Eingana- Aboriginal Australian PrimordialPrimordial
Also known as: Einjana
Description
The Dreamtime serpent from whom all life emerged and to whom all life remains attached. Eingana had no birth canal — she swelled endlessly with unborn creatures until Barraiya drove a spear into her, and through that wound life poured into the world. A sinew called Toon still runs from her body to the heel of every living thing; when she severs it, the creature dies.
Mythology & Lore
The Swelling Serpent
In the Dreamtime of the Jawoyn people of the Northern Territory, Eingana was the primordial serpent who carried all life within her body. She had no opening through which her creations could emerge, and so she simply grew. Water creatures and land animals and human beings multiplied inside her, and she swelled larger with each one. Nothing was yet born into the world.
The Dreamtime figure Barraiya saw what was happening. He drove a spear into Eingana near her anus, and life poured out of the wound. Fish came first, then the animals and beings that would populate every part of the country. Roland Robinson recorded this from the Jawoyn: that birth became possible only because of that wound, and death followed it. What has been fully born can also fully die.
The Sinew Called Toon
Every creature that came out of Eingana remained attached to her by a sinew called Toon, an invisible cord joined to the big sinew behind the heel. These cords run from her body to every living thing in the world. Every new birth extends a new Toon back to the serpent.
When Eingana severs a creature's Toon, it dies. If she herself were to die, every cord would break at once. No kangaroos, no birds, no people. The entire living world hangs from her body by those sinews, and she is still alive somewhere beneath the ground, holding all of it.
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