ngs.
They were told that the oldest wirreenuns could see in their sacred
crystals pictures of the past, pictures of what was happening at a
distance in the present, and pictures of the future; some of which last
filled their minds with dread, for they said as time went on the
colours of the blacks, as seen in these magical stones, seemed to grow
paler and paler, until at last only the white faces of the Wundah, or
spirits of the dead, and white devils were seen, as if it should mean
that some day no more blacks should be on this earth.

The reason of this must surely be that the tribes fell away from the
Boorah rites, and in his wrath Byamee stirred from his crystal seat in
Bullimah. He had said that as long as the blacks kept his sacred laws,
so long should he stay in his crystal seat, and the blacks live on
earth; but if they failed to keep up the Boorah rites as he had taught
them, then he would move and their end would come, and only Wundah, or
white devils, be in their country.

It is said that this prophetic vision was the reason that so many of
the first-born half-caste babies were killed, the old wirreenuns seeing
in them the beginning of the end.

At the end of two moons they make back towards the place where the
Boorah had begun, and where preparations were now being made to receive
them.

They camped in the scrub near the old camp of the tribe who had started
the Boorah.

That night in the camp the Gayandi was heard again, another ceremony
was at hand.

The next day the women at the big camp made a big fire, a little
distance away. When this fire was nearly burnt out they covered it
thickly with Budtha, Dheal, and Coolabah leaves to make a great smoke.
On the top of these leaves, which were piled about two feet high, logs
were placed; this fire was round a Dheal tree.

When the thick smoke was seen curling up in a column, the Boorahbayyi
were brought out of the scrub by the Munthdeegun, while in the distance
sounded the whizzing voice of the Boorah spirit. As it ceased, when the
women's chanting rose above it, the painted boys came into the open. On
they came, heads down and hands on thighs, looking neither to the right
nor to the left, but walking straight ahead until they stood on the
logs on the fire. They leaned over and placed a hand each on the tree
in the centre, there they stood while the smoke curled all round them.
The women past child-bearing were singing all the time, while the men
dance