Birrahgnooloo- Aboriginal Australian GodDeity"The All-Mother"
Also known as: Birrahgnulu and Birranulu
Description
Wife of the creator Baiame, she takes the form of a wedge-tailed eagle and brings rain to the dry Kamilaroi country. Where she passes, rivers fill and grasslands green. Without her, the world Baiame shaped would wither.
Mythology & Lore
The Rain-Bringer
K. Langloh Parker recorded Birrahgnooloo's place among the Kamilaroi (Gamilaraay) people of the Narran Lake region in the late nineteenth century. She is the wife of Baiame and the mother of Daramulum, and her form is the wedge-tailed eagle, called Moodai in some Kamilaroi accounts.
Baiame made the world and withdrew to his sky camp. What he left behind would die without rain, and rain is Birrahgnooloo's gift. In the semi-arid country of northern New South Wales, she sends the storms that fill the waterholes and turn brown earth green. The Kamilaroi understood her not as a distant figure but as the reason the land still lived.
The Kurrea of Narran Lake
In a narrative Parker recorded from the Narran Lake traditions, Birrahgnooloo and Baiame's second wife went fishing during Baiame's absence. A Kurrea, a great crocodile-like creature, rose from the depths of the lake and swallowed both women.
When Baiame returned and found them gone, he tracked the Kurrea to Narran Lake. He killed it with his power and split its body open to free his wives. The lake where the Kurrea died remained sacred ground.