Aboriginal Australian Mythology

Creator and law-giver of the Wiradjuri, Gamilaraay, and neighbouring peoples of New South Wales: he shaped rivers and people, instituted the Bora initiation ground, then withdrew into the sky.

The creator ancestor of the Kulin nations of central Victoria, a wedge-tailed eagle who shaped the land, made people, gave them law, and rose into the sky, where the Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung see him as the star Altair.

A monster of the billabongs and swamps of south-eastern Australia: it bellows in the night and seizes those who linger at the water's edge. The name comes from the Wemba-Wemba language of Victoria.

The woma python woman of Aṉangu Tjukurpa who came to Uluṟu and, when her nephew was killed by Liru warriors, confronted and struck down a Liru warrior at Muṯitjulu Waterhole; the marks of the fight remain in the rock.

The venomous snake men of Aṉangu Tjukurpa, a war party who attacked and killed Kuniya's nephew and one of whom Kuniya struck down at Muṯitjulu.

Reed-thin spirits of the rock crevices in Bininj tradition of western Arnhem Land: they hunted and painted before humans arrived, and taught the first people fire, butchering, and painting. Playful, and quick to take offence.

The lightning being of the Bininj of western Arnhem Land: a band of lightning arcs around his body, and the stone axes at his head and knees strike thunder from the clouds. His Nourlangie rock painting is world famous.

In Kulin tellings, Bunjil's brother, who had charge of the waters and who, beating the water with his hands, brought forth the first women.

A vast serpent creator known across the continent: it carved rivers, guards waterholes, and arcs overhead as the rainbow. Called Ngalyod in western Arnhem Land and Wagyl by the Noongar, among many regional names.

The origin of the Pleiades: seven sisters flee Wati Nyiru, a man forbidden to them under kinship law, across the Western Desert until they leap into the sky. The songline crosses half the continent.

The framework of Aboriginal cosmology: ancestral beings walked the land, shaped it, and laid down law and songlines — an age that never closed, still present in country and ceremony.

In a Gunaikurnai telling, Tiddalik drinks the waterhole, creek, and river dry. The animals must make the frog laugh before the waters can surge back across Country.

The great sandstone monolith of the Central Desert, sacred under Anangu Tjukurpa: its gullies and caves are read as the physical record of the battle between Kuniya the python woman and the Liru venom-snake warriors.

The serpent being of the Noongar people of south-western Western Australia, who in the Nyitting (creation time) moved across the land shaping its rivers, lakes, and wetlands, including the Derbarl Yerrigan (Swan River) at Perth.

Cloud and rain spirits of the Worrorra, Ngarinyin, and Wunambal peoples of the Kimberley: white-faced, dark-eyed, mouthless figures crowned with halo-like headdresses, painted in rock shelters to govern the monsoon.

The man who pursues the Seven Sisters across the deserts, using magic and changing his shape to trick them; called Wati Nyiru by Aṉangu and Yurla by the Martu.