Go back to: Stories View other available stories. Version 1 Yuwaalaraay only. Version 2 Yuwaalaraay and English.		About the Dhinawan Ngay story This text is adapted from a section of tape 5130 by Arthur Dodd. It is different from many of the other stories in being a narrative of recent events, and not a Dreamtime story. Some of the grammar is not well understood. For instance, the use of what looks like the future tense for 'yanaa-y' is translated 'would take'. Also, the meaning of the word 'yilaala' is not clear. The double use of 'waal' is also not understood. This shows that there is still much to understand about the grammar of Yuwaalaraay and Gamilaraay. The word 'dhirra' is generally translated 'flash', but its meaning is much broader than that. In this passage it might better be translated as 'clever' or 'cunning'. The continuous English version is reproduced below. My Pet Emu [I had a pet emu and he didn't want anyone to visit me.] If anyone was coming this way they would take that short cut. So he [the emu] would stand near the short cut. He would wait there, so that no-one might come to me, to talk. So I went there. I told him to go. "Go! Go away! Don't stand there!" So then he turned around to go away. He went over there, somewhere, and stood there, that emu of mine. He was really savage. So that no-one would come to me, he would really peck them fiercely. There was this bloke coming here, a stranger. He saw that emu of mine standing there. That fellow was walking along flash?? with some bread, he was carrying bread. The emu went up to him, to eat the bread. And he gave him bread, kept giving him bread. Then the emu pecked the bread, pecked and ate it. But that man hit him on the head with a bundi [weapon]. And then he plucked him. Then he dug a hole there, to cook the emu in it. He had a big feed. That glutton!