BLACK MAGIC

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20625, 5 August 1941, Page 5

BLACK MAGIC

AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES Mr. C. P. Mountford, head of a research expedition into Australia s centre, told three stories to Rotarians when he returned to Sydney. First: A station-owner in the far north hunted all the aborigines from his property. Tribal elders were enraged. They prepared a stick, permeated it with “the evil of drought’ and planted it within the .station boundaries. Except for general falls which may be years apart, rain in these inland areas is brought by thunderstorms. For the following 12 months every thunderstorm missed that property. Second: A medicine man claimed power to control 'thunderstorms, to make wind and rain at will and to turn whirlwinds from their track. As he and Mr. Mountford were speaking a whirlwind appeared. making straight towards them. Mr. Mountford grabbed his papers and hat. The old man sang a short chant. The whirlwind turned at right angles and oassed 50 yards away from them. The chant was later recorded on a gramophone record which is now at the Adelaide University.

Third: The expedition was in the Mann Ranges. All water'ioles but one were dry. The aborigines chanted for rain. Then they said it would arrive in plenty in five days if, it was a long way off, in three if it was close. It rained heavily on the evening of the fifth day.