Atondido Stories
she felt sure he knew their fate, and certain she was that he had
some tale to tell, for his arms were covered with blood.
The chief of her tribe listened to her. When she had finished and
begun to wail for her daughters, whom she thought she would
see no more, he said, "Mother of the Bilbers, your daughters
shall be avenged if aught has happened to them at the hands of
Narahdarn. Fresh are his tracks, and the young men of your
tribe shall follow whence they have come, and finding what Na-
rahdarn has done, swiftly shall they return. Then shall we hold a
corrobboree, and if your daughters fell at his hand Narahdarn
shall be punished."
The mother of the Bilbers said: "Well have you spoken, oh
my relation. Now speed ye the young men lest the rain fall or
the dust blow and the tracks be lost." Then forth went the fleetest
footed and the keenest eyed of the young men of the tribe. Ere
long, back they came to the camp with the news of the fate of the
Bilbers.
That night was the corrobboree held. The women sat round
in a half-circle, and chanted a monotonous chant, keeping time
by hitting, some of them, two boomerangs together, and others
beating their rolled up opossum rugs.
Big fires were lit on the edge of the scrub, throwing light on
the dancers as they came dancing out from their camps, painted
in all manner of designs, waywahs round their waists, tufts of
feathers in their hair, and carrying in their hands painted wands.
Heading the procession as the men filed out from the scrub into
a cleared space in front of the women, came Narahdarn. The
light of the fires lit up the tree tops, the dark balahs showed out
in fantastic shapes, and weird indeed was the scene as slowly the
men danced round; louder clicked the boomerangs and louder
grew the chanting of the women; higher were the fires piled,
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