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The Muldjewangk is a water-creature in Ngarrindjeri mythology that inhabited the Murray River, particularly Lake Alexandrina. It was used as a deterrent for Aboriginal children who wished to play near the riverside after dark. Sometimes they are portrayed as evil merfolk, and other times as a gargantuan monster. Accounts are inconsistent as to whether there are many of the creatures, or a single "The Muldjewangk".
A legend tells of a Muldjewangk who once attacked a steamboat owned by European settlers. The captain saw two great hands grasping the hull of the boat so he grabbed his gun. Aboriginal elders on board warned the captain not to shoot, but their pleas fell on deaf ears. The elders warned the captain that he would suffer as a result of his actions. Soon after, the captain broke out in weeping red blisters over his body, and took six months to die.
The Muldjewangk pesters Ngurunderi (see Murray River) and his wives when they settle on the banks of Lake Alexandrina by wrecking their fishing nets.
Large clumps of floating seaweed are said to hide Muldjewangks and are to be avoided. Large footprints have also been seen. Some elders now say the Muldjewangks no longer inhabit the river system.
The bunyip is a creature from the aboriginal mythology of southeastern Australia, said to lurk in swamps, billabongs, creeks, riverbeds, and waterholes.
The Murray River is a river in Southeastern Australia. It is Australia's longest river at 2,508 km (1,558 mi) extent. Its tributaries include five of the next six longest rivers of Australia. Together with that of the Murray, the catchments of these rivers form the Murray–Darling basin, which covers about one-seventh the area of Australia. It is widely considered Australia's most important irrigated region.
Australian Aboriginal religion and mythology is the sacred spirituality represented in the stories performed by Aboriginal Australians within each of the language groups across Australia in their ceremonies. Aboriginal spirituality includes the Dreamtime, songlines, and Aboriginal oral literature.
Lake Alexandrina is a coastal freshwater lake located between the Fleurieu and Kangaroo Island and Murray and Mallee regions of South Australia, about 100 kilometres (62 mi) south-east of Adelaide. The lake adjoins the smaller Lake Albert and a coastal lagoon called The Coorong to its southeast, before draining into the Great Australian Bight via a short, narrow opening known as Murray Mouth.
The Ngarrindjeri people are the traditional Aboriginal Australian people of the lower Murray River, eastern Fleurieu Peninsula, and the Coorong of the southern-central area of the state of South Australia. The term Ngarrindjeri means "belonging to men", and refers to a "tribal constellation". The Ngarrindjeri actually comprised several distinct if closely related tribal groups, including the Jarildekald, Tanganekald, Meintangk and Ramindjeri, who began to form a unified cultural bloc after remnants of each separate community congregated at Raukkan, South Australia.
Hindmarsh Island is an inland river island located in the lower Murray River near the town of Goolwa, South Australia.
The Ramindjeri or Raminjeri people were an Aboriginal Australian people forming part of the Kukabrak grouping now otherwise known as the Ngarrindjeri people. They were the most westerly Ngarrindjeri, living in the area around Encounter Bay and Goolwa in southern South Australia, including Victor Harbor and Port Elliot. In modern native title actions a much more extensive territory has been claimed.
The Wagyl is the Noongar manifestation of the Rainbow Serpent in Australian Aboriginal mythology, from the culture based around the south-west of Western Australia. The Noongar describe the Wagyl as a snakelike Dreaming creature responsible for the creation of the Swan and Canning rivers and other waterways and landforms around present day Perth and the south-west of Western Australia.
Currency Creek is a township and locality in South Australia on the western shore of Lake Alexandrina about 6 km north of Goolwa, beside a seasonal stream bearing the same name – Currency Creek – which flows into Lake Alexandrina. The locality includes the headland named Finniss Point which separates the mouths of Currency Creek and the Finniss River.
James Unaipon, born James Ngunaitponi, was an Australian Indigenous preacher of the Warrawaldie Lakalinyeri of the Ngarrindjeri.
The Whowie, a fearsome creature from Australian Aboriginal mythology, resembled a seven-metre long goanna with a huge frog-shaped head and six powerful legs. He lived in a cave on the banks of the Murray River that extended deep beneath the ground, and his trampling on the riverbanks outside his cave formed the sandhills of the Riverina district. Although slow, the Whowie was extremely stealthy and could gobble up a whole tribe in a single meal.
Clayton Bay is a town in South Australia located on Lake Alexandrina and Lower Murray River, part of the lower lakes and Coorong region at the end of the Murray River System. The town is located north of the north-east tip of Hindmarsh Island about 87 kilometres (54 mi) from Adelaide and 30.7 kilometres (19 mi) by road from Goolwa.
The Wergaia or Werrigia people are an Aboriginal Australian group in the Mallee and Wimmera regions of north-Western Victoria, made up of a number of clans. The people were also known as the Maligundidj which means the people belonging to the mali (mallee) eucalypt bushland which covers much of their territory.
Australian mythology stems largely from Europeans who colonised the country from 1788, subsequent domestic innovation, as well as other immigrant and Indigenous Australian traditions, many of which relate to Dreamtime stories. Australian mythology survives through a combination of word of mouth, historical accounts and the continued practice and belief in Dreamtime within Aboriginal communities.
Maria was a brigantine built in Dublin, Ireland, and launched in 1823 as a passenger ship. On 28 June 1840, she wrecked on the Margaret Brock Reef, near Cape Jaffa in the Colony of South Australia, somewhere south-west of the current site of the town of Kingston SE, South Australia. The wreck has never been located.
The Maraura or Marrawarra people are an Aboriginal group whose traditional lands are located in Far West New South Wales and South Australia, Australia.
The Jarildekald (Yarilde) are an indigenous Australian people of South Australia originating on the eastern side of Lake Alexandrina and the Murray River.
The Ngaiawang (Ngayawang) were an Aboriginal Australian people of the western Riverland area of South Australia, with a language considered part of the Lower Murray group. They are now considered extinct. They have sometimes been referred to as part of the Meru people, a larger grouping which could also include the Ngawait and Erawirung peoples. They were called Birta by the Kaurna and Ngadjuri peoples, variations of Murundi by the Jarildekald people, and were also known various other terms and spellings.
The Ngarkat is a recorded title of a tribal group from South Australia. The Ngarkat lands had linked the mallee peoples of Victoria and South Australia to the river peoples of the Murray River Murraylands. Ngarkat language has been loosely grouped with Peramangk language though not by linguists, and the grouping was perhaps partly owed to the co-ownership of lands in both the Ninety Mile Desert and Echunga by John Barton Hack, and partly to the occasional meeting of tribes. The language of the Ngarkat was recorded as being Boraipur by Ryan in recent times though sources were not given, while it may yet be telling that the citing work concerns Mallee peoples to the east. The language may have been midway between that of mallee peoples to the east, and that of peoples to the west recorded by Teichelmann and Schurman. It is known that songlines linked the Coorong to the Mallee regions, hence went through Ngarkat land. It is also known that Ngarkat people did meet regularly with tribes to the east, at sites along the Murray.