 'class' names in common; if boys, the 'class' name of their grandmother's brothers. Both men and women are often…
  43. wizard in The Medicine Men#13671905 / Wikisource / NSW / Retellings and Adaptationshim, though it is possible that there may have been a time in tribal history, now forgotten, when totems were wunnarl, and these ceremonies may be all that is left to point to that time. ​When a boy, after his first Boo…
  44. wizard in The Medicine Men#13661905 / Wikisource / NSW / Retellings and Adaptations​When a boy, after his first Boorah, killed his first emu, whether it was his Dhé, or totem, or not, his father made him lie on the bird before it was cooked. Afterwards a wirreenun (wizard) and the father rubbed the fa…
  45. wizard in The Medicine Men#13651905 / Wikisource / NSW / Retellings and AdaptationsWhen the wunnarl was taken off a particular kind of meat, a wizard poured some of the melted fat and inside blood of that animal or bird, as the case might be, over the boy, and rubbed it into him. The boy, shaking and…
  46. spirit in The Medicine Men#13641905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person NarrativesThe yunbeai is a sort of alter ego; a man's spirit is in his yunbeai, and his yunbeai's spirit in him.
  47. Wirreenun in The Medicine Men#13631905 / Wikisource / NSW / Retellings and AdaptationsThere are members of the tribes, principally wizards, or men intended to be such, who are given an individual totem called Yunbeai. This they must never eat or they will die. Any injury to his yunbeai hurts the man ​him…
  48. devil in The Medicine Men#13621905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person NarrativesA propos of names, a child is never called at night by the same name as in the daytime, lest the 'devils' hear it and entice him away.
  49. spirit in Byamee and Social Organisation#13611905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person NarrativesRidley's book, have been attached to his name by educated Kamilaroi. But he was a worshipful being, revealed in the mysteries, long before missionaries came, as all my informants aver. There has, indeed, been much dispu…
  50. Wirreenun in Byamee and Social Organisation#13601905 / Wikisource / NSW / Descriptive Belief Records; as the pebbles fell in, the water splashed up into the clouds above, whence it descended as the desired rain. It is told to me, that at some initiatory rites the oldest medicine man, or Wirreenun, present addresses a…
  51. Wirreenun in Byamee and Social Organisation#13591905 / Wikisource / NSW / Descriptive Belief Recordsup a handful of crystal pebbles and thrown them from the sky down into the water in a stone basin on the top of the sacred mountain; as the pebbles fell in, the water splashed up into the clouds above, whence it descend…
  52. spirit in Byamee and Social Organisation#13581905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person Narrativesone has but to run out when the clouds are overhead, and, looking at the sky, call aloud 'Gullee boorboor. Gullee boorboor.' 'Water come down. Water come down.' Or should it be raining too much, the last possible child…
  53. Baiame in Byamee and Social Organisation#13571905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person NarrativesThe Euahlayi Tribe/Chapter 2 - Wikisource, the free online library Jump to content Search Search The Euahlayi Tribe/Chapter 2 Add languages Add links Download From Wikisource < The Euahlayi Tribe ← Chapter 1 The Euahlay…
  54. Baiame in Byamee and Social Organisation#13561905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person NarrativesMr. Howitt forgets that he himself attributes the early system of descent through women, and also the belief in an All Father (Nurelli), to the Wiimbaio tribe, to the ​Wotjobaluk tribe,to the Kamilaroi, to the Ta-Ta-thi…
  55. Baiame in Byamee and Social Organisation#13551905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person NarrativesAs for Byamee's relation to ethics, it will be stated in the chapter on the tribal ceremonies, while the stories as to the rewards and punishments of the future life will be given in their place. Baiame's troubles with…
  56. Wirreenun in Byamee and Social Organisation#13541905 / Wikisource / NSW / Descriptive Belief RecordsIt is told to me, that at some initiatory rites the oldest medicine man, or Wirreenun, present addresses a prayer to Byamee, asking him to give them long life, as they have kept his law.
  57. spirit in Byamee and Social Organisation#13531905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person NarrativesBootha told me after one rain that she had sent one of her tutelary spirits to tell Boyjerh—Byamee is called by women and children Boyjerh—that the country wanted rain. In answer he had taken up a handful of crystal peb…
  58. Baiame in Byamee and Social Organisation#13521905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person NarrativesThere has, indeed, been much dispute as to whether the Aborigines of Australia have any idea, or germ of an idea, of a God; anything more than vague beliefs about unattached spirits, mainly mischievous, who might be pro…
  59. Byamee in Byamee and Social Organisation#13511905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person NarrativesIf it is necessary to speak to them of Byamee, he is called Boyjerh, which means Father, just as in the Theddora tribe the women speak of Darramulun as Papang, 'Father.' Among the Euahlayi both women and the uninitiated…
  60. Byamee in Byamee and Social Organisation#13501905 / Wikisource / NSW / Spirit-Person NarrativesRidley translated our 'God' by 'Baiame.' He supposed that native term, which he found and did not introduce, to be a derivative from the verb baia, or biai, 'to make.' Literally, however, at least in Euahlayi, the word…

This collection contains 108 search-ready records. The complete record set remains discoverable through the paginated public record index.