Frog Dreaming
Frog took water from the land in the dreaming.
They were living happily on this land, country. Hunting and gathering food, they were happy. They had a lot of water that country, all over. ‘Til one day the frog played a trick on the animals there.
The frog on his own. Frog thought of plan to gather all water from waterholes. From rivers, creeks, waterholes and swamps. That day animals got thirsty for water, very thirsty. Went down to the lake and when they got there they saw it was damp but no water.
“Where’s all the water from here? What happened? I wonder who took the water?” They were asking each other.
Noticed that frog wasn’t there for that meeting.
Animals look up, saw frog up on the cloud hiding away with coolamon full of water.
“He’s got all the water! What will we do with the frog?”
One said, “Lets make weapons. Boomerangs and spears.”
They all started throwing boomerangs, but they didn’t reach. They threw spears, but they didn’t reach either. Then, the brolga threw an egg with all its might up to the frog. The egg broke and all the sharp parts poked him all over. Ugly, that’s why he looks ugly.
From there he spat out the water to fill the waterholes and they were all happy to get the water back for their land.
For punishment the frog have to come out in the big monsoon time when there’s thunder. After the dreaming they all turned into proper animals.
My mum told me this story.
