58. Follies of Wu-neb Wu-neb, the (national) teacher, said: “If anyone imagines that he knows anything about saints or mediocrities, then although these fantasies are subtle and delicate matter, they are strong enough to drag him down , to the level of the animal." NEGEN: Wu-neb, one of

VISITING HEAVEN Jerusalem above is currently in the third heaven. This is a real place where the Apostle Paul visited before his death. He wrote: It is not profitable for me to boast, for I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ who, back then

Slaves of heaven But let's return to our conversation about those who, for one reason or another, fell into the hands of the clergy. Now this is not a person, now this is a servant of God, the church teaches. The slave does not dare to reason, cannot act at his own discretion. A slave must blindly obey his

Australian initiations: sacred territory Australian rites associated with the attainment of puberty represent a very archaic form of initiation. We will start our examples with them. Usually quite a few tribes take part in the ceremony, so

Chapter Three Gods of the underworld, gods in the underworld The Egyptian underworld - from a fairly common point of view - is a kind of ideal world ruled by a good ruler. The dead, satisfied with their lot, are the “right-voiced”, those who came out

Chapter II SKY AND THE GODS OF SKY 11. THE SACRED NATURE OF SKY The most common prayer in the world is addressed to the Heavenly Father: “Our Father who art in heaven...” It is possible that the earliest prayers of man were addressed to the same Heavenly Father. That would explain the evidence

13. GODS OF THE SKY AMONG THE RESIDENTS OF THE ANDAMAN ISLANDS, AFRICANS, ETC. Risley and Geden found traces of an almost forgotten belief in a Supreme Deity among the indigenous population of India - “more of a vague memory than a real power”; "obscure and irreverent supreme

18. THE SKY GODS OF THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH AND CENTRAL ASIA When we turn from the beliefs of “primitive” peoples to the so-called polytheistic religions, it turns out that the main differences stem from their history. History, naturally, modified the primitive

22. IRANIAN GODS OF THE SKY The Iranians also had a Supreme God of Heaven; for, according to Herodotus, "they used to climb the highest mountains and offer sacrifices to Zeus, by whose name they called the heavenly space surrounding them." We don't know what the name of this original one was

31. SYMBOLISM OF THE SKY We have considered a number of Sky deities or deities closely associated with the celestial hierophany. In all the cases we have analyzed, we notice the same phenomenon of the departure of the heavenly gods from the scene and their replacement with more dynamic, concrete and human theophanies.

Fire from Heaven This episode gives us the best understanding of why James and John are called “sons of thunder” (Luke 9:51–56). Jesus had to go through Samaria. He was going to Jerusalem for the Passover, where the culmination of His life would come: death, tomb and resurrection. Luke writes: “When

Many myths and legends of Australians are etiological (explanatory) in nature. They explain the origin of various natural phenomena, important points of the terrain: rocks, billabongs, trees and others. All these things are the result of the transformation of ancestors. Such a transformation - into a lake, into a bird, and into a star - is a common ending to Australian stories. And it is in this denouement that most often lies the entire “unrealistic” part of the stories, the heroes of which basically behave the same way as today’s aborigines: they get food, love, deceive, quarrel, and commit good, selfless and evil deeds. For the Aborigines, such stories contain the truth about the world in which they live, about its creation and existence, as well as about the moral law.

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Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

Federal Agency for Education

Rostov State Economic University

Faculty of Linguistics and Journalism

Department of Philosophy and Cultural Studies

Discipline “Mythological systems of Eastern countries”

Essay

on the topic of:

« Australian Aboriginal myths »

Performed:

Vishnyakova Alexandra

group 712

Scientific adviser:

Doctor of philosophical science

Paliy Irina Georgievna

Rostov-on-Don

2007

Introduction

I found this topic interesting, the Australian Aborigines first settled on the continent approximately 40,000 years ago and, due to Australia's isolation from the rest of the world for a long time, the indigenous people of this region developed distinct cultural and religious traditions that remained unchanged for thousands of years. Even now, the Australian indigenous people are in the stage of primitiveness, which makes them the objects of numerous studies, since from their example one can learn more about the life of primitive people, about their way of life, culture and system of ideas about the world.

Most Australian Aboriginal myths take place in distant times before the world was formed. How the world was created, where kangaroos and possums came from, how people came about, who made the first boomerang - myths tell about this and much more. The heroes of these stories - gods, mythical ancestors, totemic ancestors - act in the very time that all Australian tribes, in different languages ​​and dialects, call “dream time”.

