#unless they perform the fertility rites so women?

[wildskissed]

Don't ask me why I was looking into Elves and their fertility...but I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that they're pregnant for two years...then it takes them a year or two after that to even be able to conceive again at all, with the same low chances...has to go double check the ages of Eve's siblings...

[queenofboheme]

Australian Aboriginal Myths & Legends

Alchera - Literally, ‘dream time.’ It is the remote period in time in which the ancestral spirits of aboriginal tribes walked the earth. These ancestors are believed to have returned to their abode underground. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Altjira - The sky father of the Aranda tribes of Central Australia, Altjira is looked on as the god of the Alchera, the dream time. It is said that he made the Earth, then retired to the top of the sky, and is now indifferent to mankind. He is represented as a man with the feet of an emu, while his wives and daughters have the feet of dogs. Also called Sky-Dweller or All-Father. {Dr Anthony E. Smart}

Anjea - An animistic fertility spirit of the aboriginals of Queensland. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Ankotarinja - Among the Aranda people, the first man. He is the Dreaming hero who first emerged from the ground to create the world. His myth belonged to a small band of Aranda men, known as the Ngala-Mbitjana people. They were heirs to Ankotarinja’s exploits at the time of the Dreaming, performing his ceremonies and initiating their young iliara (novice) into his totemic lodge. They kept alive the memory of his world-creating endeavors. Ankotarinja’s birthplace is a creek-bed near Ankota (vicinity of Mt. Solitaire). {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Awa-hon-do - Abenaki insect-spirits that bite people. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Baiame - The totemic ancestor of the Kamilaroi tribe of New South Wales. An ancient sky god and 'father of all things’, he was master of life and death – the archetypal medicine-man. He answered invocations for rain, while his favourite wife, Birrahgnooloo, sent floods on request. Baiame also invented the stone fish trap. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Bagadjimbiri - The two brother gods to whom the Karadjeri of northwestern Australia attribute the creation of the world. Prior to the rising of the two brothers as dingos from the ground, there was nothing. The Bagadjimbiri made waterholes; from a toadstool and a fungus they formed genital organs for the first sexless people, and they instituted the ritual of circumcision. After the two brothers had assumed the shape of two giant men reaching up to the sky, they got into a quarrel with a cat-man called Ngariman, whom they had annoyed with their laughter. Ngariman and his relatives killed the two brothers with spears, but the enraged Dilga, their mother, and the earth goddess, caused her milk to flow underground to the place of the murder, where it revived the victims and drowned the killers. Bagadjimbiri were reborn, but after some time decided to pass away, their bodies turning into water snakes and their spirits rising into the sky as great clouds. {Dr Anthony E. Smart}.

Bamapana - A hero and trickster of the Murnging of northern Australia. He causes much discord and misunderstandings. He has also a reputation to be an obscene man because, among other things, he violated the taboo of incest, to the open horror and hidden delight of the tribesmen.{Micha F. Lindemans}.

Banaitja - An Aboriginal creator diety. {Jeanette X}.

Bia - The name of the songs sung by the Buin people (Australia) as laments for the dead. The words are the mourning exclamations and cries of the relatives of the deceased at the time of cremation. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Biame - The “Great One,” or creator. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Bobbi-bobbi - One of the ancestral snakes of the Binbinga people of northern Australia, Bobbi-Bobbi once sent a number of flying foxes for men to eat, but these bats escaped. So the snake, underground, watching, threw one of his ribs up, where the men on the ground received it and, using it as a boomerang, slew the bats and cooked them. Later they used the boomerang to make a hole in the sky, and Bobbi-Bobbi, angered, took back his rib, dragging down into his mouth two young men who had tried to hold onto the boomerang. {Dr Anthony E. Smart}.

Brolga - Her name means “Native Companion.” She is honored by the Aborigines of Australia. A dancer of great fluidity and beauty, she was taken away by the dancers of nature, the whirlwinds. {Dr Anthony E. Smart}.

Bulaing - A female divinity of creation in the religion of the Australian Karadjeri. She created all things and all creatures. The word bulaing is also used to denote the mythical serpents. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Bunbulama - Goddess of the rain. Djanggawul sisters or daughters of the sun, these Australian goddesses unceasingly brought forth living creatures from their endlessly pregnant bodies. Their long vulvas broke off piece by piece with these births, producing the world’s first sacred artifacts. {Dr Anthony E. Smart}.

