A neighbour of mine exclaimed, when I mentioned that I proposed making a
small collection of the folk-lore legends of the tribe of blacks I knew
so well living on this station, "But have the blacks any legends?"--thus
showing that people may live in a country and yet know little of the
aboriginal inhabitants; and though there are probably many who do know
these particular legends, yet I think that this is the first attempt
that has been made to collect the tales of any particular tribe, and
publish them alone. At all events, I know that no attempt has been made
previously, as far as the folklore of the Noongahburrahs is concerned.
Therefore, on the authority of Professor Max Muller, that folk-lore of
any country is worth collecting, I am emboldened to offer my small
attempt, at a collection, to the public. There are probably many who,
knowing these legends, would not think them worth recording; but, on
the other hand, I hope there are many who think, as I do, that we
should try, while there is yet time, to gather all the information
possible of a race fast dying out, and the origin of which is so
obscure. I cannot affect to think that these little legends will do
much to remove that obscurity, but undoubtedly a scientific and patient
study of the folk-lore throughout Australia would greatly assist
thereto. I, alas! am but an amateur, moved to my work by interest in
the subject, and in the blacks, of whom I have had some experience.
The time is coming when it will be impossible to make even such a
collection as this, for the old blacks are quickly dying out, and the
young ones will probably think it beneath the dignity of their
so-called civilisation even to remember such old-women's stories. Those
who have themselves attempted the study of an unknown folk-lore will be
able to appreciate the difficulties a student has to surmount before he
can even induce those to talk who have the knowledge he desires. In
this, as in so much else, those who are ready to be garrulous know
little.
I have confined this little book to the legends of the Narran tribe,
known among themselves as Noongahburrahs. It is astonishing to find,
within comparatively short distances, a diversity of language and
custom. You may even find the same word in different tribes bearing a
totally different meaning. Many words, too, have been introduced which
the blacks think are English, and the English think are native. Such,
for example, as piccaninny, and, as far as these outside blacks are
concerned, boomerang is regarded as English, their local word being
burren; yet nine out of ten people whom you meet think both are local
native words.
Though I have written my little book in the interests of folk-lore, I
hope it will gain the attention of, and have some interest for,
children--of Australian children, because they will find stories of old
friends among the Bush birds; and of English children, because I hope
that they will be glad to make new friends, and so establish a free
trade between the Australian and English nurseries--wingless, and
laughing birds, in exchange for fairy godmothers, and princes in
disguise.
I must also acknowledge my great indebtedness to the blacks, who, when
once they understood what I wanted to know, were most ready to repeat
to me the legends repeating with the utmost patience, time after time,
not only the legends, but the names, that I might manage to spell them
so as to be understood when repeated. In particular I should like to
mention my indebtedness to Peter Hippi, king of the Noongahburrahs; and
to Hippitha, Matah, Barahgurrie, and Beemunny.
I have dedicated my booklet to Peter Hippi, in grateful recognition of
his long and faithful service to myself and my husband, which has
extended, with few intervals, over a period of twenty years. He, too,
is probably the last king of the Noongabburrahs, who are fast dying
out--, and soon their weapons, bartered by them for tobacco or whisky,
alone will prove that they ever existed. It seemed to me a pity that
some attempt should not be made to collect the folk-lore of the quickly
disappearing tribe--a folk-lore embodying, probably, the thoughts,
fancies, and beliefs of the genuine aboriginal race, and which, as
such, deserves to be, indeed, as Max Muller says, "might be and ought
to be, collected in every part of the world."
The legends were told to me by the blacks themselves, some of whom
remember the coming of Mitchellan, as they call Major Mitchell, the
explorer of these back creeks. The old blacks laugh now when they tell
you how frightened their mothers were of the first wheel tracks they
saw. They would not let the children tread on them, but carefully
lifted them over, lest their feet should break out in sores, as they
were supposed to do if they trod on a snake's track. But with all their
fear, little did they realise that the coming of Mitchellan was the
beginning of their end, or that fifty years afterwards, from the
remnant of their once numerous tribe, would be collected the legends
they told in those days to their piccaninnies round their camp-fires,
and those legends used to make a Christmas booklet for the children of
their white supplanters.
I can only hope that the white children will be as ready to listen to
these stories as were, and indeed are, the little piccaninnies, and
thus the sale of this booklet be such as to enable me to add frocks and
tobacco when I give their Christmas dinner, as is my yearly custom, to
the remnant of the Noongahburrahs.
K. LANGLOH PARKER,
BANGATE, NARRAN RIVER, NEW SOUTH WALES,
June 24th, 1895.