The wirreenuns are masters of their Mullee Mullees, sending them where
they please, to do what they are ordered, always provided they do not
meet a greater than themselves.

All sorts of complications arise through the substitution of mad or
evil spirits for the rightful Doowee. Be sure if you think any one has
suddenly changed his character unaccountably, there has been some
hankey-pankey with that person's Doowee. One of the greatest warnings
of coming evil is to see your totem in a dream; such a sign is a herald
of misfortune to you or one of your immediate kin. Should a wirreenun,
perhaps for enmity, perhaps for the sake of ransom, decide to capture a
Doowee, he will send his Mullee Mullee out to do it, bidding the Mullee
Mullee secrete the Doowee in his--the wirreenun's--Minggah, tree or
rock.

When he is consulted as to the return of the missing Doowee, he will
order the one who has lost it to Sleep, then the Doowee, should the
terms made suit the wirreenun, re-enters the body. Should it not do so,
the Doowee-less one is doomed to die.

In a wirreenun's Minggah, too, are often secreted shadow spirits stolen
from their owners, who are by their loss dying a lingering death, for
no man can live without Mulloowil, his shadow. Every one has a shadow
spirit which he is very careful not to parade before his enemies, as
any injury to it affects himself. A wirreenun can gradually shrink the
shadow's size, the owner sickens and dies. 'May your shadow never be
less!'

The shadow of a wirreenun is, like his head, always mahgarl, or taboo;
any one touching either will be made to suffer for such sacrilege.