Bila (also occasionally rendered Belah) is the personification of the Sun among the Adnyamathanha people. She is a solar goddess, as befitting the general trends among Australian aboriginal peoples, which largely perceive the Sun as female.
Bila is said to be a cannibal, roasting her victims over a fire, the origin of sunlight. To do this, she sent black and red dogs to drag her victims, resulting even in an entire village being slaughtered. In a myth, the Lizard Men Kudnu ("Goanna") and Muda ("gecko") were appalled by these acts and attacked, prompting her to flee and cast the world in darkness. He then used a boomerang, catching her and making her move in a slow arc across the sky as it returned, it illuminating the world. For this act of heroism, lizards like goannas and geckos are respected by the Adnyamathanha.
A similar