Bagadjimbiri and the Making of Men: Karajarri Dingo‑Twins, Circumcision, and the Charter of Ritual

TL;DR

• The Karajarri (Karadjeri) myth of the dingo-twin culture heroes Bagadjimbiri functions as a charter for men’s initiation and circumcision, tying social law to cosmogony (Piddington 1932; 1950). ^{1 2}
• Core episodes: emergence as dingoes, naming/ordering of beings, creation of sex organs from fungi, institution of ritual instruments (stone knife, bullroarer, pirmal), death by Ngariman, resurrection by the mother Dilga’s milk, and astral translation to the Magellanic Clouds (Piddington 1950; Eliade 1960/1967). ^{2 3}
• Material correlates survive in rock art and ritual objects along the West Kimberley coast; modern catalogues note engravings interpreted as Bagadjimbiri scenes (AIATSIS, Day A03). ⁴
• Comparative notes (Róheim; Eliade) situate Bagadjimbiri within a wider “two brothers/sky translation” motif (e.g., Magellanic Clouds), but the Karajarri version distinctly grounds circumcision as myth-founded pedagogy. ^{5 3}
• Read against the Eve Theory of Consciousness (EToC), the myth’s sequence (naming → sexual differentiation → ritual death/rebirth → “ensoulment” as stars) exemplifies culture-first scaffolding of metacognition and the socialization of sex via initiatory ordeal. EToC v3

“Before the time of two brothers called Bagadjimbiri, nothing existed—no trees, no water, no people, no animals.” — Ralph Piddington, An Introduction to Social Anthropology (1950) ²

Karajarri context, sources, and what the myth claims#

The Karajarri (spelled Karadjeri in early literature) of the West Kimberley anchor their ritual life in bugari “Dreaming,” a term Piddington glossed as a binding sanction on present institutions because “all things which are bugari were instituted by mythical beings in bugari times.”⁶ His detailed Karajarri chapter (based on 1930s fieldwork) preserves the canonical outline of the Bagadjimbiri cycle. ²

In Piddington’s précis: the twins “arose from the ground… two dingos,” later “became gigantic men,” instituted kinship and water sources by driving ritual poles (pirmal) into the earth, “found a white pordi (elongated toadstool) and a panora (bulb-shaped fungus)” and shaped genitals for the formerly androgynous first people, introduced the “stone circumcision knife, bull-roarer and the large pirmal,” were slain by Ngariman (a native-cat/quoll man), resurrected by their mother Dilga when “milk came out of her breasts and flowed underground,” and finally translated: “their spirits… the Magellan Clouds,” their bodies “water-snakes."[Piddington-1950] ²

Eliade, summarizing Karajarri initiation on the basis of Piddington’s Oceania papers, underscores the ritual charter function: the sacred instruments (stone knife, bullroarer, pirmal) first used by Bagadjimbiri are reactualized in initiation; the myth culminates in resurrection and sky-placement as the Magellanic Clouds. ³

Primary attestations and variants. The twin-cycle is attested in: Piddington’s Oceania articles (1930, 1932–33), his 1950 textbook summary; archival text cycles collected by Gerhardt Laves (1929–31); later comparative notices (Róheim; Akerman; astronomy overviews). Where accessible, I quote short phrases; the full Oceania texts are paywalled but citable. ^{7 1 8 5}

A. Narrative skeleton (with minimal quotations)#

• Cosmogonic emergence & naming. “Before… Bagadjimbiri, [there was] nothing at all,” then acts of naming bring beings into existence; even posture in urination is proto‑typical (“they imitated the primordial gesture”). Piddington/Eliade agree on the structure. ^{2 3}

• Instituting water, kinship, and implements. Springs are opened by planting pirmal poles; kin terms and clan divisions are regularized; a hitting stick is lost and mirrored in the Pointers of Crux. ²

• Sexual differentiation from fungi. The twins “cut the panora… in the shape of a vulva” and “the pordi in the shape of a penis,” effecting the first sexed bodies. (Piddington’s lexical glosses are Karajarri.) ²

• Invention of circumcision & sacred instruments. “Stone circumcision knife, bull-roarer and the large pirmal” are first used by the twins and then by men in ritual.^{9 2 3}

• Death, milk‑resurrection, sky‑translation. Slain by Ngariman for mocking his buttocks, the twins are revived when Dilga’s milk floods the grave; their “spirits” become the Magellanic Clouds. ^{2 3 5}

B. Myth ↔ ritual correspondences (Karajarri “southern tradition”)#

Table 1 — Chartering correspondences

Table 2 — Initiation sequence and mythic templates (per Piddington; Eliade)

C. Provenance, attestation, and material traces#

Table 3 — Provenance & influence

Close reading of Piddington (with short primary quotations)#

Piddington’s Karajarri synthesis preserves native terms and fine‑grained details. On bugari: it denotes a sanctioning force—“that which has a binding force upon the society.”⁶ On emergence: “When they first arose from the ground, the Bagadjimbiri were two dingos,” later “gigantic men, reaching up to the sky,” whose “spirits became the Magellan Clouds.” On sexual differentiation: the brothers cut panora “in the shape of a vulva” and pordi “in the shape of a penis.” On instruments: the twins first used the “stone circumcision knife, bull‑roarer and the large pirmal.” On resurrection: “Milk came out of [Dilga’s] breasts and flowed underground… bringing the two heroes back to life.” All from the same narrative block. ²

Eliade’s rendering emphasizes initiatory phenomenology (mourning the novice as dead; nocturnal removal; thick symbolism of blood and forest), reading Karajarri rites as a cyclical reactualization of twin‑hero deeds and sufferings. His chapter remains a precise secondary guide to structure and sequence, explicitly citing Piddington’s 1932 Oceania article. ³

Astral identifications. Multiple sources connect the twins with the Magellanic Clouds—a regional pattern of sky‑translation of mythic figures (with unrelated but parallel cases among neighboring groups). The Cambridge review cites Róheim’s summary for Karajarri: from dingoes to “gigantic men… bodies became bulai (water snakes) while their spirits became the Magellan [Clouds].” ⁵; also see Sydney UP’s Noctuary tables. ¹⁰

Material correlates. AIATSIS catalogues (Day A03) describe engravings plausibly linked to Bagadjimbiri figures and implements (e.g., boomerangs), with curatorial notes that explicitly gloss the twins as Karajarri creation spirits who “instituted the ritual of circumcision.” These are modern records of much older art; they corroborate myth‑ritual embedding in landscape. ⁴

D. Comparison table: episodes, motifs, and cross-references#

Analysis: how the myth functions#

1. Cosmogony as pedagogy. The myth does not merely explain the world; it prescribes how to be human—down to bodily postures and cooking methods—by precedent (“they imitated the primordial gesture”). This is the Karajarri articulation of law‑as‑myth, not abstract norms. ^{3 2}

2. Sexual differentiation as cultural act. The creation of genitals from fungi stages sex as instituted rather than given. Circumcision then socializes male sexuality through ordeal, aligning bodies with chartered forms. ^{2 1}

3. Ritual death and maternal rebirth. The novice’s symbolic death is keyed to the twins’ actual death, with Dilga’s milk as a life‑restoring substrate—an inversion of menstrual/blood imaginaries elsewhere. The mother’s agency is decisive within a men’s cult charter. ^{3 2}

4. Astral anchoring. The translation to the Magellanic Clouds cosmologizes the law, making seasonal and nocturnal cycles mnemonic devices for initiation knowledge. ^{5 10}

Alignment with the Eve Theory of Consciousness (EToC)#

EToC posits that culture-first innovations—especially those encoding self/other boundaries, sexual differentiation, and ritualized death-rebirth—seeded recursive metacognition and the “experience of a self.” The Bagadjimbiri cycle maps cleanly onto that trajectory:

• Naming as ontogenesis → Logos: The twins’ naming brings beings into existence, a performative “word-makes-world” that EToC treats as foundational to inner speech and recursive thought (cf. your EToC v3).
• Sexual differentiation → social selfing: Genitals fashioned from fungi frame sex distinction as instituted form, then circumcision inscribes social identity onto the male body—ritualizing entry into the symbolic order (EToC’s “memetic scaffolding” of the self).
• Death/rebirth → metanoia: Initiation rehearses annihilation and return; Dilga’s milk is a life-principle that restores/renames the twins. EToC’s emphasis on ritual death as a cognitive reset aligns with Karajarri practice.
• Bullroarer & pirmal → externalized cognition: Sounding the “voice” of the mythic past and revealing the buried pole instantiate memory as tool-mediated—EToC’s point about material culture embedding consciousness loops.
• Sky translation → temporal indexing: Fixing the twins as the Magellanic Clouds encodes mythic law into the night sky—an external, periodic metronome for recall and teaching (EToC’s cultural timebase).

Net: the Karajarri narrative is a textbook instance of ritual origins “anchored in mythic visitors,” but its deeper logic is institutive: culture teaches bodies to remember mind. (For the full theoretical scaffold, see EToC v3.)

FAQ#

Q1. Are “Karajarri” and “Karadjeri” the same people?
A. Yes. “Karadjeri” is an older ethnographic spelling used by Piddington; “Karajarri” is common today (AIATSIS A64). ¹¹

Q2. Is Dilga’s milk flood unique?
A. The maternal‑milk resurrection is a distinctive Karajarri motif; while water‑serpent and sky‑translation themes are widespread, the milk flood is specifically linked to Bagadjimbiri. ^{2 7}

Q3. Where is circumcision explicitly tied to the myth?
A. In Piddington’s Karajarri chapter: the twins first used the “stone circumcision knife” and established the initiation complex; see also his Oceania paper on initiation. ^{2 1}

Q4. Are there rock‑art depictions of the twins?
A. AIATSIS records interpret several engravings as Bagadjimbiri scenes (boomerangs, etc.), providing material correlates to the narrative. ⁴

Footnotes#

Sources#

Be source-heavy; prefer primary/archival where possible.

1. Piddington, Ralph. “The Water-Serpent in Karadjeri Mythology.” Oceania 1(3) (1930): 352–354. ⁷
2. Piddington, Ralph. “Karadjeri Initiation.” Oceania 3(1) (1932–33): 46–87. ¹
3. Piddington, Ralph. An Introduction to Social Anthropology, Vol. I. London: Oliver & Boyd, 1950. Open-access text of Karajarri chapter: ²
4. Eliade, Mircea. “Mystery and Spiritual Regeneration in Extra-European Religions.” In Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks: Man and Transformation (tr. 1960; reprint), ch. 2. DOI landing and preview: ³
5. Laves, Gerhardt. Papers of Gerhardt Laves (AIATSIS MS 2189), Series 3 (Western Australia): “Bagadjimbiri… cycles.” Finding aid: ⁸
6. AIATSIS. “Day A03 DF” (rock engraving notes with Bagadjimbiri glosses). ⁴
7. Hamacher, Duane et al. “Review of Aboriginal Astronomy and Navigation: A Western Australian Focus.” Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia 38 (2021): e036. ⁵
8. Johnson, David. Night Skies of Aboriginal Australia: A Noctuary. Sydney University Press, 2011. Open access PDF: ¹⁰
9. AIATSIS AustLang. “Karajarri (A64).” ¹¹
10. Cutler, Andrew. “Eve Theory of Consciousness (v3).” Vectors of Mind (2025). EToC v3