Bunjil

Eaglehawk creator deity of the Kulin nation (confederation of five language groups in central Victoria). Per canonical-Kulin narrative, created the people, the landscape, the law, and (with his brother Waa the Crow) instituted the foundational moiety division structuring Kulin kinship — the canonical Australian-Aboriginal eaglehawk-and-crow moiety pattern that recurs across multiple language-group Dreaming-traditions. Ascended to the sky after completing his creator-work, where he continues to oversee Country in the form of the wedge-tailed eagle (Aquila audax). The Bunjil's Shelter rock-art panel at Black Range State Park (Victoria) — small ochre-painted Bunjil figure flanked by two dingoes — is one of the most-iconic Victorian Aboriginal rock-art sites and the canonical iconographic anchor of the Bunjil-cult. Continues as central cultural-religious framework for contemporary Wurundjeri, Boon Wurrung, and other Kulin-nation communities, with public-art commissions across Melbourne and Victoria (notably the Bunjil sculpture at Docklands by Bruce Armstrong, 2002) preserving the figure in contemporary Australian visual-culture.

Children

• Binbeal

Domains

• creation
• sky
• ancestral origins
• law

Powers

• ascends to the sky-country Tharangalk-bek on a whirlwind of his own raising
• Transforms into a wedge-tailed eagle
• Breathes life into the clay men
• Shapes the first people from clay
• Teaches the people skills and law

Epithets

• Bunjil
• Mami-ngata

Relations

• sibling: Waang
• father of: Binbeal

Sources

• Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia (1904) Ch. XI
• W. E. H. Stanner, On Aboriginal Religion (1963)
• Bunjil's Shelter rock-art panel, Black Range State Park, Victoria
• Wurundjeri Council and Kulin-nation community publications