Karora- Aboriginal Australian PrimordialPrimordial
Description
The bandicoot ancestor of the Arrernte who lay sleeping beneath the earth at Ilbalintja, a living pole called a tnatantja growing from his head up to the sky. From his navel and armpits, bandicoots dug their way into the world as the first sun rose from his dreaming mind. Karora woke, ate two of the bandicoots, and from his body brought forth the sons who became the first people.
Mythology & Lore
The Sleeper at Ilbalintja
Before the sun had ever risen, Karora lay sleeping beneath the earth at Ilbalintja, a soak in the central Australian landscape. He had lain there for an unknowable time in primordial darkness. From his head grew a tnatantja, a tall living pole, its bottom resting on his skull and its top reaching into the sky.
As Karora dreamed, life stirred. Bandicoots emerged from his navel and armpits, digging their way up through the earth into the open air. At the same moment, the first sun rose, light breaking into a world that had known only darkness. Karora woke hungry. He seized two of the bandicoots that had come from his own body, cooked them, and ate them. Then more life came: sons emerged from him, and they became the first people of the Bandicoot clan.
The Sandhill Wallaby Man
The sons went out to hunt, and as they traveled they heard the sound of a bullroarer. Following the sound, they caught sight of a sandhill wallaby. They threw their tjuringa sticks and broke its leg. But the wallaby called out that he was now lame and that he was a man like them, not a bandicoot.
The sons were carried to where the lamed wallaby man waited for them, and the place became a great djang, a sacred site. Grouped rocks at Ilbalintja still represent the brothers gathered around the body of the sandhill wallaby man, with a great boulder at their center.
Relationships
- Associated with