Wurundjeri Dreaming
Click on the drop down menu "Kulin & Wurundjeri" above for more pages about Melbourne Aboriginal history & culture.
The following Wurundjeri Dreamtime Stories were directly transcribed from a series of interviews with Wurundjeri Elder, Ian Hunter, recorded in 2004-5.
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Bunjil & Pallian Creation Story
Yarra Creation Story
Mindi
Gurruk
Black Duck
Gunuwarra
Subjects of Spiritual Relevance
Bunjil & Pallian Creation Story
In Wurundjeri society we had to have a god too, same as any body and the god in our language was called Bunjil. And Bunjil was said to be Creator of all living things [...]
It was passed down that Bunjil came in the form of an eagle [...] I see him as a great force, same as any god, whether it be the Christian God, or Allah, or Buddha. A god has to perform and create. And Bunjil created everything according to our rules - the land, the earth, the animals.
And then after creating the earth, he then went to the Yarra [River], which originally was called Birrarung, place of the mists, he got two great clods of clay and fashioned two great clods of clay into two forms.
Now most people think that these two forms would be man and woman, but they weren't they were two men. [...] Bunjil created the two men, which he called Kulin out of clay.
He then kneels down over the two men and breathes from the top of their heads to the tip of their toes and then around in circles around their navels and gives them life.
So the two men stand up and he calls them Kulin. So he gives them long sharp sticks and tells them that they will be hunters, for animals that move. Pallian, his brother, he's seen this going on, but he's not a god. But Pallian says,
"Now that's not a bad sort of a trick [...] maybe I can do something as well."
So Pallian with his stone axe chops down two saplings. And with the saplings, as he's chopped them down, he trails them in the Yarra - the great place of significance, of sacred water.
And he starts chopping away at them and chopping and chopping and chopping away at the two saplings. He doesn't realise his axe is getting blunt (it's greenstone you see). [...] So finally Pallian says,
"Oh, me axe is blunt, that'll have to do".
So he's created two different forms, a little bit more shapely, with a couple more bumps. He calls them Bagrook, what we call today women.
Then Pallian kneels and tries to breath life into the two women - he can't do it. He keeps blowing and blowing [...] so he keeps going, but it doesn't work. But then he says,
"Hey Bunjil, they won't go. Will you give me a bit of a hand down here?"
So Bunjil comes down and gently breathes air over the two forms of women. So he says,
"Stand up."
And the two women stand up and they're alive. The two women he then calls Bagrook and he calls the other two men, the Kulin, back.
"Wanna see these, come 'ere."
And he says one man and one woman will be of the eagle people, or moiety, or blood, or class. One man and one woman would also be of the crow class, of which Wurundjeri people are crow people.
So [there after] the eagle man would marry crow woman and have eagle children. The crow man would marry eagle woman and have crow children, so they would then have unrelated children [...] and that's how the social system of Aboriginal societies generally worked - in moiety.
[...] Then when Bunjil's finished all that, he sees fit to do what he wants, he's done the whole deal - he's created the earth and animals and men and women to look after it, same as in the bible.
So he then sees fit to go into the heavens, or Tandaburruk, where he can then look over his people to make sure that what he's created is going to behave right.
And when he goes there he takes with him Mindi, something else which he created along the way, which is a bit of a mistake; half a dog half a snake. And Mindi [is] this creature who can sort of seek retribution on Aboriginal people. He knows all black fellas and black fellas know Mindi, but he can't operate unless he sort of gets the nod from Bunjil, who was the creator of all living things according to the Wurundjeri people.
And men and women were created with the power of the Yarra [River]. So our Yarra, or Birrarung is definitely THE place - the place of the start of creation.
Whether it be God, the Christian god, or Allah, Buddha, Bunjil, Rainbow Serpent ...they're all gods, all different names. I've come down to it now, me, as an older bloke now, I've come down to it that there is a god, there has to be a god.
Otherwise there's now reason for all this, why we are here [...] we have to believe in a here-after, because what we see of ourselves is only a shell to hold our spirit, or our murrup, [which] does transcend and come back in another form.
Yarra Creation Story
A long while ago there was a great lake and this great lake was up around about where the Upper Yarra Dam is now. And there was great, great water.
