From a floor of rock they issued forth, south of Ilkakngara, from a little rock-hole. The rock was first opened by a curlew woman, who thrust her nose through the hard stone. A second curlew woman followed, then a third, a fourth, a fifth, and so on. And then a curlew man appeared, followed by a second, a third, a fourth, a fifth, and so on to the last. Finally they had all emerged.
The men who had issued forth last all grew angry against the man who had appeared first, perhaps because he had followed too closely upon the women. The first-born man lit a great blazing fire; and the others pointed a magic bone at him. The doomed man stretched himself out; he lay motionless for two nights. Then he died, and the rest buried him east of the floor of rock. Some of the women went to Tjolankuta, deep in grief; others went to Lkebalinja; others again sat down at the entrance of the gap where the Ilkakngara creek breaks through the range. They moved about in a women’s dance, to the accompaniment of shouts by the men, ‘bau! bau! bau! bau!’
But the dead man hollowed out the soil from underneath. Then his forehead emerged through the crust; next his temples reappeared; next his head became visible, up to his throat. His two shoulders, however, had become caught below.
Then the Urbura, the magpie, came from Urburakana. He rushed along in haste; he saw from a great distance away what was happening: ‘See, he has begun to sprout up again only a moment ago; but his two shoulders have become caught tightly and are still pinning him down.’ The dead man rose a little higher. The curlew women were approaching with dancing steps; they encircled him. The magpie rushed up, filled with deadly anger, to a mountain near-by, called Urburingka. Then he grasped a heavy mulga spear, thrust it deep into the neck of the dead man, and stamped him back into the ground with his heel, trampling fiercely upon him: ‘Remain rooted down firmly for all time; do not attempt to rise again; stay for ever in the grave!’
Then the curlews all turned into birds and flew to Running Waters; they all left, both men and women. Their wailing shrieks rang out without ceasing; their tears fell without ceasing; they were deeply stricken with grief.
The Urbura, too, soared up like a bird and returned to his own home, where he remained forever.
[Note: the informant added briefly that, but for the cruelty of the Urbura, the dead man would have grown up into life a second time; and if he had risen of his own accord, all men who have died since that time would also have risen again after death in the same manner. But the Urbura had irreparably crushed the unfortunate curlew man, and stamped his head down a second time into the grave: ‘And now all of us die and are annihilated for ever; and there is no resurrection for us.’ Today, the piercing shrieks of the curlews still ring out over the dim plains in the chill night air; the mournful bass notes of the night-owl respond to them from a hollow gum-branch somewhere in the darkness; and men are reminded again of that first tragedy which ordained that the dead should henceforth rise no more.]