TEXT 1. OLIVE PYTHON AND THE TWO BOYS.

Milton (Gabanja)

1.1

Olive Python. Two unmarried boys were bathing (in a billabong). They had been circumcised just a short time before, and the blood was still dripping (into the water of the billabong). (The blood aroused the pythons.) The water began to rise up like a flood. A small python came up to the surface and poked its head out. It swam along, and looking up it saw them (the two boys), who (by then) were up in the fork of a tree (hanging over the billabong).

1.2

It (blood) kept dripping that way (into the water, further arousing the pythons). Then the mother (python) approached (rising up from deep in the billabong). The water was still flooding upward, and the two boys (sitting in the tree) suddenly had their feet underwater. It (the mother python) attacked them, hit them (i.e. rendered them unconscious), and ate them. It swallowed them. It did that—it hit and ate them. It did that to those two (boys).

Note: The last part of 1.2 was spoken very excitedly. The verb form =wa-n^g can mean 'bit' as well as 'hit, killed' (the two verbs are distinct but have homophonous Past₁ forms); the speaker said later he meant 'hit, killed' but either will fit the context.

1.3

They (kinspeople of the two boys) began looking for the doctor (magician). They looked for him, then there he was. He came out (to them). He took a branch with leaves and magically transported himself (by swishing it through the air). He disappeared into the water (and traveled underwater, chasing the python).

1.4

He put some bark fibre (used to make string) there, around his waist. He went along (in the water, underground). A little further on, along his way, he asked it (a snake), "Well? How much further?" That snake, under the ground, said "Keep going!"

1.5

He went along and there it was—a blue-tongued lizard. He asked it ("How far?"). "Keep going!" (it said to him). He continued on his way. He asked a dragonfly. It told him, "Keep going!" He continued along, underground. He went along and asked a snake further along the way. (Like the others,) it said only "Keep going!"

Note: The correct noun class for ngan^gga 'dragonfly' is MANA, as in the form 'he asked it' in the fourth line of this segment. However, in the following 'it told him’ and 'that' (lines 4-5) the noun class is switched to ANA incorrectly. The speaker's confusion is due to the fact that snakes (ma:rny, ANA class) are the most prominent animals in this part of the text.

1.6

He kept going on and on. Then it (muddy water) came up to him (so he knew the python had just passed by). Then he caught up to it. He was just about to reach it, there at Amalibil. Then the muddy water was all around him. He kept following the muddy water. He caught it there. It was moving along this way. He did this, he held it there, by the back, and flipped it over (so that it was belly up). He cut up its belly.

1.7

He cut up its belly and tied up the guts (including the stomach containing the two boys). He tied up the guts with that bark fibre which he had with him. He tied up the guts, then he came up from underground. He saw the country there. "This is Amalibil," he said (or thought). "This is Amalibil, (where) I have come out."

Note: A freer translation of the ending would be 'He recognized the place where he came out as Amalibil'.

1.8

Then he went back again along the same route, underground. He continued on and on. He passed by all the snakes (and other animals he had spoken to). The guts were shining brightly. They were as long as the distance from here to over there (speaker pointed to a tree ten metres away). He (the magician) kept going. As for them (the kinspeople of the boys), all the people were watching (waiting) for him. Then they saw the water in the billabong swell up to around there (speaker indicated manually how high the water was above normal level), it went along.

1.9

Then it (i.e. the water) went along. The water rose up even more strongly. They went (to) the water. They were looking for him. Then they said, "Here he comes!" The crowd of people said that.

Note: It is conceivable that wu-yan^gga=ya-n^ggi 'it went' in 1.8 and 1.9 is mistranscribed for wu:-yan^gga=ya-n^ggi 'they (the people) went'; in this event the first wu-gu-ra:-'yun^g 'as for it' in 1.9 should be 'as for them' (same transcription). This does not materially affect the sense of the narrative.

1.10

He (the magician) went along. Then the water (in the billabong) rose up, it got bigger. It came up here and overflowed the banks. He came out. He gave those guts (containing the two boys) to them. They pulled the guts onto the bank. (After freeing the two boys, still alive,) they dried them out on the ground.

Comments on text 1

The olive python, which is primarily terrestrial but can also he found in water, is the focus of local versions of the Rainbow Serpent myths which occur in much of Australia. This version is thematically related to the myth of the Wa:gilak (Wawilak) Sisters in the Yuulngu area to the north (Warner 1937), in which an outraged python swallows the two women and their children after menstrual blood pollutes a billabong. On the swallowing motif in Aboriginal myth see Hiatt's article in Hiatt, ed. (1975). Olive python myths are also important among the Mara and related groups to the south (see my forthcoming volume on Mara); they are tightly integrated with circumcision and other rituals.

The Nunggubuyu version is a popular public story, known to everyone, and associated only loosely and indirectly with specific ritual performances. Despite this secularisation, the formal structure of the myth exhibits features typical of narratives about major cult totems. For example, the magician must pass by, and briefly interact with, a miscellany of snakes, lizards, etc.; this recalls similar sequences in Mara and Warndarang cult-totem myths. However, Milton had some difficulty remembering the 'correct' list of snakes and other animals for this myth; his list is incomplete and vague. If this myth were still functioning as a major cult-totem myth, this list would be highly significant; that it has become fuzzy further indicates that the myth has come to focus on its dramatic events.

The myth is, of course, primarily about the ritual transition connected with circumcision. It differs from similar myths, notably that of Emu and Gecko, in its amorphous personalities and in its simple, intense dramatic development.

Text 2 is another version of the same myth, told by Milton's brother Dick; it may be of some interest in showing the extent to which the same myth varies from one narrator to another. Another version is story #2 in Hughes (1969).