Kongkong is the white fish-hawk, or osprey, one of the Wik-Mungkan pulwaiya of western Cape York. In the myth recorded by Ursula McConnel, the fish-hawk ancestor is bound up with the origin of the fishing-net, so that the story both accounts for a technology of daily subsistence and inaugurates the bird's totemic cult. Totems of this kind were commonly drawn from the objects of utility around which daily life centred.
Domains
fishing
Powers
to multiply its species at the totemic increase-site
Epithets
pulwaiya
Sources
McConnel, Ursula H. Myths of the Munkan. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1957.
South Australian Museum, AA 191 Ursula Hope McConnel Collection, Series AA 191/16 'Texts, mainly in Wik-Mungkan', item AA 191/16/24, 'Myth of Kongkong the White Fish-hawk and the Fishing-net'.