Cirrus@Austlit

'This story was recorded by the Rev. Lazarus Lamilami in his autobiography Lamilami Speaks'.

'This story is a compilation of two stories about how the people of the Torres Strait got fire. Wolfgang Laade recorded them in Dauan. The stories are well known, and versions have been recorded by other researchers. These versions were given to Laade by Elisala Bigi, Anau Mau and Mose Dau'.

'These two stories from New South Wales about Giwa the moon were originally recorded by R. H. Mathews. He identified the first as belonging to the Kurnu (Gurnu) people on the Darling River to the north of Bourke. Mathews said that he had omitted many of the details from the story. Some of the details added here did not appear in his original. The second story he attributes to the Wongaibon'.

'The Wik-Munkan people in north Queensland tell this story to explain how one of their creation ancestors, Min Tatya, the goanna, showed them how to make a bark canoe from the bark of the messmate tree. This is a kind of eucalypt'.

'A number of separate versions of this story have been recorded from the area around Roebourne in Western Australia. I have combined several of these versions which appeared in a collection of stories made and translated by C. G. von Brandenstein in 1970. The original storytellers were Cobbin Dale, R. Churnside, Gordon Mackay and C. Bobby'.

'This story is also about how a group of Aboriginal people got fire. It belongs to the Wongaibon people whose country lies between Wilcannia and Bourke in central western New South Wales. It seems that most people obtained fire by tricking those spirits who had it and stealing it from them. This story was recorded in a book written by R. H. Mathews in 1905'.