Itjaritjari

Itjaritjari is the marsupial mole woman of the Uluru Tjukurpa, an ancestral being who made her home in a cave in the flank of the rock, in the same valley on the northern side where the Mala hare-wallaby people held their ceremony. Moving unseen through the earth as the blind burrowing mole does, she was friendly with the Mala women and would come out of her cave to watch the children at their play. Her presence is one of the quieter strands of the great Mala narrative, embodying the small elusive marsupial mole of the sand country and the neighbourly bonds among the ancestral beings camped together at Uluru before the coming of the devil-dog Kurpany scattered them.

Domains

• marsupial mole totem
• earth and burrows

Powers

• travel unseen through the ground

Epithets

• Minyma Itjaritjari — Itjaritjari Woman / Marsupial Mole WomanParks Australia, Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, 'Southern marsupial mole' (primary)

Relations

• companion: LuunpaBoth ancestral women belong to the Mala camp on the northern side of Uluru.Parks Australia, Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, 'Southern marsupial mole' and 'The Mala story' (primary)

Sources

• Itjaritjari is the marsupial mole ancestral woman who lived in a cave in the side of Uluru near the Mala camp and befriended the Mala women and children.: Parks Australia, Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, 'Southern marsupial mole' (Anangu Tjukurpa) (primary); Mountford, C. P. (1965), Ayers Rock: Its People, Their Beliefs and Their Art, Angus & Robertson, Sydney (secondary)