Bunjil - The supreme god and creator of the Kulin and Wurunjerri peoples of Australia, usually referred to as 'our father’. According to the traditions of the Kulin he taught mankind the arts of life, while the Wurunjerri traditions state that he created mankind. After his tasks on earth where finished, he left the earth for an abode in the sky. The rainbow Binbeal is his son. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Bunyip - A bellowing water monster from Aboriginal legend, believed to bring diseases. It lives at the bottom of the water holes, swamps, lakes and rivers of the Australian outback. The creature is roughly the size of a calf and requires calm water to live in. Unless its food sources are interfered with, the bunyip usually leaves human beings alone. However, if necessary it has the strength to pull a person down into the water and drown him. The name comes from an Aboriginal word meaning “devil” or “spirit”. Science sees it rather as misrecognized animals like seals, whose voices are mistaken for the cries of bitterns. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Churinga - Ancient sacred icon stones and wooden boards associated with the wanderings of ancestral heroes at the time of the Dreaming. However, they are much more than boards and stones: they represent the timeless presence of the Dreaming heroes on earth. The churinga are usually wrapped in dry leaves, bound with strings made of human hair and kept either on a platform or in a crevasse near the totemic center. In a sense, the churinga are the collective numen of the spirit-being, his kurunba. They represent the link with the otherworld. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Daramulum - The Australian (Wiradyuri and Kamilaroi) sky-god, son of the creator-god Baiame. He is the intermediary between his father and humans. Daramulum (“one-leg”) is associated with the moon, and the one of the sources of supernatural power accessible to medicine men. He is the chief totemic ancestor of the Yuin tribe. Representations of Daramulum are only shown during initiation rites. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Dhakhan - The ancestral spirit of the Kabi tribe of Queensland (north-east Australia). He is half fish, half snake and when Dhakhan moves himself, he appears in the sky as a rainbow. The spirit resides in deep water holes. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Dilga - The earth goddess of the Karadjeri of northwestern Australia, she avenged the murder of her two sons, Bagadjimbiri, by drowning the killers in her milk, which at the same time restored her sons to life. {Dr Anthony E. Smart}.

Djanggawul - The divine trinity of north Australian mythology, Djanggawuls was made up of two sisters and a brother who came to Earth via Beralku, the island of the dead, and gave the landscape its shape and vegetation. {Dr Anthony E. Smart}.

Djunkgao - In Aboriginal myth (specifically the Murngin myth cycle) the Djunkgao sisters named on their travels the clan countries and animals, and made totem wells with their yam sticks. They lost their totems to the men and became ordinary women when the younger sister was incestuously raped. The sisters are associated with the rainy season floods and the movements of the ocean. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Dream time - The mythological past of Australian (Aboriginal) mythology. It is variously termed by the various tribes.{Micha F. Lindemans}.

Eingana - The Australian natives call her, Mother Eingana, the world-creator, the birth mother, maker of all water, land, animals, and kangaroos. This huge snake goddess still lives, they say, in the Dreamtime, rising up occasionally to create yet more life. This primordial snake had no vagina; as her offspring grew inside her, the goddess swelled up. Eventually, tortured with the pregnancy, Eingana began to roll around and around. The god Barraiya saw her agony and speared her near the anus so that birth could take place as all creatures now give birth. She is also the death mother. They say Eingana holds a sinew of life attached to each of her creatures; when she lets it go, that life stops. If she herself should die, they say everything would cease to exist.{Dr Anthony E. Smart}.

Erathipa - A huge boulder in the shape of a pregnant woman bears this name. It is said that the souls of dead children reside within it, and that if a woman of child-bearing age walks by a soul slips from the boulder and into her womb to be reborn.{Dr Anthony E. Smart}.

Galeru - A mythical giant rainbow-snake from Arnhemland in northern Australia. Galeru is the symbol of the maintenance of life. She swallowed the Djanggawul sisters. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Gnowee - The sun goddess of an aboriginal people of southeast Australia. The legend goes that Gnowee once lived on the earth at a time when the sky was always dark and people walked around carrying torches in order to see. One day while Gnowee was out gathering yams, her baby son wandered off. She set out to search for him, carrying a huge torch, but never found him. To this day she still climbs the sky daily, carrying her torch, trying to find her son. {Dr Anthony E. Smart}.

