One is that when the blacks were camped there many years ago, the camp was roused at night by the shouts for help of a blackfellow, who was found by those who ran up lying on his back in his camp, with his wife holding him. He was 'shaking as if with cold,' and said that he 'was awoke by a Mrart pulling him out of his camp by the leg.' Another account is of a Mrart who was seen at that place in the day-time by a large number of blacks. He, they say, was running along the edge of the tea-tree, carrying the net-bag. One blackfellow who spoke of this said he was a little boy at the time, and remembers how his mother ran into the lake with him, and that the blackfellows fled in all directions with terror. He says the Mrart was like a very tall blackfellow, and that his eyes were flames.
Mrarts appear also to the blacks often when asleep. One blackfellow has told me that when he was camped on the Mitchell River, near Iguana Creek, a few years ago, assisting to gather wild cattle, two Mrarts appeared to him in the night as he slept. They were tall, and had long hands; they stood side by side at his fire, and were about to speak, when he awoke; then they were gone. But he saw on the spot where they stood a Bulk (one of the magical stones used by the Aborigines). He kept the Bulk as a potent charm.
Connected with the Mrarts are the Birra-arks. There are no Birra-arks now living. The last one, Dinna Birra-ark, was a blackfellow who was shot near the Lakes when the country was first settled. Dinna Birra-ark is rendered as meaning The Birra-ark. Many blacks now living remember these people, and the following particulars are condensed from the account given to me by several Aborigines:—A Birra-ark was a blackfellow who was in communication with the spirits of the dead—of the Bungil Wour-kunyey (the old blackfellows). Any blackfellow may be made a Birra-ark who is found by Mrarts in the bush; but he must at the time be wearing one of the small bones of the kangaroo's leg, called Goombert, through the hole pierced in his nose. The Mrarts carry him off, it is said, up a ladder, which swings up into the clouds. There he is instructed, and when he returns to his friends he is a Birra-ark. The Mrarts teach him the corrobboree songs and dances, and he in his turn instructs the blacks. He seems to be the poet and magician of the tribe. Many of the songs used here were composed by the Dinna Birra-ark I have spoken of—the last of the bards. He was also consulted about many things—for instance, of the whereabouts and well-being of some friend whom the questioner had not heard of for a long time; or as to whether any strange blacks (Borajerack) were coming down 'on the war path;' and, when the country was first being settled, as to where cattle were to be found in the mountains. The mode of procedure was this: On the evening fixed, a little after dark, the Birra-ark goes out of the camp into the bush. All the blacks in the camp keep quiet, very frightened; one only 'cooyes' very loud for a long time; then a noise is heard. (The narrator here struck a book against the table several times to describe it.) This is Bullun-Bowkan (the great spirit) coming first. Then a loud whistle is heard up in the air at one side of the camp, then another loud whistle in the air on the other side; then is heard the sound of Mrarts jumping down on the ground one after the other. They can
