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The Flood in World Myth and Folklore
Australia
© 2021 Mark Isaak

Wirangu

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Djunban, a rain-maker, was hunting kangaroo rat with his magic boomerang, but he hit his "sister" Mandjia instead and wounded her leg. She hid the boomerang in the sand so he couldn't find it. The people were on the move, so he carried Mandjia. Later, he gave her to a woman to carry so he could search for his boomerang, and eventually he found it. Some time later he taught his people how to make rain. The next day they all traveled further. Mandjia died from her injury and metamorphosed into a rock. After traveling the next day, Djunban performed the rain-making ceremony again, but he was grieving his sister and not concentrating on his task, and the rain came too heavily. He tried to warn his people, but the flood came and washed away all the people and their possessions, forming a hill of silt. Gold and bones found in that hill came from those people.

Berndt and Berndt, 1994, 297-300.

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