Dreamtime Stories

Creation Story

Below Image on the Aboriginal Creation Story

This is the creation story of Ngiyaampaa country, as well as the land belonging to Eaglehawk and Crow.

Now long, long time ago of course, in the beginning, when there was no people, no trees, no plants whatever on this land, “Guthi-guthi”, the spirit of our ancestral being, he lived up in the sky.

So he came down and he wanted to create the special land for people and animals and birds to live in.

So Guthi-guthi came down and he went on creating the land for the people-after he’d set the borders in place and the sacred sights, the birthing places of all the Dreamings, where all our Dreamings were to come out of.

Guthi-guthi put one foot on Gunderbooka Mountain and another one at Mount Grenfell.

And he looked out over the land and he could see that the land was bare. There was no water in sight, there was nothing growing. So Guthi-guthi knew that trapped in a mountain-Mount Minara-the water serpent, Weowie, he was trapped in the mountain. So Guthi-guthi called out to him, “Weowie, Weowie”, but because Weowie was trapped right in the middle of the mountain, he couldn’t hear him.

Guthi-guthi went back up into the sky and he called out once more, “Weowie”, but once again Weowie didn’t respond. So Guthi-guthi came down with a roar like thunder and banged on the mountain and the mountain split open. Weowie the water serpent came out. And where the water serpent travelled he made waterholes and streams and depressions in the land.

So once all that was finished, of course, Weowie went back into the mountain to live and that’s where Weowie lives now, in Mount Minara. But then after that, they wanted another lot of water to come down from the north, throughout our country. Old Pundu, the Cod, it was his duty to drag and create the river known as the Darling River today.

So Cod came out with Mudlark, his little mate, and they set off from the north and they created the big river. Flows right down, water flows right throughout our country, right into the sea now.

And of course, this country was also created, the first two tribes put in our country were Eaglehawk and Crow. And from these two tribes came many tribal people, many tribes, and we call them sub-groups today. So my people, the Ngiyaampaa people and the Barkandji further down are all sub-groups of Eaglehawk and Crow.

So what I’m telling you-the stories that were handed down to me all come from within this country.

The White Waratah turns red

Image Waratah

This story is about how the White Waratah became red and the story starts off about these two little pigeons, a little pair of Wonga pigeons. Now, when the Wonga pigeons mate, they always mate for life and whatever they do, they always do it together. If they’re building a nest, they build it together. If they’re rearing their young, they do it together too.

These two little pigeons decided they wanted to go and gather food this morning and when you see pigeons, you never see them sitting up in the trees eating, you always see them walking around on the ground, picking up things.

So these two little Wonga pigeons were walking around on the ground, picking away, picking away, gathering food and they had a rule never to get out of one another’s sight. As they were picking around, the little female looked up and she couldn’t see her mate, but she didn’t take any notice for a little while, so she picked around on the ground by herself. She kept looking up every so often, then after a while she started to worry about her mate, because there was no sign of him.

So she started calling out and still no reply. This went on for a little while and their rule was never to fly up above the canopy of the trees, either, because the hawks would get them. So she flitted around in the lower branches, calling out to her mate and still no reply. She got to the stage where she thought ‘the only thing I can do now is fly up above the top of the trees and have a look up there’.

As she flew up above the tree tops, sure enough the big hawk grabbed her and he grabbed her on the breast.

Hawks always have their favourite places to take their food and eat it. So as this big hawk was flying back to his favourite spot to eat this little pigeon, somehow she wriggled and squirmed and broke free of his grip.

As she tore away from the hawk, she also tore her breast open too and started bleeding.

She couldn’t fly any more because she was wounded, so she floated down to the ground and the first thing she landed on was the White Waratah. The blood from her wounds started to turn that White Waratah red.

So as she went from Waratah to Waratah to White Waratah, they all became red.

So that little Wonga never found her mate and she died eventually herself, but that’s how the White Waratah became red.

The Red Waratahs have just finsihed flowering, but if you go up to a Red Waratah while it’s in flower and poke your finger into the flower itself and bring it out, you’ll get a red stain around your finger. That red stain represents the blood from the pigeon.

The Rainbow Serpent

Below Image on the rainbow serpent

Far off in Dreamtime, there were only people, no animals or birds, no trees or bushes, no hills or mountains.

The country was flat. Goorialla, the great Rainbow Serpent, stirred and set off to look for his own tribe. He travelled across Australia from South to North. He reached Cape York where he stopped and made a big red mountain called Naralullgan. He listened to the wind and heard only voices speaking strange languages.

This is not my country, the people here speak a different tongue. I must look for my own people. Goorialla left Naralullgan and his huge body made a deep gorge where he came down. He travelled North for many days and his tracks made the creeks and rivers as he journeyed North. Goorialla made two more mountains, one of the Naradunga was long made of granite, the other had sharp peaks and five caves and was called, Minalinha. One day Goorialla heard singing and said, “Those are my people, they are holding a big Bora.” At the meeting place of the two rivers, Goorialla found his own people singing and dancing. He watched for a long time, then he came out and was welcomed by his people. He showed the men how to dress properly and taught them to dance. A big storm was gathering, so all the people built humpies for shelter.

Two young men, the bil-bil or Rainbow Lorikeet brothers came looking for shelter but no one had any room. They asked their grandmother, the Star Woman but she had too many dogs and couldn’t help them. the Bil-bil brothers went to Goorialla who was snoring in his humpy but he had no room. The rain got heavier and the boys went back to Goorialla and called out that the rain was heavy. Goorialla said, “All right come in now.” The Bil-bil bothers ran into Goorialla’s mouth and he swallowed them. Then he began to worry about what the people would say when they found the boys missing. He decided to travel North to Bora-bunaru, the only great natural mountain in the land. Next morning the people found that the boys were gone and saw the tracks of Goorialla and knew that he had swallowed them.

You may never see these lakes or mountains, but after the rain you will see his spirit in the sky , which is the rainbow. This is the reason why he is called Goorialla the Rainbow Serpent.

Below Video based on the Dreaming

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