Waang
Kulin · deity · dreaming creator era · Recorded classification
Waang (also Waa, Wahn) is the Crow ancestral-being of the Kulin nation of central Victoria — the trickster and law-bearer who, with his brother the eaglehawk creator Bunjil, constitutes the two moiety-ancestors (Bunjil the eaglehawk / Waang the crow) that structure Kulin kinship and marriage. The brother-relationship is recorded from the other side in the existing aboriginal_bunjil entry, whose prose states that Bunjil 'with his brother Waa the Crow instituted the foundational moiety division structuring Kulin kinship'. Blake (1991) gives the Woiwurrung terms waang 'crow' and bunjil 'eaglehawk'. Authored as the Crow moiety-ancestor whose attested kinship is the sibling-bond to Bunjil.
Domains
- trickery
- ancestral origins
Powers
- Takes the form of the crow
- Works the world by trickster cunning
Epithets
- Waang Crow the trickster and moiety-ancestor of the Kulin, brother and counterpart of Bunjil the eaglehawkA. W. Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia (1904); R. B. Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria (1878) (primary)
Relations
- sibling: BunjilHowitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia (1904) Ch. XI; R. B. Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria (1878), the Bunjil / Waang moiety pair (primary)