Talk:Ngariman

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Cat-man?[edit]

I thought cats were not native to Australia, so Ngariman being a cat-man might be a mistranslation. By the way, I have read the story, so I think it is one of those examples of widespread mistranslations. --Corsican Warrah (talk) 20:48, 8 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Confusion may have arisen from something like the description in Ralph Piddington (1932) "Karadjeri Initiation" in Oceana, Volume 3, Issue 1, September 1932, Pages 46-87 (some of which is viewable online in Oceania, Volume 3, edited by Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown, Raymond Firth, Adolphus Peter Elkin. University of Sydney, 1933)

The Bagadjimbiri had very long hair. They shook their heads and pulled out a number of their hairs, one of which they gave to each local group. They saw a native cat man called Ngariman and gave him a number of hairs from their heads, which may be seen at the present time as the black fur on the tails of native cats. When they saw Ngariman‘s buttocks they laughed; this annoyed Ngarirnan, who, together with some others, killed the Bagadjimbiri with spears.

Note that it says "native cat", which would mean something like the tiger quoll. —Undomelin (talk) 01:24, 29 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]