Thus they still wander, showing themselves at times as living, and as life-givers.
The following legend does not seem to have any direct connection with the last, but speaks of the Yuri-ulu as being boys who had not yet been circumcised, while in the other legend it speaks of them as being the originators of the practice. This is remarkable, because while the last legend belongs to the Urabunna, this one belongs to their neighbours, the Wonkanguru.
An old blind widower lived at Mararu[1] with his two sons the Yuri-ulu, who from their early youth had to provide him with food. As they grew older they went farther afield hunting, and delighted to kill young birds with the boomerang, and to cook them for their father when they returned in the evening to their camp. One evening on returning they observed that an old man had come to the camp, and had seated himself close to them. They informed their father, and he told them to call the stranger. They did so, but received no answer, and even when they went to him and invited him to come to their father, he still remained silent. Not troubling themselves more about him, they ate their food, and darkness having come on, they lay down and slept. In the early morning the boys went out hunting, and then the stranger, after having warmed his hands at the fire to strengthen himself, seized the blind man, wrestled with him, struggled with him, struck him on the face and breast, and scratched his face with his nails till the blood came. Then taking a piece of wood he scraped the blood off. By the struggling and the scratching the dimness of the old man's eyes had been removed, so that he could see better than before. As the stranger had done to him, so he now did to the stranger—struck him and scratched him, until the blood came, which he wiped off, and then recognised the stranger as his Kami. After they had recognised each other as Kami-mara,[2]
- ↑ Mararu is to complete with the hand, to strike the pirha, that is, to strike the upturned wooden bowl, in a dance. Mara is the hand, and ru is the Wonkanguru causative termination, which in the Dieri is li, as mararu, marali. The place Mararu is said by our Wonkanguru informant to be not far from Birdsville, in a south-westerly direction.
- ↑ Kami-mara is the relation which a man bears to all those who are the children of his mother's brother, or of his father's sister. It is remarkable that in this legend the "fathers-in-law" are kami-mara, while with the Wonkanguru, as among the Dieri, it is the mothers-in-law who must be in that relation. Possibly the explanation may be that this legend had its origin in a tribe farther to the north, which like the Arunta has descent counted in the male line.
