myths Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...

of the Binbinga people of northern

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

, Bobbi-Bobbi was a supernatural being who lived in the heavens in the

Dreamtime The Dreaming, also referred to as Dreamtime, is a term devised by early anthropologists to refer to a religio-cultural worldview attributed to Australian Aboriginal religion and mythology, Australian Aboriginal mythology. It was originally u ...

. He was a huge snake, similar to the

Rainbow Serpent The Rainbow Serpent or Rainbow Snake is a common deity often seen as the Creator deity, creator God, known by numerous names in different Australian Aboriginal languages by the many List of Australian Aboriginal group names, different Aborigina ...

, and was originally benevolent towards humans. From the heavens, he saw that humans needed more than just water to survive, so he created

flying fox ''Pteropus'' (suborder Yinpterochiroptera) is a genus of megabats which are among the largest bats in the world. They are commonly known as fruit bats or flying foxes, among other colloquial names. They live in South Asia, Southeast Asia, Aust ...

es for them to catch and eat. When the bats flew too high for the humans to catch them, Bobbi-Bobbi removed one of his own ribs and gave it to humans who used it as the first ever

boomerang A boomerang () is a thrown tool typically constructed with airfoil sections and designed to spin about an axis perpendicular to the direction of its flight, designed to return to the thrower. The origin of the word is from Australian Aborigin ...

. According to the tradition, some humans were not satisfied with these gifts and anxious to see what heaven looked like. Two men pretended they wanted to open a hole in the sky and thank Bobbi-Bobbi personally. They hurled the rib-boomerang and tore a huge hole in the clouds which startled Bobbi-Bobbi so much that he failed to catch the boomerang which fell back to Earth and killed the foolish men. This was the first time that Death had visited the human race, so Bobbi-Bobbi has remained aloof in heaven ever since, making no more attempts to help humans.

References

* Bobbi-bobbi. Oxford Reference. Retrieved 16 Jul. 2022, from https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095514494. Australian Aboriginal legendary creatures Legendary serpents Snake gods {{australia-myth-stub