The Little Black Princess — Part 19

Bett-Bett was Jimmy’s mother-in-law. Of course she wasn’t married yet, only engaged to Billy Muck; but that did not matter. She was Jimmy’s mother-in-law, and when she did grow up and have a piccaninny, it was to be his wife. In the meantime, nobody else could have her spare hair.

Common string is all right for common things, but charms and belts and special things must have hair-string, or they won’t keep Debbil-debbils away properly. This way of having the mother-in-law’s hair divides the hair of the tribe very evenly, as every man has two or three mothers-in-law.

When the treacle was finished, Sue began to dig a hole to lie down in. As she dug, she scratched up a little red and yellow worm. With a yell all the lubras grabbed hold of the poor little dog, and nearly pulled her in pieces in their hurry to get her away. Then they all shrieked and jabbered, and pointed at the scraggy wriggling thing, while Sue sat just where they had thrown her, too astonished to move.

“Well,” I said, “that worm won’t eat us, will it?”

“Him Rainbow Debbil-debbil,” they shrieked, shaking with fear at Sue’s narrow escape.

But they insisted that it was a baby Rainbow.

“Him piccaninny Rainbow alright,” they cried.

“Don’t be so silly,” I said, and bent forward to pick it up in my fingers; but they yelled their very best at this, and caught hold of my arms.

“Very well,” I said; “come and tell me all about it, and what a baby Rainbow is doing down here.”

We all moved to a place of safety, and they explained that what we call hailstones are really Rainbow’s eggs, and that they fall on the ground and hatch into worms— I mean baby Rainbows! The wise men of the tribe say it is so, and of course they know everything. This is how they found out:—many years ago a great number of hailstones fell, which is a very unusual thing on the Roper River; every one was afraid to touch them, for they didn’t know what they were; so they sat and looked at them in wonder until they had all burrowed into the ground—“melted,” the whites call it! Now this looked very strange, and after a great deal of talking, one very brave old blackfellow dug a hole to see what was happening underneath. Instead of hailstones, he found brightly-coloured little creatures—worms, of course—creeping about in the wet earth. Every one looked at them and said they were very like little Rainbows, and that they must have hatched out of the hailstones, which could be nothing else but Rainbow’s eggs. Of course everybody knew, before, that the grown-up Rainbow is a Debbil-debbil snake who lives in the Roper River, and that he kindly takes care of the fish supply for the blackfellows. He is very good, and allows you to catch as many fish as you can eat, but he can’t bear to see any wasted. He gets dreadfully angry if he knows that any one has been spearing fish for fun, and leaving them to rot on the banks. I don’t wonder at his anger, for if everybody did that, soon there would be no fish left.