“Dreamtime” is a special time. At first glance, it is separated from us by many centuries and even millennia and has left only the memory of the golden age of abundance, and laws, and stones and rocks into which mythical ancestors turned, and a boomerang, and the animal and plant world, that is, everything that is given every Aborigine from the day he was born and what came into the world long before him. But it is not for nothing that this time is called “the time of dreams”: it returns to people in dreams and people try to recreate and preserve it in rituals, performing which the current generation, as it were, sticks together with the first ancestors, repeating their actions and reminding them of the meaning and significance of these actions and the continuity of generations and culture.

Many myths and legends of Australians are etiological (explanatory) in nature. They explain the origin of various natural phenomena, important points of the terrain: rocks, billabongs, trees and others. All these things are the result of the transformation of ancestors. Such a transformation - into a lake, into a bird, and into a star - is a common ending to Australian stories. And it is in this denouement that most often lies the entire “unrealistic” part of the stories, the heroes of which basically behave the same way as today’s aborigines: they get food, love, deceive, quarrel, and commit good, selfless and evil deeds. For the Aborigines, such stories contain the truth about the world in which they live, about its creation and existence, as well as about the moral law.

Belief in the truth of fantastic stories - even if they were many times more implausible, in the opinion of a European reader - cannot characterize the culture of Australians as any other; this belief is only evidence and the result of a certain stage of development of the aborigines. The conviction of a myth often has an irresistible impression even on researchers. Friedrich Schelling in Philosophy of Art wrote: “...what lives in the tales of mythology undoubtedly once really existed, and the modern human race was preceded by a race of gods" This is said about a mythology much more bizarre than the Australian one, and the German philosopher’s remark should be understood as the need to recognize the reality of mythological ideas not in the sense of their correspondence to the objectively existing world, but their adequacy to the socio-historical reality that gave rise to these ideas.

General information about the Aboriginal peoples of Australia

The indigenous people of Australia - the Aborigines - number several tens of thousands of people. The bulk of them live in reservations located in the western and northern regions of the country, the least suitable for human life.
Before the arrival of Europeans on the mainland, indigenous Australians lived mainly in the south-eastern and southern coastal parts of Australia, which had better climatic conditions and were richer in game and fish.
Wood and stone were the only materials from which they made their simple tools. The indigenous population of Australia never engaged in cattle breeding, since the only large mammals on the mainland were kangaroos. They did not know agriculture either. However, the aborigines were wonderful hunters, fishermen, and gatherers of herbs and roots.
The Aborigines are very musical people. Indigenous Australians perform their original dances in an interesting and unique way.
Having settled in Australia, white colonists tried to turn the Aborigines into slaves and use their labor on farms. But the aborigines preferred to live in the old way. Expelled by white settlers to the desert regions of Australia, the Aborigines tried to hunt sheep, which the colonists began to breed. This served as a pretext for the mass extermination of indigenous people. They were rounded up, poisoned, driven into the desert, where they died from hunger and lack of water.
As a result, already at the end of the 19th century. The indigenous population in Australia has decreased by almost 10 times.
And now the aborigines are just as powerless as before. They do not have the right to participate in the public life of the country; they cannot go to eat in a cafe, drink juice or coffee. The indigenous population is completely deprived of medical care, so the mortality rate among them is very significant.
Aborigines living near cities work as day laborers in the most difficult and dirty jobs. Among the indigenous Australians there are talented artists and sculptors. They are very capable of languages ​​and easily learn English, the national language of Australia.
Daily life for Aboriginal people has changed little for thousands of years. To this day, in the outback of Australia, the Aborigines live in Stone Age conditions. And now, armed with wooden spears and stone axes, they roam from place to place, picking up everything that is more or less edible. Their sites are well known. They are usually located on sandy hills close to water, but as far as possible from swamps, which are infested with mosquitoes, mosquitoes and flies.
The Aborigines build temporary shelters. When there is a cold wind, they rake up sand from the windward side and sit in this depression near a smoldering fire.
During the rainy season, to protect against dampness and cold, the aborigines build stronger huts from poles. These poles are covered with tree bark. These huts are easy to rebuild. They are spacious, protect from rain and wind, and can last the entire rainy season.

