Thuwathu, the Rainbow Serpent
Thuwathu is the Rainbow Serpent of the Lardil people of Mornington Island in the Gulf of Carpentaria, and the central creator figure of their cosmology. In the best-known narrative, recorded by the Lardil artist Goobalathaldin (Dick Roughsey) and documented ethnographically by David McKnight, the serpent refused shelter to his sister, the shore-bird Bulthuku, and her infant during cold rain; in revenge she burned his shelter, and the burning serpent rolled and writhed across the country, gouging the swamps, creeks and rivers and leaving parts of his body as sacred story places. Thuwathu is counted among the principal ancestral beings who, with Marnbil and his companions, established the form of the Lardil land and the moral order that governs the people.
Domains
- creation of the land
- rivers and waterholes
- rain and rainbow
Powers
- to gouge swamps, creeks and rivers from the country with his moving body
- to leave parts of his body behind as enduring sacred places
Epithets
- ThuwathuState Library of Queensland, '2019 International Year of Indigenous Languages: Word of the Week — Week Fifteen' (Brisbane: State Library of Queensland, 2019). (secondary)
Relations
- sibling: Bulthuku, the Shore BirdThe shore-bird Bulthuku is the sister of Thuwathu; when he refused her and her infant shelter from the cold rain, she set fire to his humpy, and the burning that followed shaped the land.Dick Roughsey (Goobalathaldin), The Rainbow Serpent (Sydney: William Collins, 1975). (secondary)
Sources
- Thuwathu is the Lardil Rainbow Serpent, the great creator whose body, after he refused his sister shelter and was burned, shaped the swamps, creeks and rivers of Mornington Island and left sacred places across the country.: David McKnight, People, Countries, and the Rainbow Serpent: Systems of Classification among the Lardil of Mornington Island (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). (secondary); Dick Roughsey (Goobalathaldin), The Rainbow Serpent (Sydney: William Collins, 1975). (secondary)