Way, way back in the first time, when everything
was new, there was a group of Aboriginal
people living on a mountain. It was a lovely place,
but everyone was worried. It had not rained for a
long, long time and they were very short of water.
They had some
wells1 but these, except for one, were empty. When it had rained before, the water had just run down the side of the mountain, into the sea, which was far, far away. Now, on the other side of the mountain, there were just some big, dry plains where nothing grew.
Weeri and Walawidbit were two greedy men. They decided to steal the last of the water for themselves and then run away.
In secret, they made a large water-carrier,
which was called an eel-a-mun. When everyone
was asleep, they stole the water from the last well
and hurried off.
When the people woke up, there was no water
for them. This was very bad, because there were
little children and babies needing water and also
the old people. And also, it was very hot.
The Elders called all the people together and it
was then that they saw that two men
were missing.
Looking around, they found the tracks of the
two men. Quickly, the warriors followed these
tracks, which led down the other side of the
mountain to the big plains and they could see the
men in the distance.
The water-carrier was very heavy and Weeri
and Walawidbit
were walking slowly. This was
because they thought they were safe. However,
when they saw the warriors coming they ran, too.
The best spearmen in the group ran to a cliff
which jutted out and threw all the
spears2 they
had. One hit the eel-a-mun and dropped off.
However, it did make a hole in the water-carrier.
On and on across the plains ran the two men. They
did not notice that the water
was leaking out until
the carrier was almost empty. This was why they
had been able to run faster and by this time, the
warriors had caught up.
Now, this was way back in the first time, when
very strange things happened.
1. A well is a hole in the ground from which water is extracted
2. A spear is a weapon that looks like a javelin / a lance