Rainbow Serpent
[2] Much like the archetypal mother goddess, the Rainbow Serpent creates land and diversity for the Aboriginal people, but when disturbed can bring great chaos.
[3] There are many names and stories associated with the serpent, all of which communicate the significance and power of this being within Aboriginal mythology, which includes the worldview commonly referred to as The Dreaming.
Yurlunggur is the name of the "rainbow serpent" according to the Murngin (Yolngu) in north-eastern Arnhemland,[8] also styled Yurlungur,[9][2] Yulunggur,[10][11] Jurlungur,[12] Julunggur[13] or Julunggul.
[24] Other names include: Though the concept of the Rainbow Serpent has existed for a very long time in Aboriginal Australian cultures, it was introduced to the wider world through the work of anthropologists.
[38] Another error of the same kind is the way in which Western-educated people, with a cultural stereotype of Greco-Roman or Norse myths, tell the Aboriginal stories in the past tense.
[41][42] Rather than supporting the long-standing academic supposition that this belief complex is peculiar to one continent, the ethnographic record shows that it is a culture universal.
[45][f] The Dreaming[4] (or Dreamtime or Tjukurrpa or Jukurrpa[1]) stories tell of the great spirits and totems during creation, in animal and human form that moulded the barren and featureless earth.
The Rainbow Serpent is understood to be of immense proportions and inhabits deep permanent waterholes[47] and is in control of life's most precious resource, water.
[13] In some stories, the Serpent is associated with a large fruit bat, sometimes called a "flying fox" in Australian English, engaged in a rivalry over a woman.
[26] The Rainbow Serpent has also been identified with, or considered to be related to, the bunyip, a fearful, water-hole dwelling creature in Australian mythology.
[3] Thunder and lightning are said to stem from when the Rainbow Serpent is angry,[2] causing powerful storms and cyclones[4] that will drown those who have upset her.
[5] One prominent Rainbow Serpent myth is the story of the Wawalag[15] or Wagilag sisters, from the Yolngu people of Arnhem Land.
[1] Wollunqua is the Warumungu people's version of the Rainbow Serpent, telling of an enormous snake which emerged from a watering hole called Kadjinara in the Murchison Ranges, Northern Territory.
[55] Another story from the Northern Territory tells of how a great mother arrives from the sea, travelling across Australia and giving birth to the various Aboriginal peoples.
[56] In some versions, the great mother is accompanied by the Rainbow Serpent (or Lightning Snake), who brings the wet season of rains and floods.
[57] The Noongar people of south-western Western Australia tell of how Rainbow Serpents, or Wagyls, smashed and pushed boulders around to form trails on Mount Matilda, along with creating waterways such as the Avon River.
in the Kimberley region believe that it was the Rainbow Serpent who deposited spirit-children throughout pools in which women become impregnated when they wade in the water.
[33] The Serpent has been depicted in rock art in various forms, generally snake-like but sometimes with heads resembling various marsupials (macropods), flying foxes, or in some cases birds.
One suggestion is that it is modelled on the "rock python", regarding the rainbow serpent in the myth of the Wawilak sisters among the Yonglu people.
[61] In some tellings of the sisters myth, the encounter with the Yurlunggur serpent occurs in its water-hole called the Mirrimina well, glossed as 'rock python's back'.
[66][67][g] The carpet snake (Morelia spilota variegata) is considered a form that the Rainbow Serpent can take by the Walmadjari people in northern Western Australia.
Considering that the Aboriginal peoples are in Australia and surrounded by lush rainforest, tropical ocean, and great diversity, the origins of the Serpents form are varied.
[15] The myth of the Wawalag sisters of Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory marks the importance of the female menstruation process and led to the establishment of the Kunapipi blood ritual of the goddess, in which the Indigenous Australians allegorically recreate the Rainbow Serpent eating the Wawalag sisters through dance and pantomime, and can be regarded as a fertility ritual.
[69] The Rainbow Serpent, in addition to the continuation of traditional beliefs is often referenced in modern culture by providing inspiration for art, film, literature, music, religion, and social movements.
[73] The Rainbow Serpent, under the name Yurlungur, has featured as a demon or persona[74] in several titles of the Megami Tensei series of Japanese role-playing games.
