by the
present work--nor yet the limits within which the myth in question or
its analogues are part of the native mythology. These analogues to the
story of the battle of Eaglehawk and Crow, ended in the Darling area
according to tradition by a treaty between the contending birds, are
myths in which birds are said to have destroyed the human race, or a
large portion of it, to have contended with Baiame, or one of the other
gods, or to have figured in some other conflict[102]. The bird of this
myth--the bird conflict myth, as it may be termed--is the Eaglehawk.
Possibly, as I have pointed out in the note in _Man_, both bird conflict
myths and Eaglehawk-Crow myths--they may be termed collectively bird
myths--may go back to a common origin. So far as Mr Mathew's evidence
goes, bird myths do not seem to be told outside the colony of Victoria
and the Darling area of New South Wales.

A little research, however, shows that this idea is altogether
erroneous. There are unfortunately large areas in Australia, as to the
mythology of which we know absolutely nothing. Therefore it must not be
supposed that the bird conflict myth is confined to the districts in
which we have evidence of its existence. We may rather infer that a myth
so widely distributed--it ranges from the head of the Bight, 129 deg. E., to
the coast north of Sydney, and probably as far as Moreton Bay; to the
north it is found among the Urabunna, and probably elsewhere--is common
property of the Australian Tribes.

A glance at the map will show that the eaglehawk and crow myth covers
but a small portion of the area in which the bird conflict myth is
found. On the other hand we find within the eaglehawk-crow myth district
the phratry names Cockatoo, three names of unknown meaning, and the
doubtful Kiraru--Kirarawa. Now if a racial conflict is indicated by the
names eaglehawk and crow, this must be either because the contending
races were already known by these names, or because the two birds in
question are proverbially hostile to each other. In either case we are
left without any explanation of the two cockatoo phratries. It may
indeed be argued that the locality in which the eaglehawk-crow phratry
names are found tells strongly in favour of the racial conflict
hypothesis; for it is precisely in this area that the last stand of the
aborigines against the invaders may, on the theory put forward by Mr
Mathew and accepted by some anthropologists[103], be supposed to