Julunggul is the Rainbow Serpent as known to the Yolngu of northeastern Arnhem Land, a copper-scaled serpent of immense power dwelling in sacred waterholes, whose hunger enforces the boundaries between the sacred and the profane.
Julunggul rose from the Mirrirmina waterhole when the scent of the Wawalag sisters' blood reached the depths, and swallowed the two women and their children whole — only to regurgitate them later, their consumption and rebirth becoming the pattern for Yolngu male initiation.
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