Nadulmi (the kangaroo ancestral being)

Kunwinjku · deity · Kunwinjku traditional religion; continuing · deity

Nadulmi is a creation-period ancestral being of the Kunwinjku of western Arnhem Land, identified with the great kangaroo and specifically with the black wallaroo (barrk) of the sandstone escarpment. He is remembered above all as the senior owner and leader of the Wubarr, one of the region's major ceremonies, in which men perform dances modelled on the leaping and mating behaviour of kangaroos to renew the fertility of the country. He is a recurrent subject in western Arnhem Land bark and rock painting, where his macropod form carries the ceremonial designs proper to the Wubarr.

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