Australian+Aboriginal

=Australian Aboriginal=

Niyah Jackson Beth Larson Ruth Kahn

__The Cosmology__
When earth was first made it didn’t have any feature or life. Waking time and sleeping time were the same. The only thing there was were waterhole and these were the ingredients of life. Under the earth’s crust there were stars and the sky, sun and moon, and all other forms of life, all of these things were sleeping. All aspects of the living things were there, only they were asleep. Time came to be when it split itself apart, and the time of sleeping separated from that of the time of waking. That moment in time was Dreamtime, when everything started to come alive. The sun rose and heated the earth, and shone warmth into the waterholes. Under each waterhole lay an Ancestor, an ancient man or woman who had been asleep for a long time. The sun filled the bodies of the ancestors with life and light, and these people gave birth to new children. The children were all of the living things in the world, everything from the smallest bug to the largest eagle. The ancestors stood up, the mud falling from them, then opened their eyes and saw the creatures they had created from their own bodies. Each ancestor shouted out “I am-” one was a kangaroo, another cockatoo, a honey-ant and a lizard. They began to sing, naming the things they had made, then walked around. The footstep and their music became the same thing which called all of the other living things into being and weaved them into life. The ancestors sang as they walked over the whole world, as they sang their music left a trail. They showed all of the living things how to live, and set the order of the world and so returned into the earth to sleep ("An Aborigine Creation Story.")

The Rainbow Serpent slept under the ground until she awoke in the Dreaming and pushed her way to the surface. She then traveled the land, sleeping when she was tired, and left behind her winding tracks and the imprint of her sleeping body. When she had travelled the earth, she returned and called to the frogs to come out, but they were very slow because their bellies were full of water. The Rainbow Serpent tickled their stomachs and when the frogs laughed, the water flowed out of their mouths and filled the tracks and hollows left by the Rainbow Serpent, creating the rivers and lakes. This woke all of the animals and plants, who then followed the Rainbow Serpent across the land (Australian Aboriginal Mythology).

Pund-jel, one of the ancestral men, made two men out for clay. With his big knife he cut three large sheets of bark. One on sheet he placed the clay and made it soft and easy to use with his knife. When the clay was finally soft he carried the other piece of bark and then formed the clay into the shape of a man. He made the feet first, then the legs then he formed the body/trunk and then the arms and the head. He made a man on the second piece of bark. He was happy with what he had made and looked at them for a long time and then he danced around them. He took the stringybark from a tree and made hair from it. And put it on their heads, one got straight hair the other curly. He gave the men names, the man with the straight hair was Ber-rook-boorn and the guy with curly hair was Hoo-kin-ber-rook. He then smoothed their bodies with his hands, starting at the feet once more. He then lay on them and blew his breath into their mouths and into their noses and their navels. When they became alive they were breathing very heavily. He danced around them again. He made them speak and made them get up. These people were full grown men, not like children (Robinson, 1969).

Pay-ly-yan, the brother of Pund-jel, had control of the water, big and small. He controlled rivers, creeks and lagoons, and the sea; there was nothing that lived in the water that he did not know. He enjoyed paddling in the shallow waters, and then to dive in really deep water. One day he was playing in a very deep waterhole, when he was swimming he beat the water the same way that the women beat the skins when the men dance the corroboree, the water then became very thick, and then turned to mud, when it turned to mud he could no longer see though the water. In the distance he saw something and moved the thick water with a bough, so that he could see everything underneath He saw what looked like hands like the ones that Pund-jel had given to men, Pal-ly-yan took a strong branch and curved it to form a hook, then moved the water to see again. There were two heads like the ones that Pund-jel had given the men, and bodies looking like the men’s, at last he saw two young women. He named one Kun-ner-warra and the other Ku-ur-ook and brought them to Pund-jel to show him. Pund-jel gave the women to the two men he had created. Pund-jel gave the men spears and gave women a digging-stick. Pal-ly-yan told the men and women to live together; He ordered the men to use their spears to kill kangaroos and told the women to dig roots. The gods stayed with the four people for three days. They showed the men how to spear the kangaroo and the emu. And they showed the women where they could find roots. On the third day Pund-jel and Pal-ly-yan and the four people sat down a great storm came and carried away Pund-jel and Pal-ly-yan. After that the people never saw Pund-jel or Pal-ly-yan again (Robinson, 1969).

