Mangar-kunjer-kunja

Arrernte · deity · Arrernte traditional religion; continuing · deity

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

Powers

Relations

Sources

Open in the interactive app →