Dirawong

Halfway up the headland at Evans Head there is a seam of ochre in the rock, red enough to look wet after rain, and the people whose country this is say it is blood. Below it the land runs east in a low spine of sand and stone and salt-burnt heath until it drops into the surf. That spine is not a monument to a goanna. It is the goanna, lying down, head toward the sea, waiting for something to come back out of it.

Dirawong is the word for the animal and the name of the being who wears it. In the Bundjalung Nation, Dirawong is a Creator Being: the one who taught people how to live on this stretch of coast and river, what the country would give and when to leave it alone, and the ceremonies that keep that arrangement in working order. Nobody sees Dirawong. The being is described as unseen, and the description is precise rather than evasive, because what is available to look at is the land itself and the weather that comes over it. Dirawong is a rain being as much as a guardian. There is a cave up on the headland where the old people went to work for rain, and on a still afternoon before a change you can smell the water coming off the sea a long time before it arrives.

The story that people tell about how the goanna came to be lying there begins inland, in the paperbark swamps around Bungawalbin, with a man rather than a god. Nyimbunji was a weeum, a clever man, someone with the standing and the training to call on a being like this and be heard. A yabbra, a bird, was being hunted by the Rainbow Serpent. Nyimbunji called for Dirawong, and Dirawong came.

What followed was a chase, and the chase is the reason the country looks the way it does. The goanna drove the serpent out of the swamp country and east toward the coast, and the two of them together cut the line of the Richmond River as they went. At Maniworkan, where the town of Woodburn stands now, they left the Richmond and kept going east. Halfway down the Evans River the goanna caught up.

The serpent turned in the water and bit Dirawong on the head. The goanna broke off, went ashore, and ate herbs until the poison eased, and the ochre on top of the headland is where that wound bled. It is a strange, domestic detail to find in a creation story: the world-shaping ancestor stopping to take medicine like anyone else.

The serpent used the time. It reached Evans Head, went into the river mouth and coiled itself around, and the coil is Snake Island; the heavier turn of its body made the larger island now called Pelican Island. Then it saw the goanna coming back, bolted east into Burraga, the open sea, and turned itself into an island out there so it would not be recognised. Other islands in the Evans River and the line of the Bungawalbin River came out of the same running fight.

Dirawong reached the coast, found nothing but water and a horizon with an unfamiliar island on it, and lay down facing east to wait. That is the posture the headland still holds. The waiting has not ended.

The powers follow from that. Dirawong’s authority is territorial and physical: the being changes country by moving through it, and the rivers and islands of this coast are the record of one journey rather than a set of separate miracles. What Dirawong grants is protection on request, instruction in living and ceremony, and rain, which on a coastal floodplain is the same thing as protection. The limits follow just as plainly. Dirawong can be bitten. Dirawong bleeds, needs medicine, loses the thread of a pursuit, and can be tricked by an enemy clever enough to change shape and sit still. And the being is now fixed in one place, a guard who cannot leave the post, holding a line against something that has never come back.

The record on the ground is dense. The headland and the ground around it carry mythological sites, shell middens, camp sites, stone tool workshops and quarries, some of them showing use within the last five hundred years, and the area is held to be one of the last intact coastal cultural landscapes left to Aboriginal people in New South Wales. It has not been left alone. A large collection of artefacts was taken off the reserve in the late 1960s and early 1970s and is still being chased down for return to a keeping place at Evans Head. Native title over country in this district has since been recognised for the Bandjalang People. The full body of knowledge attached to the goanna belongs to them, a complex series of creation stories of which the chase is one thread, and much of it is not public and is not meant to be. Even the pronoun is unsettled in the tellings that do circulate, which drift between he and it without ever committing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Dirawong?

Dirawong is a goanna Creator Being of the Bundjalung Nation on the far north coast of New South Wales. Dirawong taught people how to live on their country and its ceremonies, and acts as a protector against the Rainbow Serpent. The being is understood as unseen, and is identified with Goanna Headland at Evans Head.

What is the story of Dirawong and the Rainbow Serpent?

A clever man named Nyimbunji, from the Bungawalbin country inland, called on Dirawong to protect a bird from the Rainbow Serpent. Dirawong chased the serpent east toward the coast, cutting parts of the Richmond River on the way, and caught it halfway down the Evans River. The serpent bit Dirawong on the head, escaped to sea, and turned itself into an island to avoid being found.

Why is Goanna Headland important to the Bundjalung people?

Goanna Headland at Evans Head is held to be the body of Dirawong, lying down and facing the sea. It is a mythological site of the first rank and carries middens, camp sites, stone tool workshops and quarries alongside it, and it sits within one of the last intact coastal cultural landscapes remaining to Aboriginal people in New South Wales.

What is the red ochre on Goanna Headland?

The deposit of red ochre on top of Goanna Headland is said to come from the wound where the Rainbow Serpent bit Dirawong on the head. After the bite, Dirawong left the fight and ate herbs to recover from the poison before resuming the chase.

Is Dirawong connected to rain?

Yes. Dirawong is associated with rain, and there is a cave on Goanna Headland where Bundjalung elders went to hold ceremonies for rain. On a floodplain coast, that role sits close to Dirawong’s role as protector.

Related Entries

Rainbow Serpent, Mungoon-Gali, Wati-kutjara, Whowie, Gurangatch, Julunggul, Baiame, Bunjil, Wondjina, Tiddalik, Muldjewangk, Nargun, Mimi