Inapertwa - In Australian Aranda (Arunta) mythology, rudimentary creatures from which two Numbakulla, or self-existing sky deities, made animals, birds, and plants, which they then formed into human beings. Thus, each individual belongs to the totem the name is that of the plant or animal from which he was transformed. The Numbakulla themselves then became lizards. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

I'wai - The crocodile totemic culture hero of the Koko Ya'o tribe, Cape York Peninsula, Australia. I'wai was the leading figure among the ancestors who lived “in the beginning at first”, a phrase often opening a myth about the pre-human period. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Julana - God of the Jumu of western Australia, Julana delights in chasing women, whom he surprises by travelling under the sand. Both he and his father Njirana travelled the earth during Alchera, the Dream Time. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Julunggul - Rainbow serpents are a common motif throughout world mythology, but most particularly in Oceania, Africa and South America; universally, they are associated with immortality/rebirth, rain and water. This rainbow serpent, Julunggul, is a great Goddess of the Aborigines of Australia. She oversees the initiation of adolescent boys into manhood. {Dr Anthony E. Smart}.

Kalseru - The northwestern Australian rainbow serpent associated with fertility and rain. The rainbow serpent is known over most of Australia but the name differs from tribe to tribe. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Karora - The creator, according to the Bandicoot clan of the Arandan aborigines of Australia. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Kidili - The moon man of the mythology of the Mandjindja in western Australia. He tried to force his attentions on the first women and this act caused the lizard men, Wati-kutjara, to attack and wound him. Kidili later died in a water hole. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Kondole - There is a charming myth from southern Australia which tells of a blistering hot day at the time of the Ceremonies. The performers realize they have no means of providing light for the evening rituals, so they invite Kondole to join them, hoping that he, the sole owner of fire, will bring it with him. Kondole, however, is a mean and disagreeable fellow; he hides the fire in the bush and arrives without it. Angered by his selfishness, the performers consider various ways of forcing him to retrieve his fire and share it with them. But Kondole is a big bruiser and nobody is courageous enough to deal with him. Finally though, one of the performers completely freaks out with rage and throws a spear which penetrates Kondole’s skull. Instantly all the people of the ceremony are transfigured into creatures: some become kangaroos, some opossums, others smaller critters; a few take wing and rise into the air, while others splash into the sea as various kinds of fish. Kondole, the largest of them all, becomes a whale who, ever since, has spouted water from the spear-wound in his head. {Peter Kohler}.

Kunapipi - The mother goddess of the aboriginal tribes of northern Australia. She once travelled across the world with a band of heroes and heroines, and a rainbow serpent heralded her approach. During the ancestral period she gave birth to men and women as well as creating the natural species. Now she is a vague, otiose, spiritual being. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Kutjara - Kutjara, with Wati, the two male ancestors of mortals who taught the people to keep in touch with Dreamtime. Dreamtime is always present and is the source of all life. {Dr Anthony E. Smart}.

Makara - The Makara are seven sisters who became the constellation Pleiades. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Mamaragan - In Aboriginal belief, Mamaragan is the man of lightning who rides on a thundercloud and who throws bolts of lightning to men and trees. Thunder is his voice. During good weather he lives in a puddle. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Mangar-kunjer-kunja - The lizard creator god of the Aranda of Central Australia. It is said that he found the undeveloped first beings, the Rella manerinja, on the slope of a hill; these beings were in fact two fused together. Mangar-kunjer-kunja separated them with a stone knife, and cut the openings for their eyes, ears, noses and mouths. Next he presented the stone knife, fire, the spear, the shield, the boomerang, and a sacred object called the Tjurunga to his new creatures. Finally he regulated their marriage system. {Dr Anthony E. Smart}.

Mar'rallang - This Aboriginal story recounts the marriage of two sisters, so alike they bore the same name, to one man. The sameness of the sisters may allude actually to a two-season year, a two-sun cosmology, a dual-ruler system, the dichotomy/unity of life and death, and so on. In Greek mythology, the opposite is common: twin brothers (or a father and son, or uncle and nephew) marrying the same woman. {Dr Anthony E. Smart}.

Mimi - Spirit beings who live in the rocks of western Arnhem Land. They are so thin that they do not dare to venture out when it’s windy for fear that their necks will snap. The spirits are reputed to eat men but yams are their staple food. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Min Min Lights - According to folklore, the lights sometimes follow or approach people and disappear, sometimes very rapidly, when fired upon, only to reappear later on.

Minawara - One of the two ancestral heroes of the Nambutji tribe of Central Australia, Minawara and his brother Multultu are kangaroo men, who emerged from a heap of debris carried by the flood, and travelled southwards, walking on all fours. When they camped they made a little hole and slept there, covering themselves with rubbish. For this they were reproved by a rat man, who advised them to sit in the shade of the tree. Minawara and Multultu continued their journey into the desert, where they donned feathers, their mucus and lungs being tossed away as stones. {Dr Anthony E. Smart}.