Features of Australian mythology

Australian mythology is closely intertwined with the ritual life of Australian tribes and reflects totemic cults and rituals of inticium (magical reproduction of animals of their totem), the calendar cult of the great mother in the north of the country and universally widespread initiation rites. As part of the initiation rites, myths were staged before young men undergoing initiation into the category of adult full members of the local group and totemic community to convey to them the foundations of traditional tribal wisdom. Some myths strictly correlate with rituals, being their integral part and symbolically duplicating them, others are relatively independent of rituals, but include sacred secret information (for example, the travel routes of totemic ancestors). Along with esoteric myths, inaccessible to the uninitiated, there are also exoteric ones, intended to intimidate the uninitiated or general entertainment (the latter are on the way to turning a myth into a fairy tale).

No matter how individual myths and rituals are related, in principle they are united by a single mythological semantics, a single symbolic system. If, for example, the actual myths dedicated to the wanderings of totemic ancestors are focused on describing the places they visited and the traces they left there (hills, lakes, tree roots, etc.), then the song is mainly aimed at glorifying the same heroes, and the ritual dance accompanying the song, depicting in principle the same wanderings, is aimed primarily at imitating the movements of the animal. The isolation of newcomers undergoing the initiation rite is reflected in the myth as the departure of the hero, his swallowing by the monster and subsequent spitting out (or release by relatives from the monster's body).

There is no single mythology of Australians. There are only a number of typologically similar archaic tribal systems. Ideas about the cosmos as a whole are poorly developed; in myths it is mainly not the macrocosm that appears, but the microcosm (more precisely, the mesocosm) in the form of the feeding territory of the local group and its closest neighbors (sometimes the local group turns out to be the keeper of part of the myth, the action in which takes place on its territory) . Therefore, the most widespread Australian myths are in the nature of local legends that explain the origin of all any noticeable places and natural objects - hills, lakes, water sources, pits, large trees, etc., which turn out to be a “monument” to the activities of the mythical hero, traces of his camp, the place of its transformation into churinga. The travel routes of mythological heroes mostly go in the direction from north to south and southeast, which approximately corresponds to the direction of settlement of the mainland.

The action in Australian myths is assigned to a special ancient mythological era, which contrasts with the current empirical time. The name of the mythical era varies among different tribal groups: Altira - among the Aranda, Mura - among the Dieri, Dzhugur - among the Alurija, Mungam - among the Bingbing, etc.; among some Australian tribes the mythical era of first creation is denoted by the same word as “dream”. In Anglo-Australian ethnographic literature, the terms “dream time” and “dreaming” are generally accepted designations for mythical time. During the “dream”, mythical heroes completed their life cycle, brought people, animals and plants to life, determined the terrain, and established customs. The sacred objects into which they eventually turned - natural (rocks, trees) or artificial (churingi), retain their magical power and can be a means of reproduction of totem animals or a source of “souls” of newborn children, which in some tribes are thought of as the reincarnation of ancestors . Events from the time of the “dream” can be reproduced in dreams and rituals, the participants of which, in a certain sense, are identified with the depicted ancestors.

Among the Central Australian tribes (for example, the Aranda and Loritya), mythical heroes are, as a rule, totemic ancestors, creatures of dual - anthropomorphic and zoomorphic nature, the progenitors and creators of a certain breed of animals or plant species, and at the same time a human group that considers these animals as his totem.

Almost all totemic myths of the Aranda and Loritya are built according to the same scheme: totemic ancestors, alone or in a group, return to their homeland - to the north (less often - to the west). The search for food, meals, camps, and meetings along the way are listed in detail. Not far from the homeland, in the north, there is often a meeting with local “eternal people” of the same totem. Having reached the goal, tired heroes go into a hole, cave, underground, turning into rocks, trees, churingas. In places of parking and especially in places of death (more precisely, going into the ground), totemic centers are formed. In some myths (for example, about cat people), totemic heroes carry with them cult rods, which they use as weapons or tools for breaking roads in rocks (forming relief), churingas and other cult objects.
Sometimes the characters in the myth are leaders leading a group of young men who have just undergone the rite of initiation; the group performs cult ceremonies along the way in order to propagate their totem.
Wandering can take on the character of flight and pursuit: a large gray kangaroo runs away from a man of the same totem, a man, with the help of young men, kills an animal, which then resurrects, both (animal and man) turn into churingas; red and gray kangaroos running away from dog-men and then from falcon-man; two snakes are pursued by people of the same totem; the fish are chased by a crab and then a cormoran; one of the running emus is torn to pieces by dog ​​people, etc. (it is not clear whether in these cases we are talking about animals, people or beings of a dual nature; for the most part, they probably mean the latter).
Celestial phenomena do not occupy such a large place in Australian mythology, in particular among the Aranda and Loritya, as in developed mythologies. The image of the “master of the sky” (Altira, according to K. Strehlow), known to Aranda mythology, is very passive and does not play a significant role in mythological plots. A few legends about heavenly bodies are included in the circle of totemic myths. The moon (month) is represented by a man, originally belonging to the possum totem. With a stone knife, the month rises to the sky, wanders to the west, then descends along a tree to the ground. Having eaten opossums, the month increases in size (full moon), tired, takes the form of a gray kangaroo; in this form he is killed by the young men, but one of them retains the kangaroo bone, from which the moon (new moon) grows again. The sun is represented by a girl who climbed a tree to the sky, the Pleiades - by girls from the bandicoot totem, who witnessed the initiation ceremony of the young men and for this reason turned into stones, and then into stars.

