When we were first there they were very numerous and used to make raids at night to my rose-bushes--great havoc the result.

It is said a very great wirreenun--wizard--willed them away so that his enemy, whose yunbeai, or personal totem, the opossum was, should die.

This design was frustrated by counter magic; two powerful wizards appeared and, acting in concert, put a new yunbeai into the dying man; he recovered.
When the opossums were about the blacks used to see their scratched tracks on the trees, and chop or burn them out.

They miss the opossums very much, for not only were they a prized food, but their skins made rugs, their hair was woven into cords of which were made amulets worn on the forearm or head against sickness, and with no modern instrument can they so well carve their weapons, as with an opossum tooth.
Naturally their desire is to see Moodai, the opossum, return; to that end a wirreenun is now singing incantations to charm him back.
Opossum hunters had a way of bringing them home strung round their necks; very disagreeable, I should think, but custom, that tyrant, rules it so.

The old gins dug out yams vigorously; some were eaten raw, others were kept for cooking.
To cook them they dug out a hole, made a fire in it, put some stones on the fire, then, when the stones were heated and the fire burnt down, they laid some leaves and grass on the stones, sprinkled some water, then put on the yams, on top of them more grass, sprinkled more water, then more grass and a.