Numbakulla- Aboriginal Australian GodDeity"The Self-Existing Ones"

From the Sky to Unfinished Earth

The Numbakulla had no origin. No parents, no emergence, no moment of coming into being. They simply existed, two self-existing beings dwelling in the western sky. During the Dreamtime, they descended to earth and found the Inapertwa: shapeless, partially formed masses clustered together on the ground. The Inapertwa possessed the potential for human and animal form but lacked any differentiation. Their limbs were fused to their bodies. Their eyes and mouths were sealed shut.

The Numbakulla recognized in these formless masses the raw material of a world and set about completing what the earth had only begun.

The Carving

Spencer and Gillen recorded the work. Using stone knives, the Numbakulla carved the Inapertwa into their final forms. They separated arms and legs from torsos and opened eyes so the new beings could see. Each Inapertwa was transformed from an undifferentiated lump into a distinct ancestor, human or animal, with its own identity and its own totem. The totemic divisions that would structure Arrernte society were established in these cuts, each newly carved being assigned its place in the order of things.

When the work was finished, the Numbakulla departed. They left behind a world of fully formed ancestral beings who would go on to shape the landscape and lay down law. The creators were gone. The pattern they set was not.