THE UNIVERSE

There seems to be a universal belief among the Australian aborigines that the earth is a flat surface, surmounted by the solid vault of the sky. The legend of the Yuri-ulu tells how, after the holding of the Wilyaru ceremony they went on their wanderings, and finally beyond the mountains passed through what may be briefly termed a “hard darkness” into another country, whence looking back, they recognised what they had passed through as the edge of the sky. The Kapiri legend shows that the earth is supposed to be bordered by water; the Mura-mura Madaputa-tupuru, and the Mankara Waka and Pirna having both reached it in their wanderings.

The Wolgal belief is that there is water all round the flat earth. They know of the sea round the coast for a great distance, and heard of it from the more distant blacks, even before the white men came.

The sky is a something, on the other side of which is another country like this, with trees and rivers. It is there that Thuramulung lives with the Bulabong, the ghosts.

A Wotjobaluk legend runs that at first the sky rested on the earth and prevented the sun from moving, until the magpie (goruk) propped it up with a long stick, so that the sun could move, and since then “she” moves round the earth.