Dilga- Aboriginal Australian GodDeity"Earth Mother"
Also known as: Dilgha
Description
Mother of the Bagadjimbiri twin brothers, the earth goddess of the Karadjeri people. When the cat-man Ngariman speared her sons to death, Dilga's grief became a torrent. Milk flooded from her breasts, drowning the killers and washing over the twins' bodies until the same force that destroyed their murderers revived them.
Mythology & Lore
The Earth Goddess
Dilga is the earth goddess of the Karadjeri people of the Kimberley region, mother of the Bagadjimbiri. Her twin sons emerged from beneath the ground in the form of dingoes, transformed into giants, and set about the work of creation: digging waterholes into the dry earth and laying the Dreaming tracks that connected sacred sites across the country.
The twins were boisterous, their playful laughter carrying across the land. It reached the ears of Ngariman, a cat-man of considerable power, who found their noise intolerable. Ngariman gathered his relatives and allies and attacked the brothers, driving spears into them until both lay dead.
The Milk Flood
When word of the killing reached Dilga, grief overtook her. Milk began to flow from her breasts in such abundance that it became a flood, spreading across the land toward the site of the murder. The rising milk drowned Ngariman and his allies. Then the flood reached the bodies of the Bagadjimbiri. Where it had killed the murderers, it healed the murdered. The twins' physical forms transformed into water snakes, creatures bound to the rivers and waterholes they had created, while their spirits ascended to the sky.
Relationships
- Family
- Slew