The Stone Axe of Burkamukk

The camp lay calm and peaceful under the spring sunlight. Burkamukk, the chief, had chosen its place well: the wurleys were built in a green glade well shaded with blackwood and...

Pilla and Inda travelled swiftly through the Bush for the first two days of their journey. They passed through good hunting country, where they were tempted by the sign of much...

Inda and Pilla took off the black hide of Kuperee, and pegged it out carefully with sharp sticks. Then they came back to the body, and their eyes glistened with satisfaction. Me...

Fire came with a group of seven strange women, the Kar-ak-ar-ook, who brought it from some unknown country. They dwelt with the blacks, and showed them how to use the new and wo...

Waung went proudly back to the tribe, and when they saw that he had actually stolen Fire from the women, they were both glad and astonished, and clustered round him, calling him...

Long ago, black people were scattered all over the earth, and the forests and plains were full of them. But a great flood came. For weeks it rained all day and all night, until...

Booran was a very clever bird. He was bigger than most of the water-fowl, and very strong. He was also very proud, partly because of his great wings, which would carry his heavy...

Very long ago, before the white man came to conquer the land, a tribe of black people lived in a great forest. Beyond their country was a range of mountains which separated them...

When he sank for the second time, he did it on purpose. The fall had not hurt him, and his mind worked quickly, for he knew that only cunning could save him. He swam under water...

Miraga ran swiftly into the heart of the forest, glancing back in terror, lest at any moment she should see Yurong. She heard him shout, and the crash of his feet in pursuit as...

Kur-bo-roo was a little black boy baby. His father and mother had no other children, and so they were very proud of him, and he always had enough to eat. It is often very differ...

After that, hard times came upon little Kur-bo-roo. There were none of his own family left, for the sickness had taken them all. His father and mother had been the last to die,...

Day after day it ran a little more slowly, and the deep holes at the bends shrank and dwindled away. The fish disappeared completely, having swum down-stream to where deeper wat...

Once there was a time when the blacks had no fire. They had not learned the way to make it by rubbing two sticks together; or if they had once known the way, they had forgotten...

He was not a lucky man. Once, in a big tribal fight, most of his relations had been killed; and when he was still quite a young man, his wife died of a mysterious sickness, befo...

Wurip lay on his back in the shade of a golden wattle and listened idly to the Bush voices talking round him. He heard far more than you would ever hear--voices of whispering le...