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WARRARNANY DU WANGGARNAL
These hills lie behind Warmun Community. In the Ngarranggarni (Dreaming) warranany – the eagle told his wife wangkarnal – the crow – to cook some kangaroo for him to eat. She was lazy and so she fell asleep instead. When she woke up the crow wanted to eat the meat that the eagle had cooked. The eagle burned up white rock (manjal – white quartz) until it became a red-hot spearhead and he stabbed the crow in the eye. That is why some crows have a white eye. The eagle and crow were brother and sister – Jangari and Nangari – and would have been promised in marriage, unusually as they are of the wrong skin groups for each other. In the early days when a girl was born she would be sat on the knee of her promised husband. When she was eight or nine years old, he would take her and ‘grow her up’, Eileen Bray says. Often a brother would be promised to the sister of their brother’s wife, and vice versa. White rock can be seen on the hills – it is the kangaroo’s fat and the eagle’s spearhead from the Ngarranggarni.
