Legend of the Mirrabooka

The Southern Cross is a constellation visible in the night sky of the southern hemisphere. It’s visible from anywhere in Australia, throughout the year. The Aborigine people call it Mirrabooka.

In the beginning of beginnings, in the time before time, Baiame, the Great Spirit of the Sky, walked over the red earth that he had created. He scraped some earth off the ridge and shaped two men out of it. He gave them life and thus were born the first humans. He still had some clay left and he made a woman. For food, he showed them the plants that they could eat, and the roots they could dig up from the ground below.

‘Eat these and drink the water and you will never go hungry,’ he told them and departed for the heavens above. The three people lived happy and content for some time, following the instructions of the Great Spirit.

Then there came the time of a big drought and all the plants began to wither and die and the roots shrunk under the earth. ‘There is nothing to eat now. What shall we do? We must find something to eat,’ said the first man to his companions.

‘We can kill an animal,’ suggested the woman. ‘We can eat its flesh and drink its blood.’ The two men looked at her in surprise.

‘We cannot!’ said the first man.

‘The Great Spirit never told us that we could kill animals and eat them. They are his children too, just like us,’ said the second man.

‘But I don’t think he meant for us to starve. We cannot sit and wait to die. Now, go and find us an animal to eat,’ ordered the woman who had clearly decided to call the shots.

The first man went hunting and returned with a kangaroo he killed with a large stone. The woman deftly skinned the animal and roasted its flesh over a fire. She offered the cooked meat to her companions. The first man ate with relish but the second man refused to touch it.

He looked at the other two in sadness and shook his head, without saying a word. The others pressed the food on him but he walked away. He walked through the sandhills and ridges towards the river, which was now reduced to a weak stream.

After they had eaten, the man and the woman went in search of their companion. Past the sandhills they went, walking all the way to the edge of the river at the end of the plain. They saw the second man at the other side of the river, weakened by hunger, making his way to a yaaran, a ghost gum tree. They called out to him but he paid no heed. Just as he reached the foot of the tree, he collapsed and died.

The others watched in horror as suddenly, a dark figure with fiery eyes appeared beside him. It was Yowi, the spirit of the dead, who had come to claim him. Lifting the body of the lifeless man, the spirit placed it in a hollow in the centre of the skeletal tree.

Suddenly there was a terrifying clap of thunder, followed by lightning and the man and woman fell to the ground in shock and fear. They looked at the yaaran and saw it being uprooted from the earth and being carried away up towards the southern sky. All they could see were two pairs of fiery eyes that blazed from it. They belonged to Yowi and their dead companion.

The silence was broken by the screeching of a couple of mooyis, white cockatoos, who took flight following the gum tree. The ghost tree had been their roosting place and they were calling out for it to stop. The tree flew and flew until it reached the Warrambool, the Milky Way, which leads to the abode of the gods, and planted itself there.

As darkness fell, all that could be seen in the southern sky were the two pairs of fiery eyes that glowed in the night and the white wings of the mooyi. Thus was born the Mirrabooka, as the Aborigine people call the constellation Southern Cross. This, they believe, are the eyes of the compassionate first man who embraced death. The Baiame, the Great Spirit, placed him there to watch over the world.