Mamandabari

The Mamandabari are the Two Men, a pair of ancestral heroes whose travels across the Tanami laid down the road of the Kajirri (Gadjari) male initiation. Meggitt recorded their song cycle at Lajamanu in the 1950s as the compilation of secret male episodes that gives the initiation its shape, and Stephen Wild later documented the music and dance of the same tradition. Their performance is the model that living men re-enact, and the incised boards and ground designs of the cycle encode the sequence of their journey. Sources differ on whether this pair is the same as the Western Desert Wati-Kutjarra: in the Tanami Warlpiri tradition the Two Men are called the sons of Wawulja, while scholars such as Watson identify the eastern and western cycles and others keep them apart.

Parentage

• paternal: Wawulja

Domains

• initiation law
• song ceremony
• landscape track

Powers

• lays down the Kajirri initiation road across the desert
• carries and reveals the sacred boards and ritual gear

Epithets

• wati-jarra — the two menWatson, C. (2003), Piercing the Ground, Fremantle Arts Centre Press (secondary)

Relations

• child: WawuljaIn the Tanami Warlpiri tradition the Two Men (Wati-Kutjarra) are named as sons of Wawulja.Watson, C. (2003), Piercing the Ground: Balgo Women's Image Making and Relationship to Country, Fremantle Arts Centre Press (secondary)

Sources

• The Mamandabari are a pair of male ancestral heroes whose song cycle, recorded by Meggitt at Lajamanu, is the core of the secret male episodes of Kajirri (Gadjari) initiation.: Meggitt, M.J. (1966), Gadjari among the Walbiri Aborigines of Central Australia, Oceania Monographs (primary); Wild, S.A. (1975), Walbiri Music and Dance, Indiana University (primary)
• Sources differ on whether the Mamandabari cycle refers to the same pair as the Western Desert Wati-Kutjarra; Watson identifies them while others treat the two cycles as distinct.: Watson, C. (2003), Piercing the Ground, Fremantle Arts Centre Press (secondary)