Gamilaraay The Gamilaraay, also known as Gomeroi, Kamilaroi, Kamillaroi and other variations, are an Aboriginal Australian people whose lands extend from New South Wales to southern Queensland. They form one of the four largest Indigenous nations in Au ...

mythology Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narra ...

, Bahloo is a male spirit representing the moon. The most known tale about him is a story about the origin of death.

Myths

Bahloo and the Daens The most notable myth seeks to explain both man's mortality and the hatred between snakes and men, much as does the

Judeo-Christian The term Judeo-Christian is used to group Christianity and Judaism together, either in reference to Christianity's derivation from Judaism, Christianity's borrowing of Jewish Scripture to constitute the "Old Testament" of the Christian Bible, o ...

story of the

Garden of Eden In Abrahamic religions, the Garden of Eden ( he, גַּן־עֵדֶן, ) or Garden of God (, and גַן־אֱלֹהִים ''gan- Elohim''), also called the Terrestrial Paradise, is the biblical paradise described in Genesis 2-3 and Ezekiel 28 ...

. In the tale, Bahloo takes his snakes (calling them his 'dogs') out for a walk at night. He comes upon a group of men and asks them to carry the snakes across a river for him. They were afraid, and refused, so he did it himself, with two snakes coiled around each arm and one around his neck. He threw a piece of bark on the water, which floated, and a stone, which sank. He declared that he was like the bark, always rising again, but that the men would be like the stone, and sink to the bottom when they were dead. The men, who had always feared the snakes, now hated them and killed them whenever they saw one. Bahloo always sent more, to remind the people that they had not done what he asked. Bahloo and Wahn One Aboriginal legend tells of how Bahloo was once a clever man who lived with Wahn, the Crow, and Buumayamayal, the fly catcher lizard, creating the babies of the world. One day, Wahn asks Bahloo, in addition to making new babies, that they resurrect the dead as well. Bahloo refused this request, making Wahn very upset. Upon seeing a large gum tree, Wahn asks to Bahloo climb the tree for grubs. He then breathed on the gum tree, causing it to grow into the sky. This is where Bahloo stayed, explaining why the Moon travels across the sky. Bahloo and Yhi During Bahloo’s travels,

Yhi In Gamilaraay mythology), Yhi (sometimes also rendered Yarai/Yaay) is a female creator spirit and personification of the sun. She chases Bahloo (the moon) across the sky; supernovas are said to happen when she catches up to him. According to a c ...

, the Sun, courts Bahloo, but he refused her advances. The myth says that this is why the Sun chased the Moon across the sky. Yhi threatened the spirits who held up the sky that if they let him escape down to Earth, she would plunge the world into darkness. Nevertheless, Bahloo is sometimes seen walking on the Earth in Gamilaraay myth. He does so by disguising himself as the spirit emu, tricking the spirits and going back to Earth to once again reclaim his post of creating baby girls.

Notes

References

Australian Aboriginal gods Lunar gods {{deity-stub