Some Aranda totemic ancestors act as cultural heroes. During their travels they introduce various customs and rituals. Fire is obtained by a representative of the gray kangaroo totem from the body of a giant gray kangaroo, which he hunts (compare with the Karelian-Finnish rune about Väinämöinen obtaining fire from the belly of a fire fish); Such mythological stories are characteristic of a primitive economy, in which man's appropriation of ready-made fruits of nature predominates. Two falcon men, who came from the north to the land of Aranda, teach other people to use a stone ax. Marriage rules forgotten by people are again established by one of the ancestors of the kangaroo-dart frog totem named Katukan-kara. The introduction of marriage rules is also attributed to the emu man. The introduction of initiation rites, which play an important role in the life of Australian tribes, and associated ritual operations on the body are attributed to totemic ancestors - wild cats and flycatcher lizards.

Tales about the wanderings of the “eternal people” of the times of the Altiir, who later became flycatcher lizards, play an important role, acquiring the character of an anthropogonic and partly cosmogonic myth. Tradition considers their wanderings to be the earliest, but the legends themselves mark, apparently, a less primitive stage in the development of mythology, since they essentially talk about the emergence of “humanity”, and not about the origin of any one totemic group. According to these legends, the earth was originally covered by the sea (a concept widely spread in various mythological systems), and on the slopes of rocks protruding from the water, in addition to the “eternal” mythical heroes, there were already so-called. rella manerinha (i.e. “glued people”, according to Strehlow) or inapatua (according to B. Spencer and F. Gillen) - a bunch of helpless creatures with glued fingers and teeth, closed ears and eyes. Other similar human "larvae" lived in water and looked like raw meat. After the earth dried out, a mythical hero - the totemic ancestor of the “lizards” - came from the north and separated human embryos from each other, cut out their eyes, ears, mouth, etc., and circumcised them with the same knife (here partly reflects the idea that only the initiation rite “completes” a person), taught them to make fire by friction, cook food, gave them a spear, a spear thrower, a boomerang, provided each with a churinga (as the guardian of his soul), divided people into phratries (“earth” and “water”) and marriage classes. These actions allow us to consider this mythical character as a cultural hero-demiurge typical of primitive mythology.

Along with the “evolutionary” mythological concept of the origin of people from imperfect beings, in some Aranda myths the “eternal” heroes of the “age of dreams” also act as the true ancestors of people and animals. According to the myth of the bandicoot totem group, bandicoots came out from under the arms of a certain totemic ancestor named Karora, and in the following days his sons - people who began to hunt these bandicoots. This anthropogonic and at the same time totemic myth is intertwined with a cosmogonic myth: at the beginning of time there was darkness, and constant night pressed on the earth like an impenetrable curtain, then the sun appeared and dispersed the darkness over Ilbalintya (the totemic center of the bandicoots).
Similar tales about the wanderings of totemic ancestors, available among other Australian tribes, are less fully recorded. The Dieri and other tribes who lived southeast of the Aranda, around Lake Eyre, have numerous tales about the wanderings of the Mura-Mura - mythical heroes similar to the “eternal people” of the Aranda, but with weaker zoomorphic features. The formation of various landscape features, the introduction of exogamy and totemic names, the use of a stone knife for circumcision and making fire by friction, the “finishing” of imperfect human beings, as well as the origin of the month and the sun are also associated with the wanderings of the Mura-Mura.

And the natives of Australia populated the mainland during the Mesolithic period. They were characterized by totemic cults, initiation rites, the calendar cult of the great mother and rites of inticium, which is the magical reproduction of totem animals.

Myths were part of the rituals, conveying important information to those who were initiated. Some of these myths were independent, but they contained a secret meaning that allowed relatives in the tribe to pass on their accumulated knowledge to subsequent generations, for example, the routes along which the totemic ancestors wandered.

