Djanggawul

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The Djanggawul, also spelt Djang'kawu or Djan'kawu, are creation ancestors in the mythology of the Yolngu people of Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia.

They are three siblings, two female and one male, who created the landscape of Australia and covered it with flora and fauna. They came by canoe from the island of Baralku, landing at Yalangbara. [1]

The Djan'kawu were eventually eaten by Galeru. The two female Djanggawul made the world's sacred talismans by breaking off pieces of their vulvas. They included Bunbulama, a rain goddess.[ citation needed ]

The Djanggawul myth [2] [3] specifically concerned the Dua (Dhuwa) moiety of people, including about a third of the clans that lived in north-east Arnhem Land. The humans born of the two sisters are the ancestors of the Rirratjingu clan. [4] [1]

The mythology was staged in early contact times by the Dua during several days of dancing, singing, and the manipulation of sacred emblems, on a stage of man-made holes and earth sculpture. The other moiety of the region, the Yirritja (or Yiritja), also participated in the dramatisation of the Djanggawul myth, although some of the rites were accessible only to initiated Dua males. Oliver, following R. Berndt (1952), suggests that the Djanggawul cycle is a dramatic enactment of Arnhem Land's monsoon cycle, which shaped Aboriginal food procurement activities.(1989:169)[ citation needed ]

See also

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References

  1. 1 2 West, Margie (7 December 2010). "Yalangbara: art of the Djang'kawu". Western Australian Museum . Retrieved 17 July 2021.
  2. ↑ Wells, A.E. (1971). This their dreaming. UQ Press, St.Lucia,Qld.
  3. ↑ Berndt, Ronald M. (2004). Djanggawul: An Aboriginal Religious Cult of North-Eastern Arnhem Land. Routledge. p. 1. ISBN   978-0-415-33022-0. (Originally published 1952)
  4. ↑ Oliver, Douglas L. (1989). Oceania: The Native Cultures of Australia and the Pacific Islands. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu.


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