Lungkata

Lungkata is the blue-tongue lizard man of the Uluru Tjukurpa, remembered above all as a figure of greed and dishonesty whose story teaches proper conduct. Camped at the rock, Lungkata came upon a wounded emu (kalaya) that still trailed a spear from the hunt of two others. He seized and butchered it for himself. When the two Panpanpalala, the crested-bellbird hunters who had speared the bird, came asking whether he had seen it, Lungkata lied and denied all knowledge. Following the emu's tracks the hunters discovered his deceit, and in anger they set a great bushfire at the foot of Uluru. The smoke and flames overcame the fleeing Lungkata, who tumbled from the rock face to his death; the burnt boulder and the scorched slope on the western side of Uluru mark where he fell. His story is invoked to warn against greed, theft, and lying.

Domains

• blue tongue lizard totem
• greed and moral teaching

Powers

• lie and take what is not his

Epithets

• Wati Lungkata — Lungkata the (Blue-Tongue) Lizard ManParks Australia, Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, 'The Lungkata story' (primary)

Relations

• enemy: PanpanpalalaThe Panpanpalala bellbird hunters, whose wounded emu Lungkata stole and denied taking, set the fire that killed him.Parks Australia, Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, 'The Lungkata story' (primary)

Sources

• Lungkata is the greedy blue-tongue lizard man who stole a wounded emu, lied about it, and was killed by a fire the bellbird hunters lit at Uluru.: Parks Australia, Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, 'The Lungkata story' (Anangu Tjukurpa) (primary); Mountford, C. P. (1965), Ayers Rock: Its People, Their Beliefs and Their Art, Angus & Robertson, Sydney (secondary)