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.