Now on my Father’s side, which is Nyul Nyul, I will tell some of the stories he told me.
But first, one of the greatest gifts, apart from my stories, that my father has left is the Nyul Nyul language. This language i hope will be learnt by all of my children and Grandchildren so that they can benefit and retain some aspects of their Nyul Nyul Heritage and identity.
WARRAGAYAN
A long time ago in Ngarlan, the place where Beagle Bay now stands, a very strange and frightening thing happened. This was a long time before any European or white people (wajbal) were around around this part of country. Some of the women and children from the Nyul Nyul went down to the springs for Bilginy, and nirlboon, the small bush onion. One of the women had brought with her a small baby. She cut some of the paperbark from walamangkarr, the paperbark tree, and lay her baby down on it while she got the bush food from the springs. The woman was busy digging for the food when her baby started to cry. The baby cried and cried but the mother kept digging and filling up her binjin, the bark basket, with food.
All of a sudden there was a great gysh of wind, just like a whirlwind, this is called Galgriny. But it was Warragayin, the giant eagle. She had heard the baby’s crying and swooped down to pick her up in her sharp claws and flew away to her nest. All they could see was the wind from Warragayan's giant wings and the people had thought that it was a miriljoon, the large dark spirit that takes away people and never bring them back. They could hear the baby crying and crying high in the sky as Warragayan flew north to her nest at Pender Bay.
When the mother came back to the camp, the father of the child said to her, "Where is my child? Come and bring me my child".
The woman was afraid because she had to tell her husband that Warragayan had taken their baby from them. The husband was so angry and he gave his wife a beating for not looking after their child the way she should have been doing.
As a young boy I saw this same nest up at Pender Bay when I went with my Father. If you go there today you will see still see the big nest of Warragayan, but please remember, if you go there you must go with someone who is from that area.
LOOLOOLOOL, and the seagulls.
In the early dreamtime, there were two seagulls. They lived at Doonyoorood, the bay now called Beagle Bay. The seagulls spent their time walking along the beaches and flying over the sea looking for fish. There was always plenty to eat in the bay. Other sea birds had their home along the beaches and hills near Doonyoorood. The birds liked to fly along the beaches, going backwards and forwards. The sea birds often flew to a spot where they had seen a mob of fish.
One day they flew out to find that mob of fish was only sharks! This frightened the sea birds and most of them flew back to their homes. Only two sea gulls decided to fly further out to sea. It wasn't long before they spotted great big shark swimming towards them. The two sea gulls flew up into the sky screeching in fright. The large shark swam around them in a circle below and called out in a friendly voice, "Come down here, I am your friend. I will give you a lift.
The two sea gulls liked the sound of his voice and decided to trust the great shark, and so flew down to land on his back. As soon as they landed on the sharks back, the seagulls turned into men. Looloolool, the great shark, knew that they had become men and he began tom swim out to the deep part of the ocean. Soon the men were able to speak in language, just as they do today. All of a sudden, the two men saw a large turtle and decided to jump and capture it for their food. They wrestle with it for a long time until the turtle was so tired and couldn't swim anymore.
Then the men swam with the turtle and climbed onto the shark's head and put the turtle down into the large hollow in the middle of his head. Looloolool, was so big that the hollow on the top of his head was big enough to fit a large turtle and two men in it. On the journey back to the beach with the two men and the turtle. When they reached the beach, the men killed it and gave Looloolool two flippers.
In the early days, when culture and Lore was still very strong in our area, Looloolool was always friendly to people and helped the men in their hunt for food in return for a small share of their catch. The old people used to say that Looloolool was very big, and very long and that his skin was a dark-brownish grey colour. He has been seen by a lot of the old people in Beagle Bay and One Arm Point area.
Totemism or Ries
In Aboriginal myths and stories, many animals, especially birds play a major role. These are not simple fables but reports based on totem beliefs. It is believed that the ancestors of an animal species has somewhere come in touch with the ancestor of a human group., or sometimes people feel related in some way to a particular animal. In this way clans originated, groups which worship a particular animal as their totem, for instance, The Emu clan, the Pelican clan, etc. The members of a particular clan group are not allowed to marry each other. It is customary that the totem animal is not killed, and must not be eaten by members of the clan. Yet in Central Australia the law is not observed.
The following is one of many totem-astral stories.:
Ngaudenaut. The Sun Heater.
Because of the Crane's cunning, the emu's wings were clipped so that he had to stay on earth and couldn't return to the kingdom of the clouds. After some time, the injured Emu saw the malicious Crane coming towards him. Scornfully, the Emu went at him, but in a jump, the Crane was over him into the middle of the emu's nest where he danced viciously on the eggs, smashing them all except one, which he flung into the clouds with all his might. Ngaudenaut, a man who lived in the clouds where there is extensive bush, had a pile of wood and stacked branches. From the friction of the egg rushing with force against the pile of wood, the dry wood caught fire.
The fire cast a glow on to the earth. Night disappeared and the sky was red. Little flowers woke up and opened their petals, and animals stsrted to stir. the fire become brighter and brighter until the burning stack looked like a fiery ball lighting the East. It became hotter, and by midday, the increasing fiery glow began to to decrease, and slowly burn down, until, in the evening, only glowing cinders remained. When these had colled off, it once again become dark as night, and darkness enveloped the earth.
When Ngaudenaut saw what a beautiful rotation of light and darkness, morning, midday, evening and night, was caused on earth by his burning wood heap, he decided again and again to light his fire, and so this Sun Heater wanders out into the dark cloud bush every night and collects a mountain of wood to light in the morning with the spark he saved from the glowing cinders.