Mokoi - An evil spirit, in the mythology of the Murngin of northern Australia, the Mokoi is said to strike down a person due to the black magic of a sorcerer. {Dr Anthony E. Smart}.

Morkul Kua Luan - An Aboriginal nature spirit who guards the sorghum grass, which the people use in their daily food. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Mura-mura - The dream time and the ancestral spirits of the Australian Dieri. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Ngariman - A cat-man who argued and fought with the brothers Bagadjimbiri, and slew the two. He was punished by the earth goddess Dilga, however, by being drowned in her milk. {Dr Anthony E. Smart}.

Nogomain - The Australian giver of spirit children.{Micha F. Lindemans}.

Pundjel - The southeastern Australian creator who made all things, including the ceremonies. Pundjel figures prominently in the initiation rites of boys. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Tjilpa - The ancestral totemic cat-men of Australia. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Tjinimin - The Australian totemic ancestor. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Ulanji - One of the snake ancestors of the Binbinga of northern Australia, Ulanji was said to have climbed rocks in order to bite the heads off flying foxes, and he also took out two of his ribs and his heart. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Ungud - In the mythology of the Aboriginals in north-western Australia, Ungud is a hermaphrodite snake god, who is sometimes clearly male and at other times clearly female. Ungud is often associated with the rainbow and the erections of the medicine men. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Walo - The Australian aboriginals called the sun goddess by this name and said that she lived with her daughter Bara and her sister-in-law, the world mother Madalait, far to the east. Each day Walo journeyed across the sky accompanied by Bara, until one day the sun goddess realized that the reason the earth was so parched was their combined heat. She sent her daughter back to the east so that the earth could become fertile and bloom. {Dr Anthony E. Smart}.

Waramurungundi - The first woman, according to the Gunwinggu people of Australia. She was the all-creating mother of Australia; she gave birth to the earth and then fashioned all its living creatures. She then taught her creations to talk and divided each language group from the next. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Wati-kutjara - The 'two men’ who came from the mountains in the Dreamtime. They are lizard-men and the iguana is their totem (and are therefore also called Men Iguana). They made many cult-objects (tjurunga) and gave them to the Aboriginals. On their travels they created trees, plants, physiographic features, and ceremonial objects. Ceremonies now depict events in these travels. A particular myth tells of when the man in the moon (Kidili) attempted to rape the first woman, Wati-kutjara threw a magical boomerang which severed the rapist’s genitals. The woman disappeared in the heavens and formed the constellation of the Pleiades. They are known to the tribes of central-western Australia in the Great Western Desert. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Wawalag - A pair of fertility goddess of Arnhemland in north Australia. These two sisters are the daughters of Djanngawul, the Aboriginal founder deities. The sisters live at a waterpool–a sacred place–where they anger the giant rainbow-snake Yurlungur so that the creature continually swallows and disgorges them. This myth forms the base of the widely spread initiation rites where 'disgorged’ youths assume their rightful place in the tribes as men. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Wolaro - The leading mythological character of the Gwini (Kimberley, northern Australia). He is a man who created heaven, earth, and all that is in it, and who now lives in the sky. Most of his activities were carried on through subordinate deities (demiurges) including birds, his son Dagubal, and the Rainbow Serpent. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Wollunqua - The Aboriginal giant snake which is associated with the rainbow and worshipped a creator of life. The snake emerged from a lake in the Murschison Mountains where the life-bringing rains are collected. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Wondjina - Primal beings of the Aboriginals. They are cloud and rain spirits who in the Dreamtime descended to caves where they painted their images on the cave walls. These images are shaped as humans, with eyes and noses, but without any mouths. Their ghosts remained in nearby waterpools. One of them, Walaganda, rose to the sky and formed the Milky Way. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Wuluwaid - A male rainmaker. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Wuragag - The first man, according to the Gunwinggu people of Australia, and husband of Waramurungundi. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Wuriupranili - This sun goddess was said to light bark into a torch, carrying the flame through the sky from east to west. At the western sea, she dipped it in the water, then used the embers to guide her under the earth to reach her eastern starting point again. The brilliant skies of dawn and dusk, it was said, came from her red-ochre body paints misting up into the sky as she powdered and beautified her body. {Dr Anthony E. Smart}.

