Mangar-kunjer-kunja
Mangar-kunjer-kunja ('fly-catcher lizard', the name of a small goanna) is the lizard-man ancestor of the Western Aranda creation account recorded by the missionary Carl Strehlow at Hermannsburg and later elaborated by his son T.G.H. Strehlow. Coming from the north, he found the rella manerinja — 'people grown together', the half-formed, fused proto-humans living on the hillsides and in the primordial waters, already grouped into the subsection classes that govern Aranda kinship. With his stone knife, the banga, he cut them apart, slit their eyes, opened their ears, mouths and noses, and divided their fingers and toes. He then gave the new people the implements of culture — knife, spear, shield, fire, boomerang and the sacred tjurunga — circumcised the men, and instituted the marriage system and the first ceremonies, completing the making of humankind. He is the Western Aranda counterpart of the ungambikula of Spencer and Gillen's eastern account, and his myth ties the origin of circumcision and of ceremonial law directly to a Dreaming ancestor.
Domains
- completion of humankind
- culture and ceremony
Powers
- to cut apart the fused proto-humans and open their senses
- to institute circumcision, marriage and the first ceremonies
Relations
- counterpart of: UngambikulaMangar-kunjer-kunja in Carl Strehlow's Western Aranda account performs the same office as the ungambikula in Spencer and Gillen's Eastern Arrernte account: a lizard-linked being who cuts the fused proto-humans apart with a stone knife to make the first people.Sam D. Gill, Storytracking: Texts, Stories, and Histories in Central Australia (Oxford University Press, 1998). (secondary)
Sources
- Mangar-kunjer-kunja is the lizard-man culture hero of the Western Aranda who separated the fused rella manerinja into human beings with a stone knife and gave humankind tools, fire, the tjurunga, marriage and ceremony.: Carl Strehlow, Die Aranda- und Loritja-Stämme in Zentral-Australien, Teil I: Mythen, Sagen und Märchen des Aranda-Stammes (Frankfurt: Joseph Baer, 1907). (secondary); T.G.H. Strehlow, Aranda Traditions (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1947). (secondary)