A major ritual work consisting of multiple songs in a narrative sequence, the Djanggawul Cycle follows the wanderings of the djanggawal Brother and his two sisters, Bildjiwuraroiju & Miralaidj who came to Arnhem Land from Bralgu (Land of the Eternal Beings)
As they pass through they people the land.
The narrative describes the ‘heavy ripeness, the swelling & bursting of a teeming life source, colours and Australain views of creation.” We read of the body of the sacred sister, heat around the clitoris, the bussing tree roots, spray & blood and a swarming sense of life emerging – not two-by-two but swarming.
Go, put out the rangga, making it big: open your legs, for you look nice!
Yes, Miralaidj, my sister. Yes, the mouths of the mat is closed.
Yes, go, rest there quietly, for the vagina is sacred, and the rangga are hidden there, like younger siblings, covered up so no one may see.
Thus, climb up, put it into the mouth of the mat!
What is this, blocking my penis? I rest above here, chest on my her breasts!
Do not push hard! The sound of her cry echoes.
covered up, so no one may see, like a younger sibling ….
Do not move what is within, for it is sacred!
For it rests there within, like the transverse fibre of a mat.
Blood running, sacredly running!
Yes, they, the rangga clansfolk, are coming out like djadda roots, like spray ….
Go, digging within, causing the blood to flow, sacred blood from the red vagina, that no one may see!
Very sacred stands the rangga penis!
Song 160
Arnhem Land, Australia
In the passage the sister is wearing an arm band that hinders coitus, breaking this causes blood to flow.
See also Song 159
Explanatory notes:
Rangga is a sacred emblem, identified with the penis of the Djanggawul brother.
Rangga folk initially emerged from the Djanggawul sisters ancestors of the Ahrnam Landers.
Mat, or ngainmara mat- conically shaped, belonging to the Djanggawul sister a symbol of the uterus.
Source Ronald M. Berndt, Djanggawul: An Aborigiginal Religious Cult of north East Arnhem Land (Philosophical Library, 1953) quoted from Technicians of the Sacred – A Range of Poetries from Africa, America, Asia, Europe & Oceania” edited by Jerome Rothenberg.
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