In Dreamtime narratives Adnoartina, a gecko-like ancestral being, battled Marindi (a dog). In one retelling Adnoartina seized the dog by the throat and hung on until red blood spurted out; that blood stained rock and became the red ochre (yamparnu) associated with Uluru and other local ochre sources. Variant accounts localize the event to other ochre places (Pukardu Hill, Mecca Creek), and neighboring traditions tell similar origin stories with different ancestral beings.
Adnoartina is portrayed as a gecko or gecko-like lizard. Gender attribution varies across accounts — commonly described as female but sometimes male or non-gendered. In Aiston and Horne’s 1924 retelling the lizard is small enough to run low beneath a dog’s teeth and uses its tail in defense.
As an ancestral creator-agent, Adnoartina’s principal power is transformative: its conflict with another ancestral animal produces a materially sacred outcome (the red ochre). The being functions as a landscape-maker and guardian spirit whose actions institute ritual substances and social practices tied to those places.
Akenta
Akenta is attested in the provided sources only as a proper name appearing in several unrelated contexts (a listing of South Australian groups, commercial wine branding, a health company, and a parliamentary text). The sources do not describe Akenta as a supernatural being, and no mythic attributes, appearance, powers, or rituals are recorded.
Arkaroo
Arkaroo is a primordial ancestral serpent of the Dreaming associated with the northern Flinders Ranges (Ikara/Wilpena Pound) in South Australia. In local creation narratives it drank the waters of Lake Frome, carved valleys by reclining in the mountains, and left waterholes where it rested; the being is commemorated in place-names and rock art at sites such as Arkaroo Rock.
Baiame
Baiame is a principal creator/ancestral Sky Father in the Dreaming traditions of several south‑eastern Australian Aboriginal peoples. He is credited with shaping landscape, instituting law and ceremony (notably the first bora initiation), and returning to the sky while remaining present in sacred sites and rock art.
Barraiya
Barraiya is named in a single recorded account as a god in Australian Aboriginal mythology who fashioned the first vagina with a spear so that the being Eingana could give birth. The attestation presents Barraiya in a creator role connected to the origin of human birth.
Bunyip
A class of Aboriginal Australian water-being from southeastern Australia associated with swamps, billabongs, creeks, riverbeds and waterholes. Bunyip stories warn people away from dangerous waters and in some traditions enforce resource-use norms and child safety.
Buttons (pantomime)
Buttons is a stock theatrical character in British and Australian Cinderella pantomimes, typically a male household servant who helps Cinderella, expresses affection for her, and provides comic and emotional engagement with the audience. The role is conventional to stage pantomime practice rather than a supernatural being.
Cleone
Cleone is attested in the provided sources primarily as a feminine given name, a literary character/title (notably Robert Dodsley's 1758 tragedy), a subject of poetry (Henry Kendall), and a California place name. The supplied materials do not provide evidence of Cleone functioning as a folkloric supernatural being; a Wikipedia disambiguation line mentions a mythological Naiad named Cleone but no supporting primary or descriptive sources are present in the provided set.
Daramulum
Daramulum is a southeastern Australian Aboriginal sky-hero and ancestral figure associated with the major creator Baiame and with an emu-wife. He is embedded in rock‑art, sky knowledge (constellation identification), and initiation ritual practice, notably as a presence voiced through the bullroarer.
Gwion Gwion
A regional tradition/style of painted anthropomorphic rock art from the north‑west Kimberley region of Western Australia, characterized by finely rendered human figures with ornamentation. The tradition (also known by local names such as Kiro Kiro/Giro Giro) is archaeologically significant and the subject of debate over age and authorship.
Mimi (Mimi spirits)
Mimi are noted in the supplied source material only as a 'fairy-like' being appearing in a single-line entry for Northern Australian Aboriginal folklore. No further descriptive or functional information about Mimi is present in the provided dataset.
Mimi spirits
Mimi (Mimih) are extremely thin, elongated ancestral spirit-beings of Arnhem Land whose presence is embedded in regional rock‑art and Dreaming traditions. They are associated with rock crevices and rock‑shelters and are treated in some sources as spirit-figures tied to ancestral custodianship of painted sites.
Muldjewangk
A water-creature of Ngarrindjeri tradition associated with the Murray River and Lake Alexandrina. Described variously as merfolk-like or a gargantuan monster, Muldjewangk figures appear in stories that warn of river dangers, wreck fishing gear, and in at least one account attack a steamboat.
Community Record
- [1]Adnoartina — Wikipedia. Wikipedia contributors. "Adnoartina." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.wiki
- [2]Wikidata: Adnoartina. Wikidata entry Q4683950 for Adnoartina.wiki
- [3]Aiston and Horne (1924) retelling (quoted in sources). Aiston and Horne (1924) retelling quoted in the Wikipedia article on Adnoartina.folk