Eingana

Also Known As: the Mother; the first being in a Djauan, now written Jawoyn, creation account told by Rinjeira to Roland Robinson and published in 1956; her time is called Bieingana
Region/Culture: Oceania
Mythos: Aboriginal Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Gods and Deities
Mythical Attributes: Eingana is a snake who carried every living thing inside her body and who still holds a cord of sinew tied to each creature she released.
Role in Mythos: She is the first being and mother of all in the single recorded account, the maker of water, rock, trees, animals and people.
Relation to Humans: People are her children, born only after an old man speared her so that what she carried could come out. She gives each child its spirit and holds the sinew that keeps each person alive, and a person dies when she lets it go.

When the wet season comes to the country south of Arnhem Land, the creeks rise brown and wide and spread out over the flats. Somewhere in that floodwater, in a deep hole where the water stays still for the rest of the year, a snake stands up. She looks out over the drowned country. Then she lets go of birds, snakes, animals and children, and they move off into the world. When the water drops she goes back down to her camp and is not seen again through the cold months or the hot ones.

Her name is Eingana, and nearly everything known of her comes from one telling. In the 1950s the poet Roland Robinson sat with a man named Rinjeira of the Djauan people, whose name is now written Jawoyn, and wrote down what he said. Robinson printed it in The Feathered Serpent in Sydney in 1956, beside a painting of Eingana by a Djauan man called Bimma. Later books repeat that account. No second, separate telling has turned up, so what follows is Rinjeira’s story and no one else’s.

He began at the beginning, a time he called Bieingana. In that time there was one being, and she was a snake. She made the water and the rocks, the trees, the kangaroos and emus, the flying foxes and the birds. She made the people too. But she made them inside herself, and there they stayed. She swallowed what she had made and took it down under the water.

Then she came up out of a waterhole near Bamboo Creek. She was huge with everything she carried, and she had no way to give birth. She rolled on the ground. She groaned. It went on a long time.

An old man named Barraiya was on a long walk across the country, east to west, when he heard her. He crept in close with his spear and watched. Then he drove the spear into her from underneath. Blood came first. After the blood came the people.

They did not stay together. A dingo called Kandagun ran at them and scattered them, and as they ran they broke into the separate groups and languages that people have now. Some did not stay people. They flew up as birds or bounded off as kangaroos, or went away as emus, flying foxes, echidnas and snakes. Barraiya walked home to his own place, Barraiyawim, painted his likeness on the rock there and became the blue-winged kookaburra. Before his spear, Rinjeira said, Eingana could only bring things up through her mouth. Since it, creatures are born the way they are born today.

She kept making after that. The rivers are hers, the Roper and the Flying Fox among them, and the story is plain that people live because of that water. She also made Bolong, the Rainbow Snake. She brought up a group of beings who went out as the brolga, the jabiru, the kangaroo and the dingo, then took them back in and sent them out a second time as snakes, and Bolong was one of them.

Nothing in the account says what she looks like beyond the one word, snake. There is no colour and no measure. What it gives instead is weight and sound, a great body heaving on dry ground beside a waterhole.

Her hold on the living is the strangest part. From Eingana runs a cord of sinew called Toon, and it is tied to the big tendon at the back of the heel of everything that lives. She holds all of those cords at once. When she lets one go, that person or animal dies, and the death is final. The spirit, which is called Malikngor, then follows the track of Bolong and may find its way back to the country where the person was born. She gives the spirit in the first place as well, a little to the mother at first and more later, and nobody finds their own without help from her or from Bolong.

So she can make anything, hold anything, and end anything. She could not get her own children out without an old man and a spear. And there is one more limit, which the story saves for last. If Eingana herself were to die, every cord would go slack together. The kangaroos would stop, and the birds, and the people, and the water.

The record stops there. It does not say where she came from, or what there was before her. It is one man’s account, set down once.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Eingana in Aboriginal mythology?

Eingana is the first being and the mother of all living things in a creation account of the Djauan people, now written Jawoyn, of Australia’s Northern Territory. She is a snake who made the water, the land, the animals and the people. The account was told by a man named Rinjeira and published by Roland Robinson in 1956.

Where does the story of Eingana come from?

The story of Eingana comes from a single recorded telling. Rinjeira of the Djauan people gave it to the poet Roland Robinson, who published it in The Feathered Serpent in 1956. Later books and websites repeat that one account, and no separate second telling is known.

How did Eingana give birth to people?

Eingana carried everything she had made inside her body and could not give birth. An old man named Barraiya heard her groaning near Bamboo Creek and speared her from underneath. Blood came out first and then the people, who were scattered into different groups and languages by a dingo called Kandagun.

What is the sinew that Eingana holds?

Eingana holds a cord of sinew called Toon that is tied to the heel tendon of every living thing. When Eingana lets go of a cord, that person or animal dies. The account says that if Eingana herself died, everything would die with her, including the water.

Is Eingana the same as the Rainbow Serpent?

Eingana is not the same being as the Rainbow Snake in the account that names her. The story says Eingana made Bolong, the Rainbow Snake, by sending out a group of beings a second time as snakes. Eingana is the mother, and Bolong is one of her children.