Gunai (Kurnai)

(map)

Tiddalik, the largest frog ever known, once drank up all the fresh water in the world. None of the other animals could get anything to drink. They agreed that getting Tiddalik to laugh would cause him to disgorge the water, but none could do so. At last Nabunum the eel came before the frog and danced. His wriggling was so comical that Tiddalik laughed, and the water flowed from his mouth back into the world.

The water flowed so rapidly that it covered the countryside. All drowned except a man and two or three women who took refuge on a mud island near Port Albert. Pelican came by in his canoe and went to help them. He fell in love with one of the women. He ferried the others to the mainland, but left her for last. Afraid of being alone with him, the woman dressed a log in her opossum rug so it looked like her, left it by the fire, and swam to the mainland. The pelican returned and flew into a passion when the log dressed as a woman wouldn't answer him. He kicked it, which only hurt his foot and made him angrier. He began to paint himself white so that he might fight the woman's husband. Another pelican came up when he was halfway through with these preparations, but not knowing what to make of the strange half black and half white creature, pecked him and killed him. That is why pelicans are now black and white.

Dixon, 1916, 279-280; Frazer, 1919, 234-236; Mountford, Charles P. and Ainslie Roberts, The Dreamtime Book (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1973), 24, 38