Eingana: Snake Goddess of Primordial Dreamtime

May 15, 2013

Eingana: Snake Goddess of Primordial Dreamtime

The Australian natives call her, Mother Eingana, the world-creator, the birth mother, maker of all water, land, animals, and kangaroos.  This huge snake goddess still lives, they say, in the Dreamtime, rising up occasionally to create yet more life.  This primordial snake had no vagina as her offspring grew inside her, the goddess swelled up.  Eventually, tortured with the pregnancy, Eingana began to roll around and around.  The god Barraiya saw her agony and speared her near the anus so that birth could take place as all creatures now give birth.  She is also the death mother.  They say Eingana holds a sinew of life attached to each of her creatures and when she lets go, that life stops.  If she herself should die, they say everything would cease to exist.

Bieingana – The Aboriginal Story of Creation

“The first being we call Eingana.  We call Eingana our Mother.  Eingana made everything: water, rocks, trees, black fellows; she made all the birds, flying foxes, kangaroos, and emus.  Everything Eingana had inside herself in that first time.

Eingana is snake.  She swallowed all the black fellows.  She took them, inside herself, down under the water.  Eingana came out, she was big with everything inside her.  She came out of Gaieingung, the big waterhole near Bamboo Creek.  Eingana was rolling about, every way, on the ground.  She was groaning and calling out.  She was making a big noise with all the black fellows, everything, inside her belly.

One old man named Barraiya had been traveling a long was.  All the way he had heard Eingana crying out, rolling about and moaning.

 Barraiya sneaked up.  He say Eingana.  He saw the big snake rolling and twisting about, moaning and calling out.  Barraiya hooked up his stone-spear.  He watched the big snake.  He saw where he must spear her.  Barraiya speared her underneath, near the anus.  All blood came out of that spear-wound and all the black fellows came out after the blood.

Kandagun the dingo chased after all those black fellows.  He chased after them and split them up into different tribes and languages.  When Kandagun chased the black fellows, some flew away as birds, some bounded away as kangaroos, some raced away as emus, some became flying foxes, porcupines, snakes, everything, to get away from Kandagun.

That first time, before Barraiya speared Eingana, nothing and no one could be born as they are now.  Eingana had to spew everything out of her mouth.  Black fellows had to spew everything.  Children could not be born as they are now.  That is why Barraiya had to spear Eingana.

The old man Barraiya had been traveling from the east across to the west.  After he speared Eingana, the old man went back to his place Barraiyawim.  There he painted himself on a rock.  He turned into the blue winged kookaburra.  Eingana made the big Boolmoon River, she made the Flying Fox River and the Roper River.  Every river she made.  We have water now.  That’s why we are alive.

Eingana made Bolong the Rainbow Snake.  In the first time when Eingana swallowed the black fellows, she spewed them out and these black fellows became birds, they became Bonorong the brolga, Janaran the jabiroo, Baruk the diver, Eingana spewed out black fellows who became Koopoo the kangaroo, Kandagun the dingo, Balwan the hoanna, Nabininbulgai the flying fox.  All these birds, animals, all these things, Eingana took back.  She talked: “I think that all you fellows have to follow me, you have to go my way.”  Eingana took them all back.  She swallowed them again.  She let them go in the water as snakes, as Bolong the Rainbow Snake.

No one can see Eingana.  She stays in the mild water.  She has a hole there.  In the rain-time, when the flood water comes, Eingana stands up out of the middle of the flood water.  Eingana looks out at the country.  She lets go all the birds, snakes, animals, children belonging to us; Eingana lets all these things go out of her.

Eingana floats along on the flood water.  She stands up and looks out at the country.  She lets every kind of life, belonging to her, go.  When the flood water goes down Eingana goes back to her camp again.  She comes back no more.  No matter cold weather or hot weather, she does not come out.  Next rain-time she comes out and lets go everything  that belongs to her: snakes, birds, dingoes, kangaroos, black fellows, everything.

Eingana keeps hold of a string, a sinew called Toon.  This string is a mystical umbilical cord and is joined to the big sinew of any kind of life, behind the heel. Eingana keeps hold of that string all the time.  Because we call her mother, you see.  When we die Eingana lets that string go (cuts the cord).  I die.  I die forever.  My spirit, Malikngor, follows the way of Bolong.

It might be that I die in another place.  That one, Malikngor, my spirit, goes back to my country, where I was born.  Everyone’s spirit does this.  Eingana gives back spirit to man and woman all the time.  She gives them this spirit in children.  Eingana gives spirit a little bit first time to lubra (woman), them more and more.  You cannot find this spirit yourself.  That one Eingana, or Bolong, has to help you.

If Eingana die, everything would die.  There would be no more kangaroos, birds, black fellows, anything.  There would be no more water, everything would die.”

Another snake goddess of the Aborigines in Australia is Julunggul.  She is called also Kungpipi, Kalwadi, and Her ritual name is Mumuna.  She is a rainbow snake goddess capable of assuming male, neuter, or androgynous form as well.  She is embodied in the pearls, crystals, the ocean, waterfalls, and the deep pools where She lives.  She is eternally pregnant which is a parallel with Eingana.  She is a goddess of initiation (a second birth to the Aboriginies) and puberty.  At initiation young boys were symbolically swallowed and regurgitated out as young men.  In Her legend She came to Arnhem Land in Australia in Dreamtime from a sinking land.  Another similarity with Eingana is seen wither in the legend of the Wawalag Sisters would violate a taboo concerning menstrual blood near Her lair.  For this She continually eats and vomits forth the Sisters in Dreamtime.

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