Rainbow Serpent (Yurlungur)

Origin and tradition

Rainbow Serpent is an English umbrella name for distinct ancestral beings in several Aboriginal Australian traditions. Community names, narratives, and responsibilities to places differ. It should not be presented as one universal Australian myth or a dated specimen; access to sacred knowledge is determined by its custodians.

Illustration in this atlas

An immense snake beside a waterhole, with subtly iridescent scales. This is a broad symbolic landscape illustration; Rainbow Serpent traditions differ among Aboriginal communities, and the plate does not reproduce a particular community's sacred design.

References and further reading

1. britannica.com — Rainbow-Snake
2. australian.museum — Rainbow Serpent (Yurlungur)
3. australian.museum — Rainbow Serpent (Yurlungur)
4. kakadu.gov.au — Rainbow Serpent (Yurlungur)

These references offer further reading. Accounts and depictions vary; the atlas illustration is interpretive artwork, rather than historical or scientific evidence.