Min Wuka (the Flying-fox Ancestor)

Min Wuka is the flying-fox (fruit-bat), one of the Wik-Mungkan pulwaiya, the ancestral totemic forebears of western Cape York. Its myth, recorded by Ursula McConnel from the narrator Kuworpita, belongs to the body of totemic-ancestor stories in which each species-forebear inaugurates a clan cult and an increase-site (auwa). As with the other pulwaiya, the flying-fox is honoured as an independent clan totem.

Domains

• flying foxes

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 191/12 'Texts, mostly in Wik-Mungkan. Part One', item AA 191/12/32, 'Myth of the Flying-fox (Min Wuka)', recorded from Kuworpita.