Taipan (the Ancestral Snake)

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

• Ursula H. McConnel, Myths of the Mungkan (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1957).
• Ursula H. McConnel, 'Myths of the Wikmunkan and Wiknatara Tribes', Oceania 1, no. 3 (1931): 343-379.