Bima
Tiwi · quartigod · Tiwi traditional religion; continuing · quartigod
Bima, also called Wai-ai or Wayai, is the first woman in Tiwi tradition and the unwitting cause of mortality. The wife of Purukupali and daughter of the bird-man Tokampini, she left her infant son Jinani in the shade of a tree and went into the bush with her husband's brother Tjapara, the Moon-man. Their dalliance lasted so long that the sun shifted, the shade withdrew, and the child died of the heat. For her neglect Purukupali beat her about the head with a throwing stick and banished her into the forest. Inconsolable, she wandered crying 'Wai-ai, Wai-ai' and was transformed into the bush stone-curlew of that name, whose mournful cry is still heard across Bathurst and Melville Islands at night as the everlasting voice of her remorse.
Parentage
Domains
- grief and mourning
Powers
- to take the form of Wai-ai, the curlew that wails through the night
Epithets
- Wai-ai
Relations
- spouse: Purukupali
- lover: Tjapara, the Moon-man
Sources
- Mountford, C.P. (1958). The Tiwi: Their Art, Myth and Ceremony. London: Phoenix House.
- Isaacs, J. (1992). Tiwi: Art, History, Culture. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
- Venbrux, E. (2010). Death and regeneration: The moon in Australian Aboriginal myths of the origin of death. In W. van Binsbergen & E. Venbrux (eds.), New Perspectives on Myth. Haarlem: Shikanda.