The legend of Lumaluna

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The Legend of Lumaluna

Aboriginal Mythology

The ancestors of the Aboriginal from Australia they left as a legacy many of their customs, culture, stories, Legends and myths to your next generations. Tens of thousands of years ago in Australia, the ancient ways of life were taught to humans in the Dreaming. Snakes wriggled up from underground and shaped the earth, and ancestral spirits came down from the sky or across the sea. These ancestors established the customs that would forever bind their descendants to them and govern their relationship with the world around them. One of these ancestors was a giant whale named Lumaluma who came to the Gunwinggu people of Arnhem Land in the guise of a ferocious giant. Swimming across from Indonesia, he landed at Cape Stewart, where the Gunwinggu greeted him with trepidation.



The myth of Lumaluma, is a legend that clarifies the sin of gluttonyIt was a whale that by grace of the supreme god, this one transformed or took human form once it came out of the sea, to later marry two wives.

His purpose on earth was to offer great blessings to the inhabitants of the earth but instead, the Lumaluma, chose to betray his sacred mission that he had been fulfilling and fall to the delights that the world offered, for that reason when he saw the something delicious for his palate, he ruled them as sacred, so that this fruit or stew could be eaten only by him.

Lumaluna only dedicated himself to teaching rites that consisted of rattling his canes, hitting each other. But one day so much was his gluttony that I did not respect other people's foodAs not respecting those camps that were made, he hoped that these people would move away from their camps and he took advantage of eating all the food he found leaving only crumbs, this act was continuous, he ate all earthly products declaring it as sacred to the food, even this he even ate the corpses of the children that they would have died due to different circumstances.

This generated great terror in the population of Arnhem Land and they all opted together to kill him with spears and his wives in order to end this envoy of the supreme god, who, far from helping and blessing them, created serious pain and despair in them.

Art: Bark painting of Lumaluma by Bardulugubu

The art of bark painting that Lumaluma transmitted during the Dreaming still thrives in Arnhem Land in spite of the violent cultural disintegration Aboriginal groups have endured at the hands of European invaders. Today, Arnhem Land is one of the strongholds of Aboriginal culture. In their conception of the world, time is not a barrier to relationships with ancestors like Lumaluma.

The arts and rituals that were passed down in the Dreaming make the ancestors accessible and articulate the people’s connection to all life around them. Bark paintings carry deep spiritual significance for those who create them, making them truly devotional works, just as they were when Lumaluma bestowed the art form upon the Gunwinggu. The painting was done on a sheet of stringybark, which comes from eucalyptus trees. It shows Lumaluma surrounded by ritual objects, flying foxes, an emu, and the skeleton of one of his victims. Although this depiction of Lumaluma shows him in his human giant form rather than his whale form, the Gunwinggu and other coastal aboriginal groups demonstrated their reverence for whales in other bark paintings.