Ngura-wordu-punnuna (the wandering muramura of Pando)
Ngura-wordu-punnuna is a muramura of the Diyari whose legend, collected by the missionary Otto Siebert at Killalpaninna and published by A. W. Howitt, is set at Pando (Lake Hope) in the heart of Diyari country. He lived there on the rats and mice that swarmed in good seasons, sewing their skins into water-bags, and in the story he overcomes a strange beast that addresses him before he can strike, afterwards taking its great hide for the largest of his bags. When the west wind blew he wandered on, resting when it shifted, and at his resting-places kadimarkara — the monstrous creatures of Lake Eyre lore, whose 'bones' the Diyari recognised in the fossil beds of the region — arose along his track; at one place two kadimarkara hid in their burrows for fear of him, and at another two of them blocked his way. Laden with his filled water-bags, he came at last to Yulku-kudana, stretched out his neck to look back toward his camp at Pando, and sank down into the earth, ending his journey in the manner of the muramura, who remain in the land at the places where they went down.
Domains
- small game hunting
- kadimarkara creatures
Powers
- to sew water-bags from the skins of his game
- to bring forth kadimarkara along his track
- to sink into the earth at his journey's end
Epithets
- Mura-mura Ngura-wordu-punnunaA.W. Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia (London: Macmillan, 1904) (secondary)
Sources
- Ngura-wordu-punnuna is a Diyari muramura of Pando (Lake Hope) who lived on the rats and mice he snared there, sewed their skins into water-bags, wandered when the west wind blew while kadimarkara arose at his resting-places, and sank into the earth at the end of his journey.: A.W. Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia (London: Macmillan, 1904) (secondary); A.W. Howitt & Otto Siebert, 'Legends of the Dieri and Kindred Tribes of Central Australia', Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 34 (1904) (secondary)