Ngolokwongga (Ngulugwongga, Mullukmulluk)

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Long ago, Narek, Cockatoo Woman, married Majen, Black-Duck Man, and went to live with him. But Majen lived on a large lake surrounded by swamp, and Narek was unhappy.

"You promised a beautiful place for us to live," she complained. "But here it stinks, and there is water everywhere, and I can't swim. Let's go live in the bush country."

"Wait, I'll splash out most of the water from the lake. Then trees will grow, but there will still be some swamp, and we'll both be happy."

But Majen's plan to drain the lake did not work. Then an especially wet rainy season came, and the water rose and flooded all the surrounding country. When Narek complained more, Majen said, "You can go if you want to, but this is my country, and I can't leave it."

"I'll stay with you," Narek said, "but you have to make me a canoe so I can follow you while you swim."

Majen went to the other side of the lake looking for a tree to make a canoe from. While he was gone, a big storm came, and the water rose higher. Narek, surrounded by water, could not run away, so she went into the hollow of a tree. The water rose higher and covered the entrance to the hollow. Narek climbed higher in the hollow, but there was no way out. Majen came back that night with the canoe he had made, but he could not find Narek anywhere.

"She must have drowned," he thought sadly, "and I'll never see her again." He changed himself into the Black Duck and stayed living on the lake.

After long waiting, Narek also thought that the storm had drowned her spouse. "I don't want to be a woman any more," she said. She changed herself into the Cockatoo and broke out of the hollow with her bill.

Sreten Bozic and Alan Marshall, Aboriginal Myths (Melbourne: Gold Star Publications, 1972), 53-55.