When the dark people first came to live on the earth they formed themselves into tribes. The tribes kept to the land allotted them and did not interfere with each other.
Then men of each tribe married the girls of their own tribe. The women of one tribe could not marry the men of another tribe, nor were they allowed to speak to these men. This was the law.
In these days the Crow tribe had few men that a woman would desire. The Crow men were old and slow in hunting.
One Crow man had a daughter whom he loved, and so that she might rear sons of courage he gave her in marriage to an Eaglehawk man who was famed for his valour.
The tribes were angry at this breaking of the law, but the Eaglehawk man was a warrior and they were afraid to oppose him.
The daughter of the Crow man was happy with her husband, but he was often away hunting, and gradually she grew discontented. She was always restless when he was away and, at these times, she looked with favour at other men.
One day, the Eaglehawk man returned from the hunt and found his wife talking to a man of the Magpie tribe.
He fell into a rage at the sight, for though he had broken the law in his marriage he abided by the law in other things. And he was a jealous man.
Thereafter he refused to get food for his wife, nor would he allow others to feed her.
So she became thin and weak, and when her first-born arrived, she died among the women. And if it had not been for her hunger she would have lived.
The Eaglehawk man, her husband, took his son and gave him to another woman to rear, and his love for this son was great.
The brother of the Eaglehawk man’s wife, a Crow man, heard of his sister’s death and he swore to avenge her. He bided his time and when the baby had grown and could play with other children he saw how greatly the Eaglehawk man loved the child, and he decided to kill it so that the suffering of the Eaglehawk man would be as great as that of his sister.
One day he approached the camp of the Eaglehawk man, staggering as if with the fatigue of a long journey, and holding his arm as if he had been injured in the chase.
The Eaglehawk man welcomed him and bade him rest. He gave him food, and the Crow man ate, then lay beneath a tree as if exhausted.
He stayed there for three days. On the third day the Eaglehawk man went hunting and the Crow man was left alone with the child.
Then he rose and killed the child, and around the place where he had killed him he trampled the grass and pounded the bare patches until dust arose and the earth was disturbed as if by many feet.
When the father returned the Crow man told him that a marauding tribe had killed his son and that he had routed them and driven them away.
The Eaglehawk man was grief-stricken and could not speak.
Next day he searched the trampled earth looking for footprints that would tell him what men had done this deed.
But the footprints were all the same and they were the footprints of the Crow man.
Then the Eaglehawk man knew, but he remained silent and next day he invited the Crow man to go hunting with him and they set off together towards the hills.
At the foot of the hills they came on two kangaroos feeding. The kangaroos saw them and bounded away, but the Crow man had raised his spear and was just about to hurl it at the fleeing animals when the Eaglehawk man attacked him from behind, bringing his nulla-nulla down with such force on the Crow man’s head that he killed him.
When he knew he was dead he rested awhile and thought of his son, then he dragged the Crow man’s body back to his camp and buried him beneath the ground.
By the time he had done this it was night, and he lay down to sleep. But no sooner had he closed his eyes than lightning flashed and thunder rumbled among the hills. A storm came down upon him and thunder shook the earth upon which he crouched.
Lightning struck again and again at the grave of the Crow man, and above the noise of the thunder he could hear the shouts of the Crow man go past him on the wind. And he was afraid because he knew that the Crow man had taken the lightning for his totem, and the Crow man’s spirit was seeking revenge.
The Eaglehawk man fled from place to place seeking shelter, but the lightning followed him with spears of flame so that his flesh was seared with the heat.
At last, exhausted, he flung himself beneath a ledge of rock and when he had done this all the thunder moved in upon him in one mighty sound above him. A shaft of lightning leapt forth, shattering the ledge of rock beneath which he sheltered and consuming the Eaglehawk man in a burst of light.
And out of the light, as from a nest, flew an eaglehawk. It rose into the night sky and was gone. Then from the grave of the Crow man a crow flew forth, a bird singed coal-black by lightning.
Next day the eaglehawk and the crow were seen by the tribes and it was the first time these birds had lived.