Dream of the Goannas
Many dreams refer to animals of the Dreamtime. One of the most important is the Goanna, the summer lizard, which, among other things, had invented the canoe.
The members of the Murrumbidgee River tribe tell how all the animals decided to marry one another.
The male goannas had to marry the magpies or the teal. For some reason the goannas, who at first were vegetarians, began to eat the flesh of their own young and also the young of the porcupines — a diet that made them lazy and dishonest.
One year there was a drought and all the animals suffered, but not the Goannas, who had access to a secret water source. Their new wives asked them to share the water with the emus and the porcupines who were dying of thirst, but the goannas refused. The wife of the chief of the goannas found the secret reservoir, and with the help of the forest spirits caused it to rush toward the Murray River in a torrent that separated the goannas from their wives. Ever since, the teal have refused to marry the goannas.