reeks.

31. WIRREENUN THE RAINMAKER

The country was stricken with a drought. The rivers were all dry except
the deepest holes in them. The grass was dead, and even the trees were
dying. The bark dardurr of the blacks were all fallen to the ground and
lay there rotting, so long was it since they had been used, for only in
wet weather did the blacks use the bark dardurr; at other times they
used only whatdooral, or bough shades.

The young men of the Noongahburrah murmured among themselves, at first
secretly, at last openly, saying: "Did not our fathers always say that
the Wirreenun could make, as we wanted it, the rain to fall? Yet look
at our country--the grass blown away, no doonburr seed to grind, the
kangaroo are dying, and the emu, the duck, and the swan have flown to
far countries. We shall have no food soon; then shall we die, and the
Noongahburrah be no more seen on the Narrin. Then why, if he is able,
does not Wirreenun inake rain?"

Soon these murmurs reached the ears of the old Wirreenun. He said
nothing, but the young fellows noticed that for two or three days in
succession he went to the waterhole in the creek and placed in it a
willgoo willgoo--a long stick, ornamented at the top with white cockatoo
feathers--and beside the stick he placed two big gubberah, that is, two
big, clear pebbles which at other times he always secreted about him,
in the folds of his waywah, or in the band or net on his head.
Especially was he careful to hide these stones from the women.

At the end of the third day Wirreenun said to the young men: "Go you,
take your comeboos and cut bark sufficient to make dardurr for all the
tribe."

The young men did as they were bade. When they had the bark cut and
brought in Wirreenun said: "Go you now and raise with ant-bed a high
place, and put thereon logs and wood for a fire, build the ant-bed
about a foot from the ground. Then put you a floor of ant-bed a foot
high whereever you are going to build a dardurr."

And they did what he told them. When the dardurr were finished, having
high floors of ant-bed and water-tight roofs of bark, Wirreenun
commanded the whole camp to come with him to the waterhole; men, women,
and children; all were to come. They all followed him down to the
creek, to the waterhole where he had placed the willgoo willgoo and
gubberah. Wirreenun jumped into the water and bade the tribe follow
him, which they did. There in the water they all splashed and