There were people living on a mountain. The rain hadn’t for a long time, and they were very low on water. Only one of their wells still had water in them. Weeri and Walawidbit decide to steal the water, so they make a water carrier, called an eel-a-mun, and stole the water. When the people in the village awoke they found that there was no water. The Elders gather the people and notice that two men are missing. They find Weeri and Walawidbit tracks, and ran after them. The two men couldn’t run very fast, because they're carrying the water. The best spearman threw a spear and punctured the eel-a-mun. The two men don't notice until the carrier is almost empty. They are captured, and brought back to face justice. The Wonmutta, the clever man, changes Weeri into the first emu, and Walawidbit is turned into the first blue-tongued lizard. Where the water had leaked from their bag there are now waterholes, which provided for everyone (Miller, Olga, narr. How the Water got to the Plains).

Two brothers-in-laws Gadji and Wurrpan lived together with their families in a village. Gadji and his family went hunting for stingrays, then cooked them on the banks of the water, separating the meat from the fat. They wrapped it in bark, and headed back to camp. They give the old, bits of meat to the Wurrpan family. The brothers-in-law start fighting. Wurrpan points out Gandji left the good bits for himself, Gandji says Wurrpan should have gone fishing as well. The argument went on for a very long time and one finally lost his temper. Gandji throw hot coals at Wurrpan, then throw a smooth rock, called a Buyburu at hits Wurrpan and hits him in the chest. Gandji starts jumping in fear of what Wurrpan might do to him. He then starts flying, and turns into a Jabiru without a beak. Wurrpan calls for his children to come and bring him his spear and hits Gandji through the mouth, giving him a beak. Ganji lands in a place called Ngurruyurrdjurr. Wurrpan and his children run away, and change into the first emus, and their feathers were grey from the ash from the coals, and they have a bump in the front where the stone hit (Smith, Kevin, narr. //The Emu and the Jabiru//).

And this is how the world came to be, with the people, the ancestors, and the animals. **BIBLIOGRAPHY**

"An Aborigine Creation Story." Creation Stories from around the world. Painsley Catholic College, n.d. Web. 4 Nov. 2010. < [] >.

Australian Museum, 20 Jan. 2010. Web. 3 Nov. 2010. < [] >. Kieron Convery, Geetanjali Banwait.

Australian Museum. "Indigenous Australia." Australian Museum. NSW government, 24 Dec. 2009. Web. 4 Nov. 2010. < [] Indigenous-Australia-Family/>.

Australian Aboriginal Mythology. Academic dictionaries and encyclopedias, n.d. Web. 3 Nov. 2010. < [] >.

"Australian Mythology." Encyclopedia of world mythology. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale Cengage Learning, 2009. 145-149. Print. 3 vols.

Boyle, Josie, narr. The Two Wise Men and the Seven Sisters. Kieron Convery, Geetanjali Banwait. Australian Museum.

Maza, Bob, narr. Min-na-wee (Why the Crocodile rolls). Mark Trounce, Idis Art. Australian Museum. Australian Museum, 20 Jan. 2010. Web. 3 Nov. 2010. < [] >. Art

Miller, Olga, narr. How the Water got to the Plains. Australian Museum. Australian Museum, 20 Jan. 2010. Web. 3 Nov. 2010. < [] >. Boyle, Josie, narr. The Two Wise Men and the Seven Sisters.

Queensland University of technology. "Too Obvious to See: Aboriginal Spirituality and Cosmology." Oodgeroo. Queensland university of technology, 26 Nov. 2007. Web. 4 Nov. 2010.

Smith, Kevin, narr. //The Emu and the Jabiru//. Clancy Guthijpuy Marrkula, Bangana Wunungmurra. //Australian Musuem//. Australian Musuem, 20 Jan. 2010. Web. 3 Nov. 2010. .

"The Dreaming." The Culture Portal, culture.gov.au. Australian Government, 6 Mar. 2008. Web. 4 Nov. 2010. .