This story relates to our ontology – it gives us spiritual reasoning on how certain parts of our country were created, how some of our animals came to our country.

Our old people lived to the far distant east, which we call ngarawan.

They lived in human form, but the area they lived in was barren and they knew if they didn’t leave, they would perish. They knew their madjuri or small canoes couldn't make the journey west, although buriburi, a greedy fella had a barangga or large vessel but wouldn’t share.

So, the people got together and said to gunaagan, buriburi’s friend, “You need to distract him while we take his barangga.”

The next morning gunaagan yelled out to buriburi “hey let me look through your hair for lice”. Buriburi, aggravated by the lice in his hair, pulled his barangga up to the shallow waters, tied it around a nearby rock and let gunaagan look through his hair for lice.

The people jumped in the barangga and started rowing. They were almost out of sight, when buriburi jumped up and noticed his barangga was stolen. buriburi went into a rage and fought gunaagan. During the fight gunaagan grabbed a stick and stabbed buriburi in the top of his head.

Buri Buri picked him up and slammed him on the nearby rock, flattening him out, and gunaagan fell into the shallow water. 

Buri Buri jumped into the water and started swimming after his barangga.

As he started swimming the stick dislodged from his head and blood started pouring out.

The pursuit lasted for days, and the people were tired and started to give up.

So, a little man named garilwa said “Let me row. I’ll get us there, look at my strong arms” and he started rowing. As he continued to show off his strength he started to grow fur, funny ears and a black nose.

At this point, buriburi was gaining on the people in his barangga and the blood coming out of his head, turned into salt water and he started growing large fins and a tail which made him dive deeper into the water.

He was so angry he would spurt salt water out of his head every time he would come up for air.

Finally, they spotted land, and galu a skinny fella, started dancing. As galu danced, he started growing feathers and a beak and danced that much he put two big holes in the barangga and it started to fill up with water.

They reached land and now all the people are in animal form. They pushed the barangga from the beach and it turned upside down. It started changing into gangmanggang, known as Windang Island off Lake Illawarra.

garilwa, tired from rowing he climbed the nearest tree, crying and exhausted from rowing hugged the tree and went to sleep. galu continues to dance when he gets excited.

gunaagan, turned into a starfish and remains in the shallow water, where he and his descendants remain today.

buriburi, not seeing his barangga turn into gangmanggang, turned along the coastline and started swimming in search for his vessel. Today his descendants continue to travel up and down the coast to this day, looking for their barangga.

Courtesy the Gujaga Foundation.