Down where the Boonerwrung People lived was open plains country, out where Port Phillip Bay is now. And an old man up there in the high country, up around Warburton and where that area is.
He says to his wife and his kids and his grandkids that he was sick and tired of eating fish, because all the lake being there they didn't eat kangaroo and possum and all that sort of stuff and the emu, like the fellas in the lowlands. So he says to the young fellas,
"Dig us a trench, go there to different parts of the lake and start digging trenches. I want you to dig trenches and let all the water go out so that we can have flat country up here [with] other animals to eat rather than [just] the fish and eels and yabbies and things."
So the young fellas start digging, but they don't realise that as soon as they do the water inundates and fills the hole up. So they can't keep digging.
And the old fella sits back there and sort of moans and groans [that he is] sick and tired of eating fish and wants to eat kangaroo and emu and possum. So one of the young fellas comes up with a bright idea,
"Hang on, what we'll do is we'll go down in the Boonerwrung country and we'll all spread out down there and we'll all start digging from different areas ...digging and digging and digging...and we'll all meet up, right up to where the mountain is, up where the big lake is."
So they did that and they dug and they dug and they dug and then as they got up to where the big lake was, all that lake finally came down those big rules that they'd dug, forming the Merri Creek, Edgars Creek, Maribyrnong River, the Yarra River and all those other tributaries today.
As they spilled out, they spilled out and come further down and filled up Port Phillip Bay, where it was Boonerwrung country. So Boonerwrung country had to be a little bit different.
So that's also one of the reasons why that little bit of a strip [of land] around South Melbourne, we allowed Boonerwrung people from that time on (probably about, in European time about fifteen to twenty thousand years ago) we then allowed the Boonerwrung country people, that instead of going straight across to Werribee mob.
They could come a ground and spend a bit of time in our country, because all their land was inundated [...] we give them that access line there, after all that water rose from all that lake coming down and filling the oceans up and making them bigger and deeper.
[...] It was an historical fact that there was a great lake up there some fifteen to twenty thousand years ago, but with volcano eruptions, well ...black fellas digging holes...and that was the same time, just after the last ice age, that Port Phillip Bay filled up. So some of our stories are actual historical events.
Mindi
[Mindi, the snake, is often referred to as the brother of Bunjil, the Eagle. Bunjil is the Creator spirit or moiety of the Kulin People. Mindi is said to be the protector of the waterways.]
Mindi, he was a muck up in Bunjil's Creation. So Bunjil felt sorry for him. So when Bunjil finished all his Creation work on Earth [...] He ascended into the Heavens, Tandaburruk.
Bunjil took Mindi with him and almost felt sorry for him. So therefore Mindi was not a devil, but Mindi had the powers to seek retribution on the Aboriginal people who've misbehaved. But he couldn't act by himself. He could only act under dominion of Bunjil.
So I see Mindi like a tell tale. Seeing Aboriginal people doing the wrong thing [he would say],
"Hey, look at this, look, look down there. Look at this Bunjil. I think we better do something about that".
But I can see Bunjil [...] sitting there sort of nodding or shaking his head and maybe winking his eye. And Mindi going,
"Oh a nod's as good as a wink. That means I can seek retribution on those people down there and punish them for ill deeds."
Because it stands to reason, the way that I've looked at it, that if you create a people and a country, not like in the Christian way - hell and brim fire. You don't destroy what you create, but you allow someone else, maybe, to cause a bit of havoc.
Gurruk The Brolga
Now you have to go to Queensland to see brolga, or Northern Territory, but brolgas were all through here, along creeks and billabongs. There's another story about Gurruk...
Gurruk was a young Aboriginal girl that was amazing in her dancing. And everybody wanted to be with Gurruk. But then and old, crotchety old man, who was a Wirrirrap, or a wizard, came into her camp and said to her mum and dad,
"I want Gurruk for my wife, because she's the best dancer and she's a nice young girl."
So he took Gurruk with him and the mum and dad sort of half agreed, but Gurruk didn't want to go with him. So what happened was she then spoke to the other good spirits and said,
"I don't want to be here. I don't want to be here."
And the good spirits said, "Well go to sleep"
"Yeah, but I don't want to sleep with the old man."