Wurrunna - A culture hero with many folklore tales of his wanderings. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Yara-ma-yha-who - In aboriginal cultures, there was a vampire-like being, described as a little red man, approximately four feet tall, with a very large head and mouth. It has no teeth and swallowed its food whole. Its most distinguishing features were it hands and feet. It tips of the fingers and toes were shaped like the suckers of an octopus. The yara-ma-yha-who lived in the tops of fig trees and did not hunt for food, but waited until unsuspecting victims sought shelter under the tree. It then jumped down and placed its hands and feet on the body. It would drain the blood from the victim to the point the person was left weak and helpless, but rarely, to cause the victim to die. The creature would later return and consume its meal. It then drank water and took a nap. When it woke, the undigested portion of its meal would be regurgitated. According to the story, the person regurgitated was still alive, and children were advised to offer no resistance should it be their misfortune to meet a yara-ma-yha-who. Their chances of survival were better if they let the creature swallow them. {Micha F. Lindemans}.

Yhi - The goddess of light and creator goddess of the Karraur, an Australian aboriginal group, she lay asleep in the Dreamtime before this world’s creation, in a world of bone-bare, windless mountains. Suddenly, a whistle startled the goddess. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes, flooding the world with light. The earth stirred under her warm rays. Yhi drifted down to this new land, walking north, south, east, west. As she did, plants sprang up from her footprints. She walked the world’s surface until she had stepped everywhere, until every inch was covered with green. Then the goddess sat to rest on the treeless plain. As she glanced around, she realized that the new plants could not move, and she desired to see something dance. Seeking that dancing life, she descended beneath the earth, where she found evil spirits who tried to sing her to death. But they were not as powerful as Yhi. Her warmth melted the darkness, and tiny forms began to move there. The forms turned into butterflies and bees and insects that swarmed around her in a dancing mass. She led them forth into the sunny world. But there were still caves of ice, high in the mountains, in which other beings rested. Yhi spread her light into them, one at a time. She stared into the cave’s black interiors until water formed. Then she saw something move-something, and another thing, and another. Fishes and lizards swam forth. Cave after cave she freed from its darkness, and birds and animals poured forth onto the face of the earth. Soon the entire world was dancing with life. Then, in her golden voice, Yhi spoke. She told her creatures she would return to her own world. She blessed them with changing seasons and with the knowledge that when they died they would join her in the sky. Then, turning herself into a ball of light, she sank below the horizon. As she disappeared, darkness fell upon on the earth’s surface. The new creatures were afraid. There was sorrow and mourning, and finally there was sleep. And, soon, there was the first dawn, for Yhi had never intended to abandon her creation. One by one the sleepy creatures woke to see light breaking in the east. A bird chorus greeted their mistress, and the lake and ocean waters that had been rising in mists, trying to reach her, sank down calmly. For eons of Dreamtime the animals lived in peace on Yhi’s earth, but then a vague sadness began to fill them. They ceased to delight in what they were. She had planned never to return to earth, but she felt so sorry for her creatures that she said, “Just once. Just this once.” So she slid down to the earth’s surface and asked the creatures what was wrong. Wombat wanted to wiggle along the ground. Kangaroo wanted to fly. Bat wanted wings. Lizard wanted legs. Seal wanted to swim. And the confused Platypus wanted something of every other animal. And so Yhi gave them what they wanted. From the beautiful regular forms of the early creation came the strange creatures that now walk the earth. Yhi then swept herself up to the sky again. She had one other task yet to complete: the creation of woman. She had already embodied thought in male form and set him wandering the earth. But nothing - not the plants, not the insects, not the birds or beasts or fish seemed like him. He was lonely. Yhi went to him one morning as he slept near a grass tree. He slept fitfully, full of strange dreams. As he emerged from his dreaming he saw the flower stalk on the grass tree shining with sunlight. He was drawn to the tree, as were all the earth’s other creatures. Reverent and astonished, they watched as the power of Yhi concentrated itself on the flower stalk. The flower stalk began to move rhythmically - to breathe. Then it changed form, softened, became a woman. Slowly emerging into the light from which she was formed, the first woman gave her hand to the first man.{Dr Anthony E. Smart}.

Yurlungur - The great copper python of the Murngin in northern Australia. Yulungur was roused from his great sleep by the odor of the menstrual blood of one of the women who took refuge in his cave, the Wawalag sisters. The great snake rose and drowned the land, and devoured the two women. However, later at a conference of snakes, Yulungur, accused of eating his kin, admitted that he had, and was told to regurgitate the two women. In the initiation rites, this theme of 'disgorging’ symbolizes the passage from boy to man. He is the center of the fertility cult. Yulungur, called 'Great Father’, is the rainbow serpent, for the water of the well in which he lives shines like the rainbow. His voice is thunder.{Micha F. Lindemans}.

Source: http://www.pantheon.org/areas/mythology/oceania/aboriginal/articles.html