Jabiru (crane) went along. She was perched there first (i.e. before the others arrived), at a huge billabong (pond). She sat there, (at) her nest.

* Contains root /-ay/ 'nest' and 3FSg_der /-n^gariG-/ as well as 3FSg n^gara-. Without derivational prefixes, /-ay/ takes the form a:y (see below, 10.6)

A hoy and his father. He (the hoy) held him by the arm. By means of a walking stick (staff) (the old man walked). The two of them went along to there (the billabong). The father could not look (i.e. was blind). He did like this (groping along). He (the son) held him by the arm. (I.e. the father was old, blind, and decrepit.)

* Reduplication of /-ana=nima-/ with /-ana-/ 'arm' and /=nima-/ 'to hold', plus 3MSg/3MSg_a prefix /nu-/. The compound /-ana=nima-/ is irregular in that the retroflexion of the first nasal induces retroflexion of the second, hence -ana-nima-

Then along here came the sound of the brolga singing, "guda:::rg!" It was doing like that, toward the billabong. (The hoy said to his father,) "The brolga is calling from over in that direction. It is over here. Let's go that way to the billabong. We will go to that billabong and there we will drink some water."

Note: Brolgas (see texts 6 and 7) are large birds who tend to stay near billabongs and whose call is loud and conspicuous. Here the boy and his father hear a brolga calling and infer that a billabong is nearby.

They both went along. There was the billabong, stretching out widely. Then he (the boy) went on further. (He told his father,) "You stay here. All right?" "Yes," he said.

As for the son, he went along. He collected some water for him (in a paperbark container). He got it for him (the father) and went along back. As for her (Jabiru), she was sitting up in a tree then.

He did not see her up in her nest. She perched (there), that Jabiru. He (the boy) went along. He got some water. He drank. He stooped down (to drink). He drank the water.

Note: wini- 3MDu_a in the second line is an error; emend to ni- 3MSg_a. The boy (the son of the old man) is the only subject.

Then it (the water) made him feel a little bloated and dizzy here (in the belly). He was feeling funny in the guts. He went along, but then he fell asleep. He slept for a long time.

Then she (Jabiru) saw him. She flew down quickly from there. She was coming toward him. She did that, she stretched out her wings (to fly). She landed.

Then she poked through the mud (in which the boy had fallen). She saw him. As for him (the boy), he was like this, lying face up. She poked through it (the mud) several times. She was about to poke through it again.

Note: Jabiru has a general idea where the boy is because she sees a bulge in the mud at the side of the billabong. However, she has to poke with her long bill into this area several times before she actually hits the boy.

Then she cut through him at the waist, along here. She cut him up (with her long bill) and ate him. There was nothing but blood lying there.

He (the father) felt a twinge in his shoulder, here. He was struck by the premonition that some monster was attacking his son.

Note: There is a common notion that, even now, Aboriginal people can 'feel' that a close relative is in danger or dying, even at a great distance. This usually takes the form of a sharp twinge in a body part. Some living Aboriginals claim that they felt such a sign and later learned that a relative of theirs had died at that instant in some distant location. The term ga:n^ggan^yun^g means 'monster', 'some awful thing', or the like with emphasis both on its unknown identity and its dangerous qualities. English 'something' is used by Milton in the same sense.

Quickly he picked something like this up. A stone, he picked up a stone. Then he slashed it across his eyes. He cut himself along here, over the eyes. He kept cutting his eyes some more. Then he blinked, and shouted "ouch!" Then he was able to look (i.e. his vision returned), just like they (most people) can see.

Note: In niwu=mi-n^y 'he picked it up ' at the beginning of this segment, Milton uses ANA(_wu) object, but this is only because he has not yet come up with the concrete noun, namely nuga 'stone'. Once he comes up with the noun the noun class shifts to MANA, hence nima=mi-n^y in the second line.

Then he (the old man) went to that body of water. He followed his (i.e. his son's) footprints. He looked around (and saw) blood. The blood of the boy was lying there.

Then she (Jabiru) saw him from over where she was. He (the old man) looked over that way, and said, "Oh my goodness! Oh dear! Here comes that monster which killed my son!"

Then he got down in the mud at the side of the water. Again, in that direction, he drank. He was down in the mud. He went down into it, hiding. He was there, in the mud under the surface of the water. He held here (in his hand) that whatchamacallit, a (sharp) stone. Like a shovel spear--(or rather,) a stone spear.

Note: a-la:ma-yi: in the last line, with ANA_p prefix, is emended from ama-la:ma-yi: on the tape at the speaker's request; he had just been using a MANA class noun and accidentally used a MANA_p prefix here. A stone spear has a sharp flint spearhead.; a shovel spear has a thin flat metal blade. Milton first said 'shovel spear' but then changed this to 'stone spear' as the more appropriate comparison.

He (the old man) was holding it (the stone). She could see him over here under the surface there. He was like this, lying on his back face up (under the surface).

As for her (Jabiru), she poked through the surface of the mud then. She saw where he was (i.e. she saw the bulge in the mud where he was hiding). She was poking around in it erratically. She was coming close, but he did not react. She did it (poke through mud) this way and that, again she did it over this way.

Note: The word arbidi, usually translated as 'anyway' in local creole and semi-creolized English, suggests the suspension of a normal restriction on some form of behavior; here I render it as 'erratically' in the paragraph translation.

Then, just as she was about to jump (at him) from there, suddenly he jumped out of the mud there. He grabbed her (Jabiru) and cut her up along here and here. That is all.

* Purposive -yun^gguyun^g added to a Past Potential verb form