The Dreaming

Series 02

STORY 03
The Goori Goori Bird
as told by Reg Fraser, Joyce Lawton, Betty Wyman, Betty Saylor & Nell Muriel Robinson QLD Charleville

The giant bird who preyed on animals and Aboriginal children and the young boy who wandered far from home.

Synopsis:
High in the gorges and ranges there lived a huge Devil Bird, the Goori Goori Bird. To satisfy his enormous appetite the Goori Goori bird killed animals. Soon the supply of animals went down so he began preying on Aboriginal children.

One day a little boy named Wangurd wandered from his mother and the Goori Goori bird swooped down beside him and beckoned Wangurd to climb onto his back and started flying high up above the trees. Wangurd tricked the bird by telling him he was afraid of heights and when the Goori Goori Bird flew lower the boy slipped off his back onto some soft sand and hid until he heard his fathers voice calling for him.

Wangurd told his father about the Goori Goori Bird. Wangurds father climbed into the Goori Goori birds nest while he was hunting for food and lit two firesticks that set the Goori Goori bird alight. The Goori Goori bird flew into the sky, leaving sparks and burning feathers, which became the Milky Way.