Aboriginal Stories

 

The Bunyee Bunyees

For a long time, the Elders were puzzled to know what had become of many of their young men who had gone out hunting and never returned. They would track these men to the edge of a lagoon, but there the tracks would disappear. Eventually the tribe developed such a dread of this place that they stopped fishing there.

One day, one of the Elders had a strange dream that the missing men were held in a cave near the lagoon. He decided to go to their rescue. When he reached the lagoon he swam across to the other side looking for a cave in the rock face. Just then two fearful creatures, Bunyee Bunyees, broke from the water. They were about four times the size of the largest dogs, covered with grey hair, with stumpy tails, four legs, hooves like horses, ferocious teeth and the tusks of a wild boar.

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The creatures tried to chase him back into the water but he ran along the bank, following a line of footprints. Up ahead he could see the dark entrance to a cave. He carefully stepped inside. Bones littered the floor. He noticed a movement up ahead. Here were the missing members of his tribe!

‘You too?’ they moaned. ‘Soon the Bunyee Bunyees will have the whole tribe captive here. We will never escape.’ And they sank upon the ground in despair.

‘Wait,’ said the new arrival, ‘I told the tribe that if I didn’t return from this journey by dusk, they were to follow and listen.’ Then he began to strike his yamstick hard against the roof of the cave. The sound echoed far and wide. Just as it seemed that they would never be rescued there came the sound of digging from above.

Anxiously the captives waited until at last a ray of light appeared. Then a fishing net strong enough for them to climb up was lowered down to them.

There was great rejoicing in the camp that night. The Elders put their rain stones in the fire and sang their drought songs until the lagoon dried up. Strange to say, in the dried-up lagoon the bones of the Bunyee Bunyees were never found.

 

Adapted from Catherine Stow, Woggheeguy: Australian Aboriginal Legends (Adelaide: F.W. Preece & Sons, 1930)

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