Australian Aboriginal Mythology
In Australian Aboriginal mythology, the rainbow snake is the Creator (Kurreah, Andrenjinyi, Yingarna, Ngalyod and others) in the Dreaming, which is the infinite period of time that "began with the world's creation and that has no end. People, animals, and Eternal Beings like the Rainbow Serpent are all part of the Dreaming, and everyday life is affected by the Dreaming's immortals," in almost every Australian Aborigine tribe. In these tribes, of which there are over 50, actual rainbows are gigantic, often malevolent, serpents who inhabit the sky or ground. This snake has different names in different tribes, and has both different and similar traits from tribe to tribe.
The theme consistent with most Australian tribes is that the Rainbow Serpent is the creator of the world and all beings. During the dry season, the Rainbow Serpent retreats to deep waterholes. Another common theme among all aboriginal tribes is that the Rainbow Serpent has no gender. And while the Rainbow Serpent can give fertility by creating rain, it can also let loose blindness and disease. "The Aboriginal Rainbow is humanity, because it causes the 'energy' and the 'breath' that gives people life."
Ngalyod, first-born son of Yingarna, who is the Rainbow Serpent creator of the Kunwinjku in western Arnhem Land in Australia—sucks up water during the dry season and spits it out as rain during the wet season. Like Iris, Ngalyod helps to ensure fertility with rains, but he can destroy as well as nurture. Yingarna, the creator of the Kunwinjku people, is "nominally female" and androgynous like her son Ngalyod. She possesses cunningly ambivalent form; as she combines elements of snake, fish, crocodile, catfish, emu, and kangaroo. The Estonian Rainbow Serpent, like the Aborigines' Ngalyod, sucks up water and spits rain, and also has a confused identity – it possesses an ox's head on its serpent body.
Read more about this topic: Rainbows In Mythology
Famous quotes containing the words australian, aboriginal and/or mythology:
“Beyond the horizon, or even the knowledge, of the cities along the coast, a great, creative impulse is at work—the only thing, after all, that gives this continent meaning and a guarantee of the future. Every Australian ought to climb up here, once in a way, and glimpse the various, manifold life of which he is a part.”
—Vance Palmer (1885–1959)
“John Eliot came to preach to the Podunks in 1657, translated the Bible into their language, but made little progress in aboriginal soul-saving. The Indians answered his pleas with: ‘No, you have taken away our lands, and now you wish to make us a race of slaves.’”
—Administration for the State of Con, U.S. public relief program. Connecticut: A Guide to Its Roads, Lore, and People (The WPA Guide to Connecticut)
“If science fiction is the mythology of modern technology, then its myth is tragic.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929)