The Eternal Belief in Immortality & Worship of the Dead. James George Frazer
believed to have travelled on to another place called Tjunguniari, where he popped up his head among the sand-hills, the greater part of his body remaining underground. Indeed, of such an enormous length was the serpent, that though his head had now travelled very many miles his tail still remained at the starting-point and had not yet begun to take part in the procession. Here accordingly the third ceremony, perhaps we may say the third act in the drama, was performed on the third day. In it one of the actors personated the snake himself, while the other stood for a sand-hill.139
Further ceremony in honour of the Wollunqua: the white mound with the red wavy band to represent the mythical snake.
After an interval of three days a fourth ceremony was performed of an entirely different kind. A keel-shaped mound was made of wet sand, about fifteen feet long by two feet high. The smooth surface of the mound was covered with a mass of little dots of white down, except for a long wavy band of red down which ran all along both sides of the mound. This wavy red band represented the Wollunqua, his head being indicated by a small round swelling at one end and his tail by a short prolongation at the other. The mound itself represented a sand-hill beside which the snake is said to have stood up and looked about. The preparation of this elaborate emblem of the Wollunqua occupied the greater part of the day, and it was late in the afternoon before it was completed. When darkness fell, fires were lighted on the ceremonial ground, and as the night grew late more fires were kindled, and all of the men sat round the mound singing songs which referred to the mythical water-snake. This went on for hours. At last, about three o'clock in the morning, a ring of fires was lit all round the ceremonial ground, in the light of which the white trunks of the gum-trees and the surrounding scrub stood out weird and ghastly against the blackness of darkness beyond. Amid the wildest excitement the men of the Wollunqua totem now ranged themselves in single file on their knees beside the mound which bore the red image of their great mythical forefather, and with their hands on their thighs surged round and round it, every man bending in unison first to one side and then to the other, each successive movement being accompanied by a loud and simultaneous shout, or rather yell, while the other men, who were not of the Wollunqua totem, stood by, clanging their boomerangs excitedly, and one old man, who acted as a sort of choregus, walked backwards at the end of the kneeling procession of Wollunqua men, swaying his body about and lifting high his knees at every step. In this way, with shouts and clangour, the men of the totem surged twice round the mound on their knees. After that, as the fires died down, the men rose from their knees, and for another hour every one sat round the mound singing incessantly. The last act in the drama was played at four o'clock in the morning at the moment when the first faint streaks of dawn glimmered in the east. At sight of them every man jumped to his feet, the smouldering fires were rekindled, and in their blaze the long white mound stood out in strong relief. The men of the totem, armed with spears, boomerangs, and clubs, ranged themselves round it, and encouraged by the men of the other totems attacked it fiercely with their weapons, until in a few minutes they had hacked it to pieces, and nothing was left of it but a rough heap of sandy earth. The fires again died down and for a short time silence reigned. Then, just as the sun rose above the eastern horizon, the painful ceremony of subincision was performed on three youths, who had recently passed through the earlier stages of initiation.140
The rite aims both at pleasing and at coercing the mythical snake.
This remarkable rite is supposed, we are informed, "in some way to be associated with the idea of persuading, or almost forcing, the Wollunqua to remain quietly in his home under the water-hole at Thapauerlu, and to do no harm to any of the natives. They say that when he sees the mound with his representation drawn upon it he is gratified, and wriggles about underneath with pleasure. The savage attack upon the mound is associated with the idea of driving him down, and, taken altogether, the ceremony indicates their belief that, at one and the same time, they can both please and coerce the mythic beast. It is necessary to do things to please him, or else he might grow sulky and come out and do them harm, but at the same time they occasionally use force to make him do what they want."141 In fact the ritual of the mound with its red image of the snake combines the principles of religion and magic. So far as the rite is intended to please and propitiate the mythical beast, it is religious; so far as it is intended to constrain him, it is magical. The two principles are contradictory and the attempt to combine them is illogical; but the savage is heedless, or rather totally unaware, of the contradiction and illogicality: all that concerns him is to accomplish his ends: he has neither the wish nor the ability to analyse his motives. In this respect he is in substantial agreement with the vast majority of mankind. How many of us scrutinise the reasons of our conduct with the view of detecting and eliminating any latent inconsistencies in them? And how many, or rather how few of us, on such a scrutiny would be so fortunate as to discover that there were no such inconsistencies to detect? The logical pedant who imagines that men cannot possibly act on inconsistent and even contradictory motives only betrays his ignorance of life. It is not therefore for us to cast stones at the Warramunga men of the Wollunqua totem for attempting to propitiate and constrain their mythical serpent at the same time. Such contradictions meet us again and again in the history of religion: it is interesting but by no means surprising to find them in one of its rudimentary stages.
Thunder the voice of the Wollunqua.
On the evening of the day which succeeded the construction of the emblematic mound the old men who had made the emblem said they had heard the Wollunqua talking, and that he was pleased with what had been done and was sending them rain. What they took for the voice of the Wollunqua was thunder rumbling in the distance. No rain fell, but a few days later thunder was again heard rolling afar off and a heavy bank of clouds lay low on the western horizon. The old men now said that the Wollunqua was growling because the remains of the mound had been left uncovered; so they hastily cut down branches and covered up the ruins. After that the Wollunqua ceased to growl: there was no more thunder.142
Ground drawings of the Wollunqua.
On the four following days ceremonies of an entirely different kind from all the preceding were performed in honour of the Wollunqua. A space of sandy ground was smoothed down, sprinkled with water, and rubbed so as to form a compact surface. The smooth surface was then overlaid with a coat of red or yellow ochre, and on this coloured background a number of designs were traced, one after the other, by a series of white dots, which together made up a pattern of curved lines and concentric circles. These patterns represented the Wollunqua and some of his traditionary adventures. The snake himself was portrayed by a broad wavy band, but all the other designs were purely conventional; for example, trees, ant-hills, and wells were alike indicated by circles. Altogether there were eight such drawings on the earth, some of them very elaborate and entailing, each of them, not less than six or seven hours' labour: one of them was ten feet long. Each drawing was rubbed out before the next one was drawn. Moreover, the drawings were accompanied by little dramas acted by decorated men. In one of these dramas no fewer than eight actors took part, some of whom wore head-dresses adorned with a long wavy band to represent the Wollunqua. The last drawing of all was supposed to portray the mythical snake as he plunged into the earth and returned to his home in the rocky pool called Thapauerlu among the Murchison Ranges.143
Religious importance of the Wollunqua.
I have dwelt at some length on these ceremonies of the Wollunqua totem, because they furnish a remarkable and perhaps unique instance in Australia of a totemic ancestor in the act of developing into something like a god. In the Warramunga tribe there are other snake totems besides the Wollunqua; for example, there is the black snake totem and the deaf adder totem. But this purely mythical water-snake, the Wollunqua, is the most important of them all and is regarded as the great father of all the snakes. "It is not easy," say Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, "to express in words what is in reality rather a vague feeling amongst the natives, but after carefully watching the different series of ceremonies we were