Kongkong (the White Fish-hawk Ancestor)

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'.