π LEGEND Β· EXP. NΒΊ0270
ACTIVE
The Rainbow Serpent
The Rainbow Serpent is a legend from Kakadu, Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia, AU β a folk story passed down over generations. This file collects its origins, its meaning and how it has been retold.
Where does the legend of The Rainbow Serpent come from?
- Location
- Kakadu, Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia, AU
- Kind of legend
- Myth
- Coordinates
- -12.838, 132.838
- Testimonies
- 0
- Last updated
LOCATION
What is the legend of The Rainbow Serpent?
Across Aboriginal Australia, from Arnhem Land to the deserts, the Rainbow Serpent is one of the oldest and most sacred beings of the Dreamtime, the age of creation. Though details vary among hundreds of nations, most tell of a vast serpent who lay sleeping beneath the earth in the beginning. Rising from a waterhole, it wound across the flat, featureless land, carving out the rivers, gorges and mountain ranges with the movement of its immense body. Where it passed, water followed, and so the serpent is bound to rain, rivers and the deep pools that never run dry. It is the great giver and keeper of life, but also a stern guardian: those who break sacred law or disturb its sacred waters may be swallowed or punished with flood and storm. Seen arcing between waterholes as a rainbow, it links the wet season's return to the land's renewal. Rock art depicting the serpent in places like Kakadu is many thousands of years old, making this one of the longest continuously told stories on earth, still central to Aboriginal law and belief.
π Source: Enigma Atlas
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