Rainbow Serpent
The Rainbow Serpent is a powerful creator being in the traditions of many Aboriginal peoples of Australia, a great snake linked to water, rain, and rainbows who shaped the land and punishes those who break its law.
| Also known as | Rainbow Snake, Ngalyod, Wagyl, Waugal, Yurlungur, Wonambi |
|---|---|
| Type | serpent |
| Tradition | Aboriginal Australian |
| Category | Myth |
| Associated with | Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia |
| Earliest source | Rock paintings of serpent beings in western Arnhem Land, about 6,000 years old (dates debated) |
| Wings | No |
| Breathes fire | No |
| Guards treasure | No |
| Nature | Ambivalent |
One Name, Many Beings
"Rainbow Serpent" is an English name, not an Aboriginal one. The anthropologist A. R. Radcliffe-Brown used it in 1926 for a belief he found across much of Australia: a great serpent associated with the rainbow, with rain, and with permanent waterholes. Aboriginal Australia has hundreds of language groups, and each has its own beings and stories. Among the best known are Ngalyod of the Kunwinjku people of western Arnhem Land, Yurlungur of the Yolngu of northeastern Arnhem Land, and the Wagyl of the Noongar of southwestern Western Australia. Grouping them under one name is a convenience of outsiders, and the beings differ a great deal.
Creation and Law
In many traditions the serpent belongs to the Dreaming, the time of creation, when ancestral beings traveled across the land and shaped it. As the serpent moved, it carved out rivers, gorges, and waterholes. The Noongar say the Wagyl made the Swan River and other waterways around Perth. Often the serpent still lives in a deep pool or spring, so certain waters must be approached with care.
The serpent gives life through rain and water, but it can also destroy. In Yolngu tradition, Yurlungur rose from his waterhole and swallowed the two Wawilak sisters after they offended him, bringing on a great flood and the monsoon. In many places the serpent punishes those who break sacred law with floods, illness, or death.
Many of these stories are sacred, and some may be told only by particular people or heard only by the initiated. Published versions are a small and sometimes simplified part of living traditions.
In Rock Art
Arnhem Land holds some of the oldest images of the serpent. A 1996 study by Paul Taçon, Meredith Wilson, and Christopher Chippindale traced serpent paintings in western Arnhem Land back roughly 6,000 years. They suggested that early images were inspired by the pipefish, at a time when rising seas were flooding the coast. The serpent is also a major subject of bark painting.
Legacy
Dick Roughsey's picture book The Rainbow Serpent (1975) introduced one Lardil story to children worldwide, and a giant fossil snake of ancient Australia was named Wonambi after a serpent being of South Australian tradition. See our Africa and Oceania section for related serpents, such as Aido-Hwedo of West Africa.
Related
- Aido Hwedo: Aido Hwedo is the rainbow serpent of Fon religion in Benin, who carried the creator Mawu as the world was made and now lies coiled beneath the earth, holding it together.
- Taniwha: A taniwha is a powerful water being of Māori tradition in New Zealand, living in rivers, lakes, caves, and the sea, which can be a protective guardian of a tribe or a dangerous monster that preys on people.
- Ayida-Weddo: Ayida-Weddo is the rainbow serpent lwa (spirit) of Haitian Vodou, the wife of the white serpent Damballa, honored with him as a spirit of the rainbow, water, fertility, and the union of sky and earth.
- Ouroboros: The Ouroboros is a serpent or dragon eating its own tail, a symbol of eternity and endless cycles first found in ancient Egypt and later central to Greek alchemy and Western esoteric art.
- Dragons Across Cultures
- Dragons Across Cultures
Sources and Further Reading
- A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, "The Rainbow-Serpent Myth of Australia," Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 56 (1926)
- Paul S. C. Taçon, Meredith Wilson, and Christopher Chippindale, "Birth of the Rainbow Serpent in Arnhem Land Rock Art and Oral History," Archaeology in Oceania 31, no. 3 (1996)
- Ronald M. Berndt and Catherine H. Berndt, The Speaking Land: Myth and Story in Aboriginal Australia (Penguin, 1989)
- Ira R. Buchler and Kenneth Maddock, eds., The Rainbow Serpent: A Chromatic Piece (The Hague: Mouton, 1978)
Cite this entry: “Rainbow Serpent,” Draconika Encyclopedia of Dragons, https://www.draconika.com/dragons/rainbow-serpent.