Balu-month made girls, and Van-raven sometimes helped him with this. Van alone could not be entrusted with this, since the girls he created grew up to be noisy and grumpy women.
Bu-meya-mul - the forest lizard created boys, sometimes with the help of Baloo.
Baloo and Van were big virinuns and lived together. Wang once said:
- Let's, instead of making new children, let's revive the dead. We could do this together.
“No,” answered Baloo. - They're dead. The worst of the dead have already been burned, the bad ones are with Ilianba Wand, and the good ones are in Bullima or wandering where they please. Let them stay dead.
“A lot of people have been dying lately.” There will be few people left on earth if we let everyone die.
- Nothing, make more children. Let them die. Van tried many times to convince Baloo to be revived.
dead, but Balu said:
- Let them remain dead. Perhaps their spirits moved into others. Let them remain dead.
These refusals angered Van, and he went hunting alone. He approached a large eucalyptus tree, saw many Yulu-mar caterpillars on it and returned to the camp. He asked Bala again:
-Have you changed your mind? Will you help me revive the dead?
“No,” Baloo refused again. “Let them remain dead, their widows can marry young.”
Then Wang said that he had found a tree with many
caterpillars, and offered to go collect them as needed.
They set off, and, approaching the tree, Van said:
“I’ll stay below, and you climb a tree and collect caterpillars with this,” and he gave him a mijir, or a stick with hooks on the end.
Baloo climbed a tree and collected many caterpillars, which he threw down to Vanu. Each time he did this, Wang blew on the tree, and it grew higher and higher until the top branches reached the sky. Baloo noticed how high he was and exclaimed:
- Oh, where am I? Where did I end up?
While Baloo was saying this, he found himself in heaven. Baloo looked down and saw Van far away on the ground, who shouted:
- Stay where you are. You didn't want to help me revive the dead. Stay in heaven, and I can make baby girls on my own.
Every night when the moon shines, Bala and the tree can be seen. Baloo travels through the sky, trying to get back to earth. But in order to do this, he must change his appearance, since his old enemy, the sun Yi, is trying to prevent this.
Long before this, Yi loved Bala and wanted to marry him. But he replied that Yi had too many lovers and that he would never marry her.
This angered Yi so much that her love turned to hatred. When Baloo found himself in the sky, Yi told the spirits standing at the edges of the sky and supporting him: when Baloo approaches them, they should drive him away. Let the spirits watch over him all the time while Yi sleeps, wrapped in red kangaroo skins. If they allow Baloo to escape, then Yi will kill the spirit sitting in the center of the sky and holding the ends of the ropes on which the earth hangs. Then the earth will fall down into the darkness, and they will fall there with it.
After this threat, Baloo became convinced that it was impossible to escape, although he really wanted to return to earth and create children again. After all, if Wang alone does this, then the whole world will soon be full of grumpy women.
Baloo eventually decided to try to sneak past the spirits in a changed form and took on the appearance of an emu. The spirits thought it was the heavenly Goua-gei-emu and allowed him to pass.
Returning safely to earth, Balu went to his old camp. The dogs did not recognize him, jumped out and barked madly. He spoke, his wives recognized the voice and called the dogs away. Then Balu took on his usual earthly appearance. He feared that the dogs' barking would attract the attention of his brothers, who did not want him back, wanting to take his wives. If he had not returned, they would have been the first to have their right. Therefore, Balu ordered the wives to put in their tent the log in which the spirit of Mingg was hidden, and to cover it with the skin of a possum. Then he and his wives secretly went to the white bira tree, where there were many caterpillars for food, and there they stopped.
They had barely time to leave when one of Balu's brothers crept up to the log. He thought it was Baloo sleeping and decided to kill him. He swung his bundi club and hit the log with force several times. Then he kicked the log, and it seemed to him that Baloo returned the blow. His leg hurt and he couldn't figure out what he'd hit. He grabbed the possum skin, pulled it off and saw nothing underneath. The Mingga spirit tree could become invisible and even disappear unnoticed. He looked around - there were no women in the camp. Knowing that Balu was a viripun, he realized that he had been deceived.
He returned, limping, to his camp and decided the next day to follow in the footsteps of the fugitives. But he could never find Baloo, as he turned into an emu whenever he was in danger on earth.
Baloo and his wives ate caterpillars and he began to create children again. When he had made several little girls, he was joined by his friend Boo-meya-mule - a small forest lizard with a long tongue, she already had almost completed little boys. She tried to make boys out of the little girls created by Balu, saying that boys were better, that they were strong warriors and good hunters. But Balu said:
- Don't do this, better prepare the girls. Boys will want wives someday.
Together they made several little boys and girls who were sent to Valla-gujail-van, who disposed of the spirits of children awaiting birth or rebirth as earthly children.
Walla-gujail-van was very fond of mussels; She had a lot of them, and if the children touched them, she was so angry that she did not want to deal with them. Then another good spirit Walla-garun-bu-an took pity on them and promised them earthly mothers.
When he asked the spirits of children who had already lived and died young to name the mother to whom they would like to go, they usually named the name of their earthly mother, and Walla-harun-bu-an sent them to her to be born again or reincarnated. If their mothers were not kind to them, then they named other women whom they loved on earth, and they were sent to them. The spirits of children who never had earthly mothers, or did not remember them, or did not know the names of other women, had to rely on chance. Walla-garun-bu-an sent them to the ground, and they hid in the long, hanging branches of eucalyptus trees. The first woman to pass under the branches where the spirit of the child was hiding became his mother.
When such a tree-spirit child is born, he always has a eucalyptus leaf in his mouth, which must be taken out immediately, otherwise the child will die and his spirit will return to the tree from which he came. If spirit children stay in the trees for a long time, they cry and become very unhappy. The old spirits take pity on them and, to stop their crying, turn them into Ban, or bunches of mistletoe, hanging from the trees. The blood of these children produces red mistletoe flowers.
Sometimes under such overhanging tree branches there are cleared places, which are said to have been made by the spirits for the Virinuns to come and lie and talk to.
When Baloo appears late in the sky, people say:
— Baloo makes baby girls, it takes longer to make them than boys.
They learn about the rising of the month by the light haze that precedes its appearance.
“Look,” they say, “Balu is rising, here is his dust.” Van-raven turns girls into young women. At this time they must appease him by loudly repeating the cry of his family: “Wa! wow! wa!”
Balu influences the lives of women from their birth to death.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru