Goojook Dreaming

Goojook Dreaming our painting TCP-688 by Colin (Chris) Liddy 45x 95 in.

   This is the story of two brothers. They were of the Goojook skin group.

The little brother was in the shape of a water goanna, and the big brother was in the shape of a file snake.

  One day, the brothers went hunting to a place known only to the big brother, called Munna Muniya. The place 

was full of good food to eat. They first went fishing and caught some barramundi, tailed catfish and also collected water lilies.

  They watched the shags (cormorants) diving and catching the eel-tailed catfish. The little brother was hungry, so the big brother told him to cook the food a long way from the water. The little brother ignored him and cooked his barramundi close to the water.

   The mermaid spirits could smell the barramundi cooking, and went and told the pig-nosed turtles about the brothers cooking their food. When the pig-nosed turtles moved, they woke the Rainbow snakes up, who were sleeping underneath the water in the bottom. The female rainbow snake whent towards the little brother, (water goanna) and the male rainbow snake went 

to the big brother. (file Snake).

   The big brother was standing on a log with a hook spear ready, to spear more fish. The ground started shaking like an 

earthquake. The big brother blamed the little brother for doing wrong, by cooking the food too close to the water. The rainbow

snake (male) reared up out of the water and swallowed them both.

   Not far away, six Mimi spirits were sleeping, and were woken up by the ground shaking. Three went down to the billabong to

investigate, and found the shags still diving for fish. They also found the brothers spears, woomeras, stone axes, and digging sticks. They went back and told the other three mimi spirits what they saw, so they all decided to go back to the billa bong, and

then took the food left behind by the Goojook brothers.