Namanjwarre (the Mardayin crocodile ancestor)
Kunwinjku · deity · Kunwinjku traditional religion; continuing · deity
Namanjwarre is the ancestral being of the estuarine (saltwater) crocodile among the Kunwinjku of western Arnhem Land, his name being the ordinary Kunwinjku word for that animal. In the Dreaming he is bound to the Mardayin, the great regional ceremony of sacred law: he is the guardian of its secret-sacred objects and is said to devour anyone who breaks the proper conduct of the rite. He is a major subject in the ceremonial bark painting of the region, most famously in the work of the Kuninjku master Yirawala, where the crocodile body carries the same designs as the Mardayin emblems, marking the identity of animal, ancestor and law.
Domains
- saltwater crocodile totem
- mardayin ceremony
Powers
- to guard the sacred objects of the Mardayin ceremony
- to devour those who breach ceremonial law
Relations
- companion: Nadulmi (the kangaroo ancestral being)
Sources
- Sandra Le Brun Holmes, Yirawala: Painter of the Dreaming (Sydney: Hodder & Stoughton, 1992).
- National Gallery of Australia, collection record for Yirawala, Namanjwarre, the Mardayin crocodile (bark painting), Kuninjku (Eastern Kunwinjku) people.