Mangar-kunjer-kunja
Mangar-kunjer-kunja OceaniaLiteral meaning: ‘fly-catcher’. The Aranda of central Australia say that the world was originally covered by the ocean with only a few hills protruding from the salt water. On the slopes of these primeval hills lived the rella manerinja, ‘two grown together’. These undeveloped beings had their eyes and ears closed; instead of a mouth they had a small hole; their fists were closed; and their arms and legs were both attached to the trunk. For a long time they lived in this symbiotic state. Then the level of the waters fell and Mangar-kunjer-kunja, a lizard ancestor, came and separated them with a stone knife. Afterwards he cut all the openings, giving them eyes, ears, nostrils, and so on. His next gifts, after performing the rites of circumcision and subincision, were the stone knife, fire, the spear, the shield, the boomerang, and the tjurunga, a sacred object linking man with his ancestor and affording...
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