Min Monti (the Jabiru Ancestor)

Min Monti is the jabiru, or black-necked stork, one of the Wik-Mungkan pulwaiya - the ancestral totemic beings of western Cape York. In the myth recorded by Ursula McConnel from the narrator Kumita, Min Monti acts in the ancestral era to establish its totemic cult and the auwa, the place at which the increase of the species is ritually maintained. Each such pulwaiya founds an independent clan totem centred on its own site.

Domains

• wetland birds

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 191/16/14, 'Myth of Min Monti the Jabiru', recorded from Kumita.