I will tell him (Heath) now (about) Green Turtle, a totem of the Mamba:li semimoiety people (of the Warndarang, Mara, and other southern tribes). About Green Turtle, he was ignorant. He went along. He and Catfish went along together. Catfish, of (from) the place Wuyagiba. They went along.

Note: There is some fluctuation between using NA and MSg for Green Turtle and Catfish here, to the extent that we can distinguish these two classes. Prefix yi:- twice in this segment is clearly NA class; on the other hand, 3MDu verb forms occur. Ma:di, the speaker, belongs to the Murun^gun clan located around Cape Barrow, related totemically to the Murun^gun-semimoiety clans to the south. See note to 18.16.

He (Green Turtle) went onto the land then. To whatchamacallit? Then this one (Turtle) thought about ('heard') the place Burunju. This one, Green Turtle, was going to go to Burunju then. He came along this way. On the way, he crossed over, he cut through the open bushland.

He (Green Turtle) went along. Whatchamacallit, he did it, he reached the place Wunbunji there. He ate some sharp-bladed grass (Imperata cylindrica). Sharp-bladed grass there. There is some of it over there (near where we are sitting) also. Green Turtle. A billabong like this (speaker spreads arms widely indicating great width of billabong).

He was eating it. Then, after that, the sharp grass jabbed him in the throat, because he ate the sharp grass. Then he went back.

He turned back. He turned back then and returned to Wuyagiba. He went along, and jumped into the water there at Wuyagiba. He is still there (as a totemic site). Green Turtle, he made the place Mayan^yjiyan^yji.

As for Catfish, only he went on farther. As for him (Catfish), he went through the middle (of the bushland), taking a shortcut. He did that at whatchamacallit, Wunuwarir.

He (Catfish) did that at the place Walan^galba, which had been made by the one who ate it (the grass, i.e. Green Turtle). From Walan^galba (Catfish went to) Marbamarbingu, and from there to Wanmari. Then he (Catfish) made it, Wanmari.

He stopped there for a while. Then he got up and left. He went along and left the circumcision ritual track along there, from Wuyagiba (to Wanmari, etc.). In addition (to the circumcision ritual), he performed the mortuary ritual. He performed its song cycles. He stopped at Burunju. He is there now (as a totemic site), at Burunju, and at Wanmari.

(But) Green Turtle went back there again, to Wuyagiba. Green Turtle did not stay there (inland, e.g. at Wanmari) for good, he did not go there (to stay).