In the mythology of the
Aboriginal people of south-eastern
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
(specifically, the
Kulin nation), Balayang or Pallian the
bat was a brother of
Bunjil
Bunjil, also spelt Bundjil, is a creator deity, culture hero and ancestral being, often depicted as a wedge-tailed eagle in Australian Aboriginal mythology of some of the Aboriginal peoples of Victoria.
Creation stories
In the Kulin nation ...
the
eaglehawk, but lived apart from him. Once, Bunjil asked him to come and live with him, but Balayang replied that Bunjil's country was too dry and that Bunjil ought to come and live with him instead. This upset Bunjil, who sent his two helpers, Djurt-djurt the
nankeen kestrel and Thara the quail hawk, after Balayang. They set fire to the bat's country and Balayang and his family were scorched and turned permanently black. Another story says that Balayang formed the oceans, rivers, and creeks.
Because of his black colouring, Balayang was associated with
Crow, and thus belonged to the moiety in opposition to Eaglehawk. Another story credits him with creating or finding Crow women (and thus marriage partners for the Eaglehawk moiety). One day Balayang was amusing himself by thumping the surface of the water, causing it to thicken into mud. Something stirred underneath the mud and, probing with a branch, he found two women. He called one Kunnawarra ("
black swan
The black swan (''Cygnus atratus'') is a large waterbird, a species of swan which breeds mainly in the southeast and southwest regions of Australia. Within Australia, the black swan is nomadic, with erratic migration patterns dependent upon c ...
") and the other Kururuk ("
brolga
The brolga (''Antigone rubicunda''), formerly known as the native companion, is a bird in the crane family. It has also been given the name Australian crane, a term coined in 1865 by well-known ornithologist John Gould in his ''Birds of Austral ...
"). He took them to Bunjil, who gave them as wives to the men he had created.
Balayang was represented in the night sky by the star
Antares.
Footnotes
Australian Aboriginal gods
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