Bunjil and the Making of Kulin Country

Whose story this is

This story belongs to the Kulin nations of central Victoria, including the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung, Boon Wurrung, Wadawurrung, Taungurung, and Dja Dja Wurrung peoples, whose Countries surround and include what is now Melbourne. Kulin Elders and organisations share Bunjil's story publicly today, and parts of it were also recorded by colonial observers in the nineteenth century. The summary below follows the public outline of those tellings; it is not the full story, and it is not told in the way a Kulin Elder would tell it on Country.

Bunjil and Pallian

Bunjil, the wedge-tailed eagle, is the creator ancestor. In the public tellings he shaped the land of the Kulin: its hills and plains, its rivers, its trees and plants, and its animals. Then he made the first people. In one widely shared telling, Bunjil shaped two men, and gave them life; his brother Pallian, who had been given charge of the rivers, creeks, and billabongs, then beat the water with his hands until two women took shape in it, and they became the first women. So men and women, the land and the water, came into being together.

The law

Bunjil gave the people law: how to live on Country, how to care for it, and how to behave toward one another. Among the Kulin, people belong to one of two moieties, Bunjil the eagle or Waa the crow, and the law of the moieties governs marriage and relationships. Stories shared publicly also tell of Bunjil stepping in when people did not follow the law, and in one telling of his turning back the rising sea when the people agreed to change their ways.

Rising into the sky

When his work was done, Bunjil gathered his family. In one widely published telling, the keeper of the winds (named as Waa the crow in some accounts and as another being in others) opened his bag of winds, and a strong wind carried Bunjil and his people up into the sky. Boon Wurrung and Wurundjeri people connect Bunjil with the bright star Altair, with his two wives, as black swans, on either side. From the sky, Bunjil watches over the land and people he made.

Bunjil in Country today

Bunjil's presence is marked in Country and in present-day Melbourne. The only known rock painting of Bunjil is at Bunjil's Shelter in the Black Range near Stawell, on Djab Wurrung Country. In Melbourne's Docklands, a large sculpture of an eagle refers to Bunjil. Kulin people continue to refer to Bunjil when they welcome visitors to Country, reminding them of his law of caring for the land and its children.

Earlier records

Colonists such as the Assistant Protector William Thomas and the writer R. Brough Smyth recorded Kulin stories of Bunjil in the nineteenth century, often calling him a supreme being. Those records preserve some details but also reflect their authors' assumptions, and they were made during the dispossession of the Kulin nations. Kulin peoples' own tellings are the authority for this story.