By Paul Curnow
I
remember when I was in my teens, now unfortunately a long time ago; making
regular trips with my family down to a town named Elliston, a small seaside
town located along the shores of Waterloo Bay on the west coast of Eyre
Peninsula, South Australia. As we got nearer to the town, I was always amazed
by the amount of Wedge-tailed Eagles (Aquila
audax) that I would see along the way. They would soar high above us and
then often swoop down on prey, or road kill. One could not help but be
impressed with the size and incredible power of these raptors of the skies.
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| A Wedge Tailed Eagle. Image by Paul Curnow. |
A
couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to get quite close to some of these
birds on Kangaroo Island. These magnificent creatures have a stare like no other,
and I couldn’t help but think that I was glad I was not one of their prey
animals. Their claws alone would be enough to easily puncture and rip through the
flesh of most creatures. These sky raptors have a wingspan of up to 2.27 metres
and a length up to 1.04 metres; therefore, they’re not the kind of bird you
want to annoy.
It
is for these reasons that this bird of prey likely features so prominently in
The Dreaming of Aboriginal Australians. As an astronomer, I have an interest in
what would probably be considered one of the more esoteric fields of astronomy,
‘ethnoastronomy’, which is generally speaking the study of non-western
astronomy, focussing on the world’s indigenous perceptions and understandings
of the night sky. Although, all indigenous astronomy is of interest to me, over
the years I have come to specialise somewhat in how Aboriginal Australians see
the night sky.
To
be found within The Dreaming there are many stories throughout the diversity of
Aboriginal groups which speak of eagles. For example, the Kaurna People of the
Adelaide Plains have an eagle constellation known as Wilto. The Southern
Cross represents the foot of this stellar raptor which can be easily seen from
the southern hemisphere. Like the Kaurna, the Ngadjuri, Nukunu and Adnyamathanha
Peoples, who live to the north of Adelaide, also see the cross as the foot of
the eagle. In fact the Adnyamathanha, who come from the Flinders Ranges, often
refer to it as Wildu mandawi, and it
is viewed as the place where deceased spirits travel up into the heavens. Furthermore,
Wildu the spirit eagle features
prominently in The Dreaming of the Ngadjuri, Nukunu and Adnyamathanha Peoples
of South Australia.
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The foot of an eagle, represented by the Southern Cross.
Image by Paul Curnow. |
The
Boorong People, who once occupied the mallee country in small numbers around
Lake Tyrrell in north-western Victoria, also saw two Wedge-tailed Eagles in the
sky. The first and brightest is represented by the bright star Sirius located
in the constellation of Canis Major which they called Warepil. The second is the star Rigel in Orion which the Boorong
called Collowgulloric Warepil. At
night these two celestial eagles soar high into our skies and Warepil is considered to be one of the
spirit elders known as the Nurrumbunguttias,
the first beings to inhabit the Earth. Moreover, located at a
distance of 8.6 light years Sirius (Alpha Canis Majoris) is the brightest star
in the sky with an apparent magnitude of -1.44. Almost all early cultures have
attached importance to this sparkling
stellar beacon. Additionally, Collowgulloric
Warepil, better known to us as the blue-white supergiant star Rigel (Beta
Orionis), sits at a distance of some 773 light years.
The
Wongaibon People from the Cobar region of New South Wales see the brightest
star in the constellation of Scorpius as an eagle. This star, the red
supergiant Antares, is known as Gwarmbilla.
On each side he is accompanied by his two wives the stars Alniyat and Tau
Scorpii. One wife is a Mallee Hen and the other is a Whip Snake. Gwarmbilla’s wives had fallen in love
with another man named Gulabirra. One
day when Gwarmbilla was out hunting
the wives set a trap for him. They dug a hole, placed sharpened bones in it and
filled it with their blood. They covered it with sticks which gave it the
appearance of a Bandicoot’s nest and when Gwarmbilla
swept down to grab it his feet were impaled. However, his mother pulled him to
safety and placed him into the heavens with his wives either side, so they
would never be tempted to stray again.
Antares
(Alpha Scorpii) is an incredibly large star. It is a red supergiant star
located approximately 604 light years away. Antares is 57,500 times more
luminous than the Sun. It has 12 ½ times the mass of our Sun, and has a surface
temperature of around 4,290 Kelvin. Furthermore, in ancient Persia, Antares was
recognized as Satevis, one of the
four ‘royal stars’, and its modern day name means ‘the rival of Mars’.
The
Kulin People, who come from the region around the city of Melbourne, and the Wotjobaluk People of western
Victoria have a creator being named Bunjil
the eagle. Bunjil is represented
in the sky by the star Altair (Alpha Aquilae) in the constellation Aquila.
There are no prizes for guessing that Aquila is another eagle in the sky, but
one of the classical 88-constellations as used by astronomers today. Bunjil has two wives in the form of
black swans that sit either side of him represented by the stars Tarazed (Gamma
Aquilae) and Alshain (Beta Aquilae).
It
is interesting to note that the Wardaman People of the Northern Territory also
see Altair as an eagle named Bulyan.
According to Wardaman elder Bill Yidumduma Harney, Bulyan is the eagle who watches over the area of Corona Australis;
a ceremonial region in the sky. Bulyan
as a ‘watchman’ has to make sure that people are kept out of special ceremonial
areas, and away from rituals they are not permitted to attend. Furthermore, men
who have Bulyan as their totemic
ancestor are traditionally seen as security men who make sure that the correct
traditions are being adhered to.
 |
| Paul Curnow and Senior Wardaman Elder Bill Yidumduma Harney. |
In
conclusion, eagles have been admired by many ancient and contemporary cultures.
The Roman legion used an ‘aquila’ as its standard, which was carried by a
legionary known as an ‘Aquilifer’ (aquila-bearer). In classical mythology the
constellation Aquila was the companion of the god Jupiter (in Greek Zeus) and
carried his thunderbolts. And to many Native Americans a mythical eagle was
responsible for creating thunder and lightning by beating its wings.
References
Cairns,
Hugh & Harney, Bill Yidumduma, 2003, Dark
Sparklers, Hugh Cairns, Sydney.
Curnow,
Paul, 2011, Aboriginal Skies,
Australasian Science, pp 22-25
Harney,
Bill Yidumduma, 2010, [Wardaman Elder] (personal communication).
Johnson,
Dianne, 1998, Night Skies of Aboriginal
Australia, University of Sydney, Sydney.
McKenzie,
Marvyn, 2010, [Adnyamathanha man] (personal communication).
Pring,
Adele, 2002, Astronomy and Australian
Indigenous People (draft), DETE, Adelaide.
Stanbridge,
William Edward, 1857, On the Astronomy and
Mythology of the Aborigines of Victoria, Proceedings of the Philosophical
Institute, Melbourne.
URL:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquila_(Roman)
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