Kurukadi

Kurukadi is one of the Wati Kutjara, the Two Men, a pair of goanna-totem ancestral brothers whose Dreaming track runs for thousands of kilometres across the Western Desert, from the Kimberley to South Australia. Kurukadi bears the light-coloured goanna as his totem, his companion Mumba the black goanna. On their journey the two men first sang their own names to fix their identity, then travelled about naming waterholes and ranges, instituting the circumcision rites and the sacred law, and correcting those who lacked proper ceremony. A widely recorded episode has the pair punish the lawless moon-man for assaulting women against marriage law, in some versions felling him with a charmed boomerang. Documented among Western Desert peoples by Norman Tindale and by Geza Roheim, the Wati Kutjara are one of the most far-travelled ancestral pairs of the Pitjantjatjara and neighbouring language groups.

Domains

• law and ceremony
• goanna totem

Powers

• establish law, ceremony, and place-names
• transform into wind to escape danger

Epithets

• Wati Kutjara — The Two MenTindale, N. B. (1936), 'Legend of the Wati Kutjara', Oceania, vol. 7, no. 2 (secondary)

Relations

• twin: MumbaKurukadi (light goanna) and Mumba (black goanna) are the two men, the Wati Kutjara, who travel together as a pair.Tindale, N. B. (1936), 'Legend of the Wati Kutjara', Oceania, vol. 7, no. 2 (secondary)

Sources

• Kurukadi is one of the two goanna-totem ancestral men (Wati Kutjara) who created desert law and features on a journey across the Western Desert; his totem is the light goanna.: Tindale, N. B. (1936), 'Legend of the Wati Kutjara, Warburton Range, Western Australia', Oceania, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 169-185 (secondary); Roheim, Geza (1945), The Eternal Ones of the Dream, International Universities Press, New York (secondary)