A small part of the myths was used to intimidate the uninitiated and was something akin to fairy tales.

Australians did not have a single mythology. There are only similar archaic systems from different tribes.

There are practically no ideas about space, since the ancient Australian tribes were more concerned about the events taking place on their territory.

Mythological heroes traveled from north to south and southeast. This is exactly how the continent was settled, according to historians.

If we talk about mythical time or about the time in which mythical characters acted, then the Australian tribes spoke of the time of first creation as dreams. After the mythical era of first creation ended, all the heroes turned into sacred objects, for example, trees and rocks. According to the beliefs of Australian tribes, mythical characters transmitted their magical power through the birth of totem animals. Thus, the ancestors could be reborn.

Almost all totemic myths contain a general scheme: the totemic ancestor returns to his homeland, usually to the north, fleeing from the enemy. At home he meets with other locals and there he turns into a rock, a tree or a churing.

As for the ideas of the universe, initially the earth was completely covered by the sea and only on large ledges or rocks could Rella Manrinha or Inapatua live. These are the so-called glued people, or rather creatures whose fingers and teeth were glued together, and their ears and eyes were closed. Such human larvae lived either in water or on rocks.

When the earth dried up, the totemic ancestor of the lizards, who came from the north, glued human embryos, cutting out their eyes, ears and mouths, circumcised them, and also taught them how to make fire, cook food and make tools.

Australian mythology is closely intertwined with the ritual life of Australian tribes and reflects totemic cults and rituals of inticium (magical reproduction of animals of their totem), the calendar cult of the great mother in the north of the country and universally widespread initiation rites. As part of the initiation rites, myths were staged before young men undergoing initiation into the category of adult full members of the local group and totemic community to convey to them the foundations of traditional tribal wisdom. Some myths strictly correlate with rituals, being their integral part and symbolically duplicating them, others are relatively independent of rituals, but include sacred secret information (for example, the travel routes of totemic ancestors). Along with esoteric myths, inaccessible to the uninitiated, there are also exoteric ones, intended to intimidate the uninitiated or general entertainment (the latter are on the way to turning a myth into a fairy tale).

No matter how individual myths and rituals are related, in principle they are united by a single mythological semantics, a single symbolic system. If, for example, the actual myths dedicated to the wanderings of totemic ancestors are focused on describing the places they visited and the traces they left there (hills, lakes, tree roots, etc.), then the song is mainly aimed at glorifying the same heroes, and the ritual dance accompanying the song, depicting in principle the same wanderings, is aimed primarily at imitating the movements of the animal. The isolation of newcomers undergoing the initiation rite is reflected in the myth as the departure of the hero, his swallowing by the monster and subsequent spitting out (or release by relatives from the monster's body).

There is no single mythology of Australians. There are only a number of typologically similar archaic tribal systems. Ideas about the cosmos as a whole are poorly developed; in myths it is mainly not the macrocosm that appears, but the microcosm (more precisely, the mesocosm) in the form of the feeding territory of the local group and its closest neighbors (sometimes the local group turns out to be the keeper of part of the myth, the action in which takes place on its territory) . Therefore, the most widespread Australian myths are in the nature of local legends that explain the origin of all any noticeable places and natural objects - hills, lakes, water sources, pits, large trees, etc., which turn out to be a “monument” to the activities of the mythical hero, traces of his camp, the place of its transformation into churinga. The travel routes of mythological heroes mostly go in the direction from north to south and southeast, which approximately corresponds to the direction of settlement of the mainland.

The action in Australian myths is assigned to a special ancient mythological era, which contrasts with the current empirical time. The name of the mythical era varies among different tribal groups: Altira - among the Aranda, Mura - among the Dieri, Dzhugur - among the Alurija, Mungam - among the Bingbing, etc.; among some Australian tribes the mythical era of first creation is denoted by the same word as “dream”. In Anglo-Australian ethnographic literature, the terms “dream time” and “dreaming” are generally accepted designations for mythical time. During the “dream”, mythical heroes completed their life cycle, brought people, animals and plants to life, determined the terrain, and established customs. The sacred objects into which they eventually turned - natural (rocks, trees) or artificial (churingi), retain their magical power and can be a means of reproduction of totem animals or a source of “souls” of newborn children, which in some tribes are thought of as the reincarnation of ancestors . Events from the time of the “dream” can be reproduced in dreams and rituals, the participants of which, in a certain sense, are identified with the depicted ancestors.

