At one time, the Daen did not have fishing nets or stone fishing equipment. Only later did Baiame make them. The best of these devices can still be seen in Brewarrina. In former times, to catch fish, the Daens built a wall across the river made of woven bushes and grasses. Then they drove the fish to this place and grabbed it with their hands near the wall. Sometimes they blocked a small tributary of the river with such a wall during a flood, and when the water subsided, a lot of fish accumulated near the wall.
The great Virinun Gulai-yali, a pelican, was the first to use the net. For a long time no one knew where he got it and where he kept it. When he went fishing, he usually ordered the children to bring sticks for the net.
- Where is the network? - the children asked.
- She will be here when you return. Do what you're told, carry the sticks.
Afraid to ask him, the children went to get sticks. Gulai-yali said that they should be from the yura bushes growing along the banks of the river. These bushes were dotted with large, cream-colored bells with brown spots, beautiful, but with a disgusting smell. Jura bushes were revered as a sacred tree where no zil grew.
When the children brought the branches of the Jurassic tree, on the ground in front of their father there was already a large net, three and a half to four meters long and one and a half to two meters wide. Near her, a small fire was smoking from the branches of a pink buza tree, into which Gulai-yali threw some Jurassic leaves. When the smoke became thick, he fumigated the net in it.
After that, having captured the net, everyone went to the river. Two men with a net, the ends of which were attached to sticks of ora, walked downstream to a shallow place. Here they stopped and stretched the net across the river. The rest walked upstream and splashed in the water, scaring the fish. The fish went down and fell into the net.
Having caught enough fish, everyone came out of the water, lit a fire and fried the fish.
Each time during fishing, the tribe puzzled over the question of how and where Gulai-yali got this net and where he kept it. After all, at the end of the fishing, he took it away, and no one saw the net until the next fishing. Gulai-yali's wife and children said that he never brought her to the hut.
One day the children decided to spy on where their father kept the net. When he sent them for sticks, some of the children hid. They saw how their father, believing that they had left, began to twist his neck and squirm as if in severe pain. The children thought that he was sick, and were about to come out of their hiding place, when suddenly he bent strongly, and his neck began to seem incredibly long. The children were so scared that they could not move. They stood huddled close to each other and could not utter a word. Their eyes were fixed on their father, who made another convulsive movement and, to their surprise, pulled the fishing net out of his mouth.
So that's where he kept it - inside himself! The children saw him pull it out, and then sat down next to the net, as if nothing had happened, waiting for their return. The hiding children ran to meet others and told about everything they saw. They were so excited about their discovery that they talked a lot about it, and soon the location where the net was kept was no longer a secret. But no one knew how Gulai-yali managed all this. Gradually, the fame of the new method of fishing spread throughout the country. Even foreign tribes came to see the wonderful network. And Gulai-yali got tired of constantly pulling her out. He invited everyone to make networks themselves and told how it was done. Long strips of murumin or nung-ga tree bark must be peeled, the outer hard part removed, and the pulp chewed. Then you need to twist it into ropes, from which you can make a net. Gulai-yali swallows the bark fiber, and it itself turns into a net inside it. But this is only possible because he is a great virinun; others cannot do this.
Over time, all tribes learned to make nets, but only the Gulai-yali clan can turn the bark into a net inside itself. Black people say pelicans still do this to this day. If you watch how Gulai Yali pelicans fish, you will see that they do not lower their beaks down like other birds do when catching fish. Pelicans lay their heads to one side and then lower their long, pouched beaks, as if setting a net. The fish fall into these bags and then directly into the nets, which the pelicans still carry inside them, although they never drag them out, as in the days of the great Virinun fisherman Gulai-yali.
Gulai-yali gave his family deep bags hanging on their long yellow beaks so that the pelicans could use them instead of the net that each of them carries inside himself. Although these networks are very small compared to the first Gulai-Yali network, nevertheless, it was they who gave the genus the name “having a network.”
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru