Alinga
A sun goddess
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Anjea
An animistic fertility spirit of the aboriginals of Queensland. She forms
infants, and places them into their mother's uterus.
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Apakura
She is a goddess honored by the Maori of New Zealand. She is one of many
mythological mothers who shaped their sons for excellence and glory.
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Apunga
A goddess of small plants
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Ariki
A star goddess of New Zealand.
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Arohirohi
A sun goddess of New Zealand.
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Bila
The cannibal sun goddess who provided light for the world by cooking her
victims over a giant flame. Lizard Man was appalled by these acts and
tried to kill her. She turned herself into a ball of fire and fled, leaving
the world in darkness. He threw his boomerang at her, catching her and
making her move in a slow arc across the sky; thus bringing light back
to the world.
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Birrahgnooloo
One of the wives of Baieme, the All-Father. Each wife had a totem for
each part of his body, so that no one totem-clan might claim him exclusively.
She was venerated by Aborigines of the High Plains and South-East of Australia. |
Birra-Nulu
One of the young wives taken by Baieme, the All-Father, while he rested
on Mount Oobi-oobi in Bullima after he created the world. She was venerated
by Aborigines of the High Plains and South-East of Australia. He also
took Kunnan-beili as a wife at this time, both women were flighty and
disobediant and apparently caused him much trouble. |
Boaliri
The younger of the two sister goddesses that created life. The other was
Waimariwi.
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Brolga
Her name means "Native Companion." She is honored by the Aborigines
of Australia. A dancer of great fluidity and beauty, she was taken away
by the dancers of nature, the whirlwinds.
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Bullai-Bullai
She was venerated by Aborigines of the High Plains and South-East of Australia.
Her lover Weedah was turned into the star Canopus by his rival. Baieme
the All-Father consoled her by turning her into the beautiful parrot,
thus she could admire her lover in the sky while he admired her on earth. |
Bunbulama
A goddess of the rain.
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Carpet
Snake Woman
She lives in a cave in Uluru (Ayer's Rock) where women in labour go to
ensure an easy delivery. |
Cunnembeille
She is the wife of Biame, and lives in the heavens with him and his other
wife, Birrahgnooloo.
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Darana
Darana was part of the Dieri, and one of the first people. Australian
mythology refers to the beginning as "dream time," and in this
time there was a story of how Darana made rain by singing it magically.
Her singing made witchetty grubs (a type of food) and flowers. She put
these in bags, and left. However, two young people broke the bags, and
were turned into two sacred sand stones. The Australians believed that
if the stones were scratched, there would be famine, and if the stones
were destroyed, there would be dust.
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Dawn
Maiden
She is the daughter of the sky-god Tane. Each morning she makes love to
him and then gives birth to the sun, after which she vanishes.
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Dilga
She is the goddess of justice. The earth goddess of the Karadjeri of northwestern
Australia, she avenged the murder of her two sons, Bagadjimbiri (The two
brother gods to whom the Karadjeri attribute the creation of the world)
by drowning the killers in her milk, which at the same time restored her
sons to life.
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Djanggawul
Sisters
(Sisters/Daughters of the sun) The divine trinity of north Australian
mythology, Djanggawuls was made up of two sisters and a brother who came
to Earth via Beralku, the island of the dead, and gave the landscape its
shape and vegetation. These Australian goddesses unceasingly brought forth
living creatures from their endlessly pregnant bodies. Their long vulvas
broke off piece by piece with these births, producing the world's first
sacred artifacts.
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Djunkgao
In Australian Aboriginal myth (specifically the Murngin myth cycle) the
Djunkgao sisters named on their travels the clan countries and animals,
and made totem wells with their yam sticks. They lost their totems to
the men and became ordinary women when the younger sister was incestuously
raped. The sisters are associated with the rainy season floods and the
movements of the ocean. |
Dok
The Australian Aboriginal mother of the heroic Brambrambult brothers.
They went to the heavens as Alpha and Beta Centauri, and she is Alpha
of the Southern Cross.
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Eingana
The Australian natives call her Mother Eingana: the world-creator, the
birth mother, maker of all water, land, animals, and kangaroos. This huge
snake goddess still lives, they say, in the Dreamtime, rising up occasionally
to create yet more life. This primordial snake had no vagina; as her offspring
grew inside her, the goddess swelled up. Eventually, tortured with the
pregnancy, Eingana began to roll around and around. The god Barraiya saw
her agony and speared her near the anus so that birth could take place
as all creatures now give birth. She is also the death mother. They say
Eingana holds a sinew of life attached to each of her creatures; when
she lets it go, that life stops. If she herself should die, they say everything
would cease to exist.
Erathipa
A huge Australian boulder in the shape of a pregnant woman bears this
name. It is said that the souls of dead children reside within it, and
that if a woman of child-bearing age walks by a soul slips from the boulder
and into her womb to be reborn.
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Galeru
A mythical giant rainbow-snake from Arnhemland in northern Australia.
Galeru is the symbol of the maintenance of life; she swallowed the Djanggawul
sisters.
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Gnowee
The sun goddess of an aboriginal people of southeast Australia. The legend
goes that Gnowee once lived on the earth at a time when the sky was always
dark and people walked around carrying torches in order to see. One day
while Gnowee was out gathering yams, her baby son wandered off. She set
out to search for him, carrying a huge torch, but never found him. To
this day she still climbs the sky daily, carrying her torch, trying to
find her son.
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Hine
titama
An ancestor goddess of New Zealand who later became the ruler of the underworld.
Hine titama fled to the underworld when she discovered that she had married
her own father and had borne him children.
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Imberombera
An Australian Aborignal mother-creatress, and consort of Wuraka.
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Ingridi
A 'Dreamtime' goddess
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Julunggul
Rainbow serpents are a common motif throughout world mythology, but most
particularly in Oceania, Africa and South America; universally, they are
associated with immortality/rebirth, rain and water. This rainbow serpent,
Julunggul, is a great Goddess of the Aborigines of Australia. She oversees
the initiation of adolescent boys into manhood.
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Junkgowa
An ancestor goddess who lived during the "dreamtime". She was
a multiple goddess (the Junkgowa Sisters) who created the ocean, and all
the fish therein.
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Kalseru
The northwestern Australian rainbow serpent associated with fertility
and rain. The rainbow serpent is known over most of Australia but the
name differs from tribe to tribe.
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Karakarook
A goddess of the aboriginal people of Victoria. She descended to earth
to defend women who were attacked by snakes when they left camp to dig
for yams. Karararook beat at the snakes with her huge stick until it broke,
killing them all. She then gave the broken peices of the stick to the
women. |
Kunapipi
The mother goddess of the aboriginal tribes of northern Australia. She
once travelled across the world with a band of heroes and heroines, and
a rainbow serpent heralded her approach. During the ancestral period she
gave birth to men and women as well as creating the natural species. |
Kunapip-Kalwadi-Kadjara
An Australian ogress.
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Lia
A water goddess.
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Madalait
A creator goddess.
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Mar'rallang
This Aboriginal story recounts the marriage of two sisters, so alike they
bore the same name, to one man. The sameness of the sisters may allude
actually to a two-season year, a two-sun cosmology, a dual-ruler system,
the dichotomy/unity of life and death, and so on. In Greek mythology,
the opposite is common: twin brothers (or a father and son, or uncle and
nephew) marrying the same woman.
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Mungo
Mungo
The daughters of Kunapipi, who is the mother goddess of the aboriginal
tribes of northern Australia.
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Nabudi,
The
They are goddesses of illness. |
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Palpinkalare
A goddess of justice.
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Papa
A goddess of the earth in Maori and New Zealand.
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Tomitkua
A goddess of rain.
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Ungamilia
A goddess of the evening star.
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Waramurungundi
The first woman, according to the Gunwinggu people of Australia. She was
the all-creating mother of Australia; she gave birth to the earth and
then fashioned all its living creatures. She then taught her creations
to talk and divided each language group from the next. Her husband was
Wuragag.
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Wawalag
(Wawalug) A pair of fertility goddess of Arnhemland in north Australia.
These two sisters are the daughters of Djanngawul, the Aboriginal founder
deities. The sisters live at a waterpool--a sacred place--where they anger
the giant rainbow-snake Yurlungur so that the creature continually swallows
and disgorges them. This myth forms the base of the widely spread initiation
rites where 'disgorged' youths assume their rightful place in the tribes
as men. The civilizers of Australia, these two mythic women wandered the
continent domesticating plants into edible foodstuffs, evolving language
for each territory, and naming all the land's creatures.
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Wuriupranili
This sun goddess was said to light bark into a torch, carrying the flame
through the sky from east to west. At the western sea, she dipped it in
the water, then used the embers to guide her under the earth to reach
her eastern starting point again. The brilliant skies of dawn and dusk,
it was said, came from her red-ochre body paints misting up into the sky
as she powdered and beautified her body. Aus.
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Yalungur
( "Eaglehawk) Yalungur defeated the terrible ogress Kunapipi, and
became the first woman.
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Yhi
The goddess of light and creator goddess of the Karraur, an Australian
aboriginal group, she lay asleep in the Dreamtime before this world's
creation, in a world of bone-bare, windless mountains. Suddenly, a whistle
startled the goddess. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes, flooding
the world with light. The earth stirred under her warm rays.
Yhi drifted down to this new land, walking north, south, east, west. As
she did, plants sprang up from her footprints. She walked the world's
surface until she had stepped everywhere, until every inch was covered
with green. Then the goddess sat to rest on the treeless plain.
As she glanced around, she realized that the new plants could not move,
and she desired to see something dance. Seeking that dancing life, she
descended beneath the earth, where she found evil spirits who tried to
sing her to death.
But they were not as powerful as Yhi; her warmth melted the darkness,
and tiny forms began to move there. The forms turned into butterflies
and bees and insects that swarmed around her in a dancing mass. She led
them forth into the sunny world. But there were still caves of ice, high
in the mountains, in which other beings rested. Yhi spread her light into
them, one at a time. She stared into the cave's black interiors until
water formed. Then she saw something move-something, and another thing,
and another.
Fishes and lizards swam forth. Cave after cave she freed from its darkness,
and birds and animals poured forth onto the face of the earth. Soon the
entire world was dancing with life. Then, in her golden voice, Yhi spoke.
She told her creatures she would return to her own world. She blessed
them with changing seasons and with the knowledge that when they died
they would join her in the sky. Then, turning herself into a ball of light,
she sank below the horizon. As she disappeared, darkness fell upon on
the earth's surface.
The new creatures were afraid. There was sorrow and mourning, and finally
there was sleep. And, soon, there was the first dawn, for Yhi had never
intended to abandon her creation. One by one the sleepy creatures woke
to see light breaking in the east. A bird chorus greeted their mistress,
and the lake and ocean waters that had been rising in mists, trying to
reach her, sank down calmly.
For eons of Dreamtime the animals lived in peace on Yhi's earth, but then
a vague sadness began to fill them. They ceased to delight in what they
were. She had planned never to return to earth, but she felt so sorry
for her creatures that she said, "Just once. Just this once."
So she slid down to the earth's surface and asked the creatures what was
wrong. Wombat wanted to wiggle along the ground. Kangaroo wanted to fly.
Bat wanted wings. Lizard wanted legs. Seal wanted to swim. And the confused
Platypus wanted something of every other animal. And so Yhi gave them
what they wanted. From the beautiful forms of the early creation came
the strange creatures that now walk the earth.
Yhi then swept herself up to the sky again. She had one other task yet
to complete: the creation of woman. She had already embodied thought in
male form and set him wandering the earth. But nothing - not the plants,
not the insects, not the birds or beasts or fish seemed like him. He was
lonely. Yhi went to him one morning as he slept near a grass tree. He
slept fitfully, full of strange dreams. As he emerged from his dreaming
he saw the flower stalk on the grass tree shining with sunlight. He was
drawn to the tree, as were all the earth's other creatures. Reverent and
astonished, they watched as the power of Yhi concentrated itself on the
flower stalk. The flower stalk began to move rhythmically - to breathe.
Then it changed form, softened, became a woman. Slowly emerging into the
light from which she was formed, the first woman gave her hand to the
first man.
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