Taipan (the Ancestral Snake)
Wik Mungkan · deity · Wik Mungkan traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Taipan is the great ancestral snake-being (pulwaiya) of the Wik-Mungkan of western Cape York Peninsula, recorded by Ursula McConnel. As controller of blood, lightning and the rainbow he is the origin of the puri-puri (medicine-man's) power, both the sender and the healer of disease.
Domains
- blood and healing
- lightning and the rainbow
Powers
- to send and to cure sickness as master of blood
- to give the medicine-man his healing power
Sources
- Taipan is the great ancestral snake (pulwaiya) of the Wik-Mungkan, lord of blood, lightning and the rainbow and source of shamanic healing power.: Ursula H. McConnel, Myths of the Mungkan (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1957). (secondary); Ursula H. McConnel, 'Myths of the Wikmunkan and Wiknatara Tribes', Oceania 1, no. 3 (1931): 343-379. (secondary)