Gadjari
Warlpiri · deity · Warlpiri traditional religion; continuing · deity
Gadjari, in modern Warlpiri Kajirri, is the ancestral Mother, the Old Woman for whom the great second-stage male initiation cult is named. Meggitt's monograph documents the Gadjari as the presiding fertility being of the northern and central-desert cult, associated across the wider region with the Rainbow Serpent and the Kunapipi Mother of Arnhem Land. Among the Warlpiri her presence is oblique: the secret episodes performed in her cult belong to the male Mamandabari pair, and the Mother herself stands some distance from the action, treated almost as a presiding deity rather than a character within the songs. Her cult is understood to have travelled south from Arnhem Land through Wave Hill and Lajamanu into the Tanami.
Domains
- fertility
- initiation law
Powers
- presides over the male initiation cult that bears her name
- transforms initiands into ritual adults
Epithets
- Kajirri