growing in their fleshly cases, the owner having the power to produce
them at any time. The manifestation of such power is sometimes, at one
of these trials of magic, a small shower of pebbles as seeming to fall
from the heads and mouths of the rivals, and should by chance any one
steal any of these as they fall, the power of the original possessor
would be lessened. The dying bequeath these stones, their most precious
possessions, to the living wirreenun most nearly related to them.

The wirreenun's health and power not only depend upon his crystals and
yunbeai, but also on his Minggah; should an accident happen to that,
unless he has another, he will die--in any case, he will sicken. Many of
the legends deal with the magic of these spirit-animated trees.

They are places of refuge in time of danger; no one save the wirreenun,
whose spirit-tree it was, would dare to touch a refugee at a Minggah;
and should the sanctuary be a Goomarh, or spirit-stone, not even a
wirreenun would dare to interfere, so that it is a perfectly safe
sanctuary from humanly dealt evil. But a refugee at a Minggah or
Goomarh runs a great risk of incurring the wrath of the spirits, for
Minggah are taboo to all but their own wirreenun.

There was a Minggah, a great gaunt Coolabah, near our river garden.
Some gilahs build in it every year, but nothing would induce the most
avaricious of black bird-collectors to get the young ones from there.

A wirreenun's boondoorr, or dillee bag, holds a queer collection:
several sizes of gooweeras, of both bone and wood, poison-stones,
bones, gubberahs (sacred stones), perhaps a dillee--the biggest, most
magical stone used for crystal-gazing, the spirit out of which is said
to go to the person of whom you want to hear, wherever he is, to see