Mythology
Aboriginal Australia
Aboriginal peoples have lived in Australia for tens of thousands of years: hundreds of peoples, with different languages and stories, keepers of the oldest living culture in the world. Their stories bind people to the land, the water, the stars and the laws of the community. Some are public, others are restricted and are not told outside the community: here we write only what is public. Alongside them you will find the bunyip and the yowie, creatures that European settlers talked about too.
A living culture: the ancestral beings and their stories are described with respect, using only what the communities have made public. How we tell myths.
Who they were, where, and how we know
Aboriginal Australians have lived in Australia for over 50,000 years, and theirs is among the oldest living cultures in the world. Their stories speak of the Dreaming (Dreamtime), the time when ancestor beings, walking across the land, made mountains, rivers, animals and laws.
These stories are not meant only to be read: they are tied to places, and pass from generation to generation through songs, dances and paintings on rock and earth. Some are secret and are not told to everyone; those that can be shared have been told by Aboriginal Elders. That is why we treat them here with great care.
Among the best-known figures is the Rainbow Serpent, who makes watercourses and springs, and the bunyip, the creature of the swamps. Each people, with its own language, has its own stories: there are hundreds of different groups.
The cards
The DreamingAustralia · Aboriginal tradition not scary at all
The Rainbow SerpentAustralia · ancestral being not scary at all
The Bunyipthe swamps and billabongs of Australia · swamp creature a little scary
The Seven Sistersthe deserts of central and western Australia · a story of the stars a little scary
The Yowiethe forests of eastern Australia · hairy man of the woods a little scaryPlaces of the myths
- Uluṟu
- the great red rock in the centre of Australia, a sacred place for the Anangu people.
- Arnhem Land
- in northern Australia, where very old paintings of the Rainbow Serpent cover the rocks.
- The Pleiades
- the star cluster of the Seven Sisters, which can also be seen clearly from Europe on winter nights.
- Billabongs
- the pools of water left by rivers, where the bunyip lives according to the stories.
Main sources
- AIATSIS, public materials on the Dreaming
- Parks Australia, Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa National Park, Tjukurpa
- Margo Neale (ed.), Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters (2017)
- Robert Holden, Bunyips: Australia's Folklore of Fear (2001)
GreekRomanNorseEgyptianCelticMesopotamianHinduJapaneseChineseAztec and MayaAfricanPolynesianSlavic
Who's behind this
Ciro Simone Irmici
I build websites, apps and games. I built the Atlas with artificial intelligence and I check every card and every source myself. I am not a scholar of mythology: I tell these legends with respect and always say where they come from. If you know a legend from your town, write to me.
More of my work: free audiobooks on YouTube · ebooks on Gumroad · Apple Books · music on Spotify and YouTube Music