Woureddy, Native of Bruny Island, Van Diemen’s Land
from the diary of George Augustus Robinson, 7 July 1831
I proposed a question to my sable friends—how and where the first black man came from—to which question WOORRADY gave in very full detail the traditional account of this and other subjects, as believed by all the natives along the southern and western coasts of the island, and the natives assured me that the same tradition was believed by the whole of the natives in the island. The animated manner in which WOORRADY related the several incidents gave considerable effect to the story, and the profound silence and attention of the rest and the assent to the veracity of his statements by two of the natives belonging to the south coast, rendered it still more interesting.
…Said that MOIHERNEE, who dwelt off Louisa Bay (Coxes Bight)* used to fight with the devils, that plenty of devils dwelt at the TOOGEE LOW. WOORRADY said that MOIHERNEE made natives, that the devils stopped in the ground and that MOIHERNEE took him out of the ground and made PARLEVAR; that when he was first made he had a tail and no joints in his legs, that he could not sit down and always stood erect, that DROEMERDEEM saw him in this situation and came to him and cut off his tail, rubbed grease over the wound and cured it and made joints to his knees and told PARLEVAR to sit down on the ground, that PARLEVAR sat down and said it was NYERRAE good, very good. Said MOIHERNEE made all the rivers, that he cut the ground and made the rivers. DROEMERDEENER is the bright star seen in the south;** WOORRADY says he comes out of the sea, because seen from Brune which is on the south part of the island he must necessarily do so. Said that DROEMERDEENNE made kangaroo rat, that some natives was asleep when this animal made its appearance and that the rat came and threw stones at the natives, that the natives partly awoke and again slept, when he came again and threw more stones and repeated these visits till at length the natives caught him and put him in the ground, that by and by he came out and stopped in the bush and that afterwards the natives eat him. WOORRADY says there is a large tree at Recherche Bay on which is cut the head of a man in large size and also children, that the natives call it WRAEGGOWRAPER and that the children cry when they see it, that the native men destroyed it, and that this was done by the first white men.*** WOORRADDY said that MOI.NEE and DROME.MER.DEEN.NE fight in the heavens and that MOI.NEE tumbled down at Louisa Bay and dwelt on the land, that his wife came after him and dwelt in the sea, and that by and by the MOI.NEE children came down in the rain and went into the wife’s womb and that afterwards they had plenty of children. Said that MOI.NEE fight the WRAEGEOWRAPPE. There is a great similarity between this and Milton, where Lucifer is hurled down from heaven. Said that MOI. NEE cut the ground and made the rivers, cut the land and made the islands. Said that WRAG. GE.O.WRAPPER is like a black man only very big and ugly, and that he travels like the wind, that he comes and watches the natives all night and before daylight comes he goes away like swift wind.
Notes from the historian N. J. B. Plomley:
* ‘Coxes Bight’ deleted in MS and ‘Louisa Bay’ substituted.
** This bright star would be Canopus.
*** No mention has been noticed in the accounts of the early voyagers of such a carving, though it is certainly possible that someone shaped in that fashion the stump of a tree which had been felled. However, several of these expeditions left records of their visits in the form of inscriptions cut into tree trunks, and it is just possible that the natives interpreted the figures and letters as symbols of a man and children, from their resemblance to the circles and markings by which they themselves represented human beings.
