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Overview
A father makes four nets full of boomerangs while his two sons hunt and consume their catches without feeding him. They bring him only the fat he requests for his weapons. Resenting their failure to support their parents, he sends them to test the greased boomerangs on a plain. Every weapon spins upward instead of landing. A great whirlwind then approaches, tearing out each tree the boys grasp for shelter. It finally carries them upward with two beefwood trees and places them near the Milky Way; the scattered boomerangs also remain in the sky.
The whirlwind descends and resumes the father’s form, making his identity explicit in the narration. His two wives discover what happened and retaliate by blinding him with heated gum while tending his hair. He flees crying Mooregoo and never returns. Although the women do not see him again, they recognise his cry in the mopoke and conclude that he has become that night bird. This chapter supplies the whirlwind transformation directly, while the later bird identification is reported through the wives’ recognition. Another chapter features a rug-making Mooregoo who drowns; that separate episode is not silently made part of this figure’s life.
Origins & earliest records
K. Langloh Parker, Australian Legendary Tales (1896), Mooregoo the Mopoke, and Mooninguggahgul the Mosquito Bird. Narran-region collection; individual speaker unspecified.
Records & interpretation
The complete English chapter separates the father’s directly narrated whirlwind form, the wives’ recognition of his later bird identity, their own transformation and the sons’ celestial location.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Australian Legendary Tales: Mooregoo the Mopoke, and Mooninguggahgul the Mosquito Bird
Complete selected narrative. Neither son individually named or assigned to a particular sister; adjacent Mooregoo/Bahloo episode remains separate.
Family, evolution & connections
Mooregoo’s two sons and sister wives — Parker’s Mopoke account
Complete Mooregoo the Mopoke, and Mooninguggahgul the Mosquito Bird narrative.
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Explicit father and two sons; two sister wives retained as a spouse annotation, with collective maternal language qualified. The text does not assign each son to an individual mother or give the sons personal names. The separate Mooregoo–Bahloo chapter is not joined to this household. Bird forms, the whirlwind and sky placement are narrative identities, not natural evolutionary relationships.
Mooninguggahgul, the Mosquito-Bird Sisters
The opening identifies the old man’s wives as the Mooninguggahgul sisters. Their later bird forms do not establish a separate set of wives, and this biography is not merged with Parker’s distinct Mooregoo and Bahloo account.
Wurrawilberoo, the Sons Beside the Sky Trees
The opening gives the old man two sons; he later carries both to the sky in whirlwind form. They remain beside the two trees in the ending, without a stated individual bird transformation.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Primary historical collected narrativeParker: Mooregoo and MooninguggahgulResearch access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.