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Jessica Burris

LBST 2102-336

Global and Intercultural Connections

Mini Paper

November 6, 2017

The Noongar of Western Australia

In the south-west of Western Australia lay over a dozen tribes of the Noongar people.

The aboriginal Noongar tribe is one of the largest Aboriginal cultural blocks in Australia, and

their names stems from the meaning of the original inhabitants of the south-west of Western

Australia. The Noongar people are deeply, spiritually connected to the earth, nature, and their

ancestral past through what they call the dreaming, or dreamtime. For Aboriginals, the

Dreamtime is how their cultural knowledge is formed and how they understand the creation of

the world, passed down traditionally through oral telling and stories. The Dreamtime is the world

of their ancestors and how the spirits were born out of darkness. One of the most well-known

deities/spirits and its corresponding origin story is that of the Waugal, or the Rainbow Serpent.

The serpent is believed to be the first thing that moved across the land, making the paths

in the land such as dunes, rivers, mountains, valleys, and where the serpent stopped to rest is

where lakes and bodies of water were formed. The Noongar recognize the Waugal as the giver of

life because it mainly created waterways to provide for the people.

The story of the Waugal comes with a story of the creation of the earth, when it was dark,

flat, and featureless. The serpent is said to have awakened, aware of what would happen when he

becomes real, because how could the serpent be able to shape the earth if he was no hands or

feet? Suddenly, as other spirits were watching upon the serpent, he materialized into the great
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serpent using its whole body to shoot up into the sky and then trail blaze across the land asking

for the others to follow him. The serpent became known as the first leader by performing the

heroic deed of creating the hills and land burrowing into the ground to create lakes and bodies of

water. Because Waugal shaped the earth itself, in a way this story of cosmogony could be

associated with the theme of the divine craftsperson, since the serpent crafted the shape of the

earth with its body.

To the Noongar people, water is of major significance to their life. It is believed that the

dark caverns, waterholes, rivers, lakes, oceans, are formed and inhabited by the Waugal, and that

the Waugal continuously maintains the quantity and quality of the water that it inhibits. Because

water is often a site of sacred beings to any Aboriginal people, they believe that if an area closely

related to the Waugal is harmed, or purposefully damaged, the Waugal will become upset and

cause the area to dry up and harm any individual responsible. If the water and land is taken care

of, the Waugal will purify the water and make the Noongars survival needs abundant.

In a separate deviation of the story, the serpent is said to have created a set of laws. These

laws were made for all to obey. In Dreamtime, the ancestral/spiritual realm, if the laws and rules

were followed, those who obeyed would be rewarded with human form. If the rules the serpent

made were broken, those who broke the laws would be punished by being turned into stone so

they may never walk on earth again. Those who were turned into stone are said to have become

mountains, watching over the earth that they cannot walk upon.

Even though the Rainbow Serpent is portrayed most often as a sign of life, if

disrespected, the serpent can come to be feared because it can punish anyone who has broken

one of his laws by bringing on massive flooding and taking their life. Because of this, it is

thought that the serpent is one of the oldest religious symbols, after appearing in rock art
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between 6000 and 8000 years ago in the Arnhem Lands of Western Australia. This timing lines

up with the last Ice Age, in which massive flooding occurred with the rising sea levels as a result

from the climate change. Since the people of the time would have had no understanding of

climate change, who else would have been responsible besides the Rainbow Serpent.

Today, it is said that the land formations such as the Darling Scarp in Perth represents the

body of the Waugal, and that the Waugal also created the Swan River in Perth as well. Even

though that the story and the myth originates from long ago, it is without a doubt still one of the

most widely told stories in the Noongar culture. While the story may have many different

variations that belong to it, every story shares the importance of water as a way of life, as well as

being raised to respect the land around you from which you came. The importance of the

Dreamtime and the origins of spirits, deities, and ancestors to the modern Noongar tribe and its

numerous clans is undeniable, and as long as its lineage continues, so will the spirit of the

Rainbow Serpent.
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Citations

Australia Lesson Activities - Literacy. (2001, September 26). Retrieved November 06, 2017,
from
http://www.expedition360.com/australia_lessons_literacy/2001/09/dreamtime_stories_the_rainb
ow.html

Linklater, S. (2017, March 23). Rainbow Serpent in Aboriginal Art & Culture. Retrieved November
06, 2017, from https://www.aboriginal-art-australia.com/aboriginal-art-library/rainbow-serpent/

Dreamtime Meaning. (2017). Retrieved November 06, 2017, from

http://aboriginalart.com.au/culture/dreamtime2.html

Noongar. (n.d.). Retrieved November 06, 2017, from https://www.noongarculture.org.au/noongar/

Nyitting Yarn - Cosmological or Dreaming Stories. (n.d.). Retrieved November 06, 2017, from
http://www.derbalnara.org.au/katitjin

W. (n.d.). Nyoongar. Retrieved November 06, 2017, from

http://museum.wa.gov.au/explore/wetlands/aboriginal-context/nyoongar

Spirituality. (n.d.). Retrieved November 06, 2017, from

https://www.noongarculture.org.au/spirituality/