Nellie Mick Kunwinjku Tribe Area Oenpelli Yingana The Fertility Serpent Oil on Canvas 21"x 39" click on image to enlarge for detail (large file size)

Yingana The Fertility Serpent

In the dreamtime an Ancestral Being called Yingana came from across the sea to the shores of Western Arnhem Land, bearing in her body many strange creatures, half human, half/animal, bird, fish, reptile, which she threw out at various places as she wandered over the country. She had the ability, as all Ancestral Beings to change shape at will, usually into that of a Rainbow Serpent, and this was the form she adopted to travel long distances across the land.

Yingana eventually grew dissatisfied with the strange shapes living around her, and swallowed every living creature, regurgitating them in their present day forms. The n she grew two eggs in her belly and gave birth to a son called Ngalyod and a daughter called Ngalkunburriyaymi. Of these the most important was Ngalyod, who often traveled with his mother as she went throughout Western Arnhem Land and Croker Island, creating sacred sites such as rocks, hills, plants, and trees, so that the shape of the solid land mass gradually changed. His sister also had the power to create sacred sites, but she confined her activities to the locality around her home, a water lily- covered billabong near Nimbuwah Rock, about 50 kilometers from Oenpelli.

Ngalyod is also the controller of the seasons of the Wet and the Dry, and in sacred ceremonies he is honored in song and dance cycles in order to keep him happy. If he becomes angry for any reason he can create heavy clouds with the vapor from his breath, then flick out his tongue to cause zigzag lightning before thrusting his fangs into the clouds and bringing down torrential rain. This floods the earth, and makes it easier for him to slide up to his victims and swallow them. An instance of this was at a sacred site near the Mann River. Ngalyod was angry at the two brothers who had broken tribal law, so he entwined himself around them and swallowed them. Their spirits went up into a large rock, which Ngalyod then crushed, but their spirits rose up out of the rock. Their children also can pierce the rock, as the artist has shown in the painting.

Waramurungundji is the alternative name for Yingana in her human form. Aborigines refer to her as the "old Woman" Fertility Mother, who not only gave birth to all living creatures as we know them today, but also brought with her yam plants which she distributed to clan groups on her travels so that Aborigines would always have plenty of food to eat.