Among the Central Australian tribes (for example, the Aranda and Loritya), mythical heroes are, as a rule, totemic ancestors, creatures of dual nature - anthropomorphic and zoomorphic, the progenitors and creators of a certain breed of animals or plant species, and at the same time of a human group , which considers these animals as her totem.

Almost all totemic myths of the Aranda and Loritya are built according to the same scheme: totemic ancestors, alone or in a group, return to their homeland - to the north (less often - to the west). The search for food, meals, camps, and meetings along the way are listed in detail. Not far from the homeland, in the north, there is often a meeting with local “eternal people” of the same totem. Having reached the goal, tired heroes go into a hole, cave, underground, turning into rocks, trees, churingas. In places of parking and especially in places of death (more precisely, going into the ground), totemic centers are formed. In some myths (for example, about cat people), totemic heroes carry with them cult rods, which they use as weapons or tools for breaking roads in rocks (forming relief), churingas and other cult objects.

Sometimes the characters in the myth are leaders leading a group of young men who have just undergone the rite of initiation; the group performs cult ceremonies along the way in order to propagate their totem.

Wandering can take on the character of flight and pursuit: a large gray kangaroo runs away from a man of the same totem, a man, with the help of young men, kills an animal, which then resurrects, both (animal and man) turn into churingas; red and gray kangaroos running away from dog-men and then from falcon-man; two snakes are pursued by people of the same totem; the fish are chased by a crab and then a cormoran; one of the running emus is torn to pieces by dog ​​people, etc. (it is not clear whether in these cases we are talking about animals, people or beings of a dual nature; for the most part, they probably mean the latter).

Celestial phenomena do not occupy such a large place in Australian mythology, in particular among the Aranda and Loritya, as in developed mythologies. The image of the “master of the sky” (Altira, according to K. Strehlow), known to Aranda mythology, is very passive and does not play a significant role in mythological plots. A few legends about heavenly bodies are included in the circle of totemic myths. The moon (month) is represented by a man, originally belonging to the possum totem. With a stone knife, the month rises to the sky, wanders to the west, then descends along a tree to the ground. Having eaten opossums, the month increases in size (full moon), tired, takes the form of a gray kangaroo; in this form he is killed by the young men, but one of them retains the kangaroo bone, from which the moon (new moon) grows again. The sun is represented by a girl who climbed a tree to the sky, the Pleiades - by girls from the bandicoot totem, who witnessed the initiation ceremony of the young men and for this reason turned into stones, and then into stars.

Some Aranda totemic ancestors act as cultural heroes. During their travels they introduce various customs and rituals. Fire is obtained by a representative of the gray kangaroo totem from the body of a giant gray kangaroo, which he hunts (compare with the Karelian-Finnish rune about Väinämöinen obtaining fire from the belly of a fire fish); Such mythological stories are characteristic of a primitive economy, in which man's appropriation of ready-made fruits of nature predominates. Two falcon men, who came from the north to the land of Aranda, teach other people to use a stone ax. Marriage rules forgotten by people are again established by one of the ancestors of the kangaroo-dart frog totem named Katukan-kara. The introduction of marriage rules is also attributed to the emu man. The introduction of initiation rites, which play an important role in the life of Australian tribes, and associated ritual operations on the body are attributed to totemic ancestors - wild cats and flycatcher lizards.

Tales about the wanderings of the “eternal people” of the times of the Altiir, who later became flycatcher lizards, play an important role, acquiring the character of an anthropogonic and partly cosmogonic myth. Tradition considers their wanderings to be the earliest, but the legends themselves mark, apparently, a less primitive stage in the development of mythology, since they essentially talk about the emergence of “humanity”, and not about the origin of any one totemic group. According to these legends, the earth was originally covered by the sea (a concept widely spread in various mythological systems), and on the slopes of rocks protruding from the water, in addition to the “eternal” mythical heroes, there were already so-called. rella manerinha (i.e. “glued people”, according to Strehlow) or inapatua (according to B. Spencer and F. Gillen) - a bunch of helpless creatures with glued fingers and teeth, closed ears and eyes. Other similar human "larvae" lived in water and looked like raw meat. After the earth dried out, a mythical hero - the totemic ancestor of the “lizards” - came from the north and separated human embryos from each other, cut out their eyes, ears, mouth, etc., and circumcised them with the same knife (here partly reflects the idea that only the initiation rite “completes” a person), taught them to make fire by friction, cook food, gave them a spear, a spear thrower, a boomerang, provided each with a churinga (as the guardian of his soul), divided people into phratries (“earth” and “water”) and marriage classes. These actions allow us to consider this mythical character as a cultural hero-demiurge typical of primitive mythology.

Along with the “evolutionary” mythological concept of the origin of people from imperfect beings, in some Aranda myths the “eternal” heroes of the “age of dreams” also act as the true ancestors of people and animals. According to the myth of the bandicoot totem group, bandicoots came out from under the arms of a certain totemic ancestor named Karora, and in the following days his sons - people who began to hunt these bandicoots. This anthropogonic and at the same time totemic myth is intertwined with a cosmogonic myth: at the beginning of time there was darkness, and constant night pressed on the earth like an impenetrable curtain, then the sun appeared and dispersed the darkness over Ilbalintya (the totemic center of the bandicoots).

Similar tales about the wanderings of totemic ancestors, available among other Australian tribes, are less fully recorded. The Dieri and other tribes who lived southeast of the Aranda, around Lake Eyre, have numerous tales about the wanderings of the Mura-Mura - mythical heroes similar to the “eternal people” of the Aranda, but with weaker zoomorphic features. The formation of various landscape features, the introduction of exogamy and totemic names, the use of a stone knife for circumcision and making fire by friction, the “finishing” of imperfect human beings, as well as the origin of the month and the sun are also associated with the wanderings of the Mura-Mura.

Myths about ancestors do not always tell about their wanderings. Some ancestors (including those of the Aranda) do not travel long distances. In particular, the Munkan have many myths about the formation of totemic centers after the totemic ancestors (pulvaya) left underground. Going underground is often preceded by quarrels and fights between the Pulvaya, inflicting injuries and fatal wounds on each other. Although Pulvaya are presented as anthropomorphic creatures, the description of their behavior reflects observations of the way of life and habits of animals, and some circumstances of the life of Pulvaya explain the characteristics of these animals (many of the features of the physical appearance of animals are motivated by the injuries that were inflicted on them by totemic ancestors back in ancient times) . The relations of friendship and enmity of the Pulvaya correspond to the relationships of various animals and plants in nature.

In the myths of the northern and southeastern tribes of Australia, along with totemic ancestors, there are also more generalized and, apparently, later developed images of “above-totemic” mythical heroes. In the north, the limestone old woman mother (appears under the names Kunapipi, Klia-rin-kliari, Kadyari, etc.) is a matriarchal ancestor, symbolizing the fertile birthing earth and the image of the rainbow serpent associated with it (and with fertility, reproduction); in the southeast - the patriarchal universal father (Nurundere. Koni, Viral, Nurelli, Bunjil, Vayame, Daramulun), living in the sky and acting as a culture hero and patron of initiation rites. Mother and father can belong to different, sometimes to several, totems at once (each part of their body can have its own totem) and, accordingly, are common ancestors (i.e. carriers and primary sources of souls) of various groups, people, animals, plants.

Myths usually feature not one, but several “mothers,” sometimes two sisters or a mother and daughter. These legends and the corresponding ritual are associated with one of the “halves” (phratris) of the tribe, which also allows for the assumption of a partial genesis of the images of mothers from ideas about phratrial ancestors.

The Yulengors living in Arnhem Land have their mythical ancestors as the Djunkgova sisters, sailing from the north along the sea they themselves created. In the boat they bring various totems, which they hang on trees to dry. The totems are then placed in work bags and hidden in various places during travels. Ten children emerge from the totems, first desexed. Then those hidden in the grass become men, and those hidden in the sand become women. They make digging sticks, feather belts and other ornaments for their descendants, introduce the use of fire, create the sun, teach them to consume certain types of food, give them weapons, magical means, teach totemic dances and introduce initiation rites for young men. According to this myth, the keepers of ritual secrets are first women, but men take away their totems and secrets from them, and drive away the ancestors by singing. The ancestors continue their journey, forming the terrain, new feeding territories and clan groups of people. Having reached the sea again in the west, they go to the islands, which had previously arisen from the lice thrown off their bodies by the ancestors. Long after Junkgow's disappearance, two other sisters appear in the west, born in the shadows of the setting sun. They complete the work of their predecessors, establish marriage classes and introduce the ritual of the great mother - Gunapipi (Kunapipi), in which their deeds are partially dramatized. The sisters settle in a certain place, build a hut, and collect food. One of them gives birth to a child. The sisters try to boil yams, snails and other food, but the plants and animals come to life and jump out of the fire, and it begins to rain. The sisters try to dance away the rain and the terrible rainbow serpent, which approaches them and swallows first the totem animals and plants (“food” of the sisters), and then both women and a child. While in the belly of the serpent, the sisters torture him. The snake spits out the sisters. At the same time, the child comes to life from the bite of ants.

The Wauwaluk sisters (as they are called by the Yulengors and some other tribes) are a peculiar version of the same ancestral mothers who embody fertility. The image of the rainbow serpent, widely known throughout much of Australia, combines ideas about the spirit of water, a serpent-monster (the embryo of the idea of ​​a “dragon”), and a magic crystal (it reflects the rainbow spectrum) used by sorcerers. The swallowing and spitting out of people by a serpent is associated (as with other peoples) with the rite of initiation (symbolism of temporary death, renewal). R. M. Berndt also finds in the swallowing of the sisters by the snake erotic symbolism associated with the magic of fertility.

In one of the myths of the Murinbata tribe (and in the corresponding ritual), the old woman Mutinga herself swallows the children who were entrusted to her by their parents who had gone in search of food. After the death of the old woman, the children are released alive from her womb. The Mara tribal group has a tale of a mythical mother who kills and eats men attracted by the beauty of her daughters. This appearance, it would seem, is in little agreement with the traditional mythological idea of ​​​​the mighty ancestor. However, not only among Australians, but also among other peoples (for example, among the Kwakiutl Indians; based on materials by F. Boas), the myth of an evil old cannibal woman is associated with the idea of ​​​​initiating young men into full members of a tribe (among Australians) or a male union (among Indians).

In some myths, the rainbow serpent accompanies the big mother on her travels. Among the Murinbat, the rainbow snake under the name Kunmangur himself acts as an ancestor, the father of the father of one and the father of the mother of the other “half” of the tribe. He makes all people and continues to monitor them. Kunmangur's son rapes his sisters and then mortally wounds his father. Kunmangur wanders in search of a quiet place where he can heal. In desperation, he collects all the fire that belonged to the people and, throwing it into the sea, extinguishes it. Another mythical character produces fire again (the idea of ​​renewal). The myths about the rainbow serpent and the ancestral mothers are closely related to the complex ritual mystery held before the start of the rainy season in honor of the earth mother Kunapipi, who embodies fertility.

The image of the tribal “great father” among the southeastern tribes, well studied by A. Howitt, is derived by S. A. Tokarev from somewhat more primitive images - the personification of the sky (such as Altyra among the Aranda), the totem of the phratry, the cultural hero, the patron of initiation and spirit - a monster that turns boys into adult men (only the uninitiated believe in it), in which there is an embryo of the idea of ​​​​a creator God. Almost all of them appear as the great ancestors and teachers of people who lived on earth and were subsequently transferred to heaven.

The Great Father Bunjil of the Kulin tribe is depicted as an old tribal leader married to two representatives of the black swan totem. Its name itself means “wedge-tailed eagle” and at the same time serves as a designation of one of two phratries (the second is Vaang, i.e. raven). Bunjil is portrayed as the creator of the earth, trees and people. He warms the sun with his hands, the sun warms the earth, people come out of the earth and begin to dance the ritual corroboree dance. Thus, in the Bund-jil the features of a phratrial ancestor - a demiurge - a cultural hero predominate. Among the tribes of the southeastern coast (Yuin and others), Daramulun is considered the highest being; among the Kamilaroi, Wiradjuri and Yualaya, Daramulun occupies a subordinate position in relation to Baiama. According to some myths, Daramulun, together with his mother (emu), planted trees, gave people laws and taught them initiation rites (during these rituals, Daramulun is drawn on the ground or on the bark, the sound of the buzzer symbolizes his voice, he is perceived as a spirit that turns boys into men).

The name Baiame in the Kamilaroi language is associated with the verb “to do” (according to Howitt), which seems to correspond to the idea of ​​​​a demiurge and a cultural hero. W. Matyo connects the etymology of this name with the idea of ​​the seed of man and animal, and K. Langlo-Parker argues that in the Yualaya language this name is understood only in the meaning of “great”; The Yualai speak of the "time of bayame" in the same sense as the Aranda speak of the "age of dreams." In ancient times, when only animals and birds lived on earth, Baiame came from the northeast with his two wives and created people partly from wood and clay, partly turning animals into them, gave them laws and customs (the final motivation for everything is “so said Baiame"). Matthew cites a Wiradjuri and Wongaboi myth that Bayame went on a journey in search of wild honey following a bee, to whose leg he tied a bird feather (cf. the most important “cultural” act of Scand. Odin - obtaining sacred honey). For a number of tribes, Bayame is the center of all initiation rites, the main “teacher” of newcomers undergoing severe initiation tests.