"Well go to sleep here and wake up in the morning and things will change."
So she woke up in the morning and she wasn't Gurruk anymore. She was gurruk - brolga. So the good spirits changed her into a big bird that forever would be dancing.
Gunuwarra The Swan
Gunuwarra...that was the name given to one of my daughters. Gunuwarra, by my mother, meaning swan. That reminds me of a story that mum used to tell about the swans.
A long while ago swans were white. Swans used to build their nests in trees like any other bird, but this year, this particular year, the swans were a bit lazy. So what happens is they've come pretty early the swans, they always come a bit early. So what they've done is hijacked a hawk's nest.
So they've laid their eggs and they've got their eggs catching or being brooded in a hawk's nest. The hawks come and they go,
"Hey, what's goin' on here. You can't use that. That's our nest."
So the hawks swoop down and chase the swans all over the country, plucking all their white feathers out.
There is a time when swans can't fly because all their feathers [have molted]. So what happens is as they're plucking all their white feathers out, all the feathers go down and they turn into the Christmas Bush, that our people call Coranderrk, that grows and flowers about this time of year [December].
So the poor old swans, they can't fly, 'cause they've got no feathers left. All their white feathers have been plucked out. But what they did do was hold their wings tight into their bodies, like that. So there were little white bits under here that the hawks couldn't get to.
But then the crows seen them and they go,
"Look at these poor fellas. They've got no feathers. We better give them some of ours."
So the crows pluck out a few of their feathers and give them to the swans. So from that point on the swans have to be black. But when the swans fly, when they lift their wings up, you can still see where they used to be white.
So I remember that one from my mum.
The Black Duck
The black duck was told by her parents,
"When you grow don't go down by the bottom river. Don't go down any lower than the rapids"
"Why not?"
"Just don't go down there."
So one day she thought,
"Mum and dad's not watching, so I'm gonna go down there".
So the little blackbuck went through the rapids and went down to the low country in the river. And who would be living down there - the water rat. And the water rat says to the duck,
"Yep, you can come and have some dinner here, come on. We'll give you something to eat here." So the water rat coerced the duck to stay with him a while.
And then the little duck said,
"Aw, hang on. I gotta go back home. I gotta go back up the rapids and go back where mum and dad are."
So yep, she went back. Mum and dad was really annoyed. Mum and dad said,
"Ok from now on you're not allowed down past the rapids, but you've gotta go further up into the real cold, cold water up there and you've gotta live up there now."
"But what about ...I've gotta come meet other ducks"
"Nup, you've gotta go up and live in the high country now - right in that cold water. Where it's really nice and fresh and lots of yabbies and all that."
Well then the next spring the black duck laid eggs, and the eggs hatched. And they were half duck and half water rat. The platypus!
So that's their story, that was mum's story of how the platypus come about.
Subjects of Spiritual Relevance
Also see Barak the Wirrirrap.
Black Cockatoo
No girls were allowed outside when the black cockatoo was around. All the girls had to come inside. They weren't allowed to put eyes on the black cockatoo [...] it takes on the form in the day time, at times, of the willy willy. And the willy willy is again significant of death, of something very, very fearful. If you dream of willy willy, or whirl wind, in the nighttime that means that someone's gonna come and take you up. Up into to the Heavens, Tandaburruk, to be dead.
The Plover
Plovers, they're another bird usually in the open plains around the water country. That's the spur wings [...] that bird in our mythology, if you hear a plover in the nighttime there could be a death in that direction. So they were a bird to be feared. You didn't wanna hear a plover in the night time.
If you heard the plover and the snipe, or the curloo,[...] at the same time that night, then definitely a death coming in that direction, from where the plover and the snipe were heard.
Bullroarers
The bullroarer would be used in different directions by people. If you throw a bull roarer around your head, which is the whirry whirry, away from you - that chases all the bad spirits away. If you wring it the other way that brings all the good spirits back to you.
The bullroarer, in traditional times, was forbidden to be heard by young children, only the men and all those being initiated would be the only people who would hear or see what a bullroarer was.
So I actually tell stories now about bullroarers being the noise that horrible, little creatures make when they come out of the water looking for kids. And I do say that's the way that old people would've used those.
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© Aliey Ball (freshwater.net.au) 2006
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