The Wawalag sisters, also written as Wauwaluk Wawilak Waggilak, Wagilag, or Wawalik, are ancestral creator beings whose story is part of widespread sacred rituals in the Aboriginal culture from Arnhem land, Northern Territory, Australia.
The story takes place in Dreamtime, a period of time in Aboriginal belief where ancestral beings created the land as well as the social and linguistic structures in it.
The sisters are said to have helped draw linguistic and social differences amongst the clans in Arnhem Land, but the ceremonies associated with their stories create cultural unity.
The story of the Wawalag (Wauwaluk,[1] Wawilak,[2][3] Waggilak,[4] Wagilag,[5][6] Wawalik)[7] sisters takes place in Dreamtime, a period of time in Aboriginal belief where ancestral beings created the land as well as the social and linguistic structures in it.
The sisters are said to have helped draw linguistic and social differences amongst the clans in Arnhem Land, but the ceremonies associated with their stories create cultural unity.
[7] The story varies across the different linguistic regions in Arnhem land, but they all share a similar pattern that explains the origins of the Djungguwan, Gunabibi and Ulmark rituals, three sacred ceremonies associated with fertility, marriage and age-grading.
[8] During these ceremonies each clan reveals more details about their version of the story through songs, dances and paintings; but access to these rituals is usually limited to initiated Dua males only.
[13][10][15] When the sisters see Yurlunggur crawl out of its waterhole, they start singing the sacred songs, which are now part of the Djungguan, Ulmark, and Gunabibi ceremonies, in an attempt to keep the snake away.
[8][7] They continue to sing and dance, taking turns until the storm appears to ease, exhausted the sister seek refuge in the hut where they fall asleep.
They were creation beings who travelled through Arnhem Land performing song and dance cycles that revealed, for the first time, the names of the places they were walking through and the plants and animals they gathered along the way.
Djungguwan is considered the initiation ritual when young boys from the Dua moiety are circumcised and introduced to the cultural laws of their clan through the story of the sisters.
[7] The removal of the foreskin marks the separation of what is considered the 'female part of male infants'[7] Dua men and women come together to perform dance and song cycles which represent the snake awakening when it smelled the blood and exited the waterhole to make its way to the sisters’ hut.
[3] Gunabibi is a fertility ritual that is done during dry season; the song and dance cycles focus on recreating the part of the story where the land was flooding because of the rain.
[3] The process behind making the wood-cravings is lengthy, a lot of detail goes into the totemic painting as the specific pattern and colours used is what symbolises the connection with the ancestral being.
[7] Since the late 1990s there has been a shift in the way knowledge about the story is shared, making it more accessible to people outside of the Indigenous community from Arnhem Land, creating a better understanding of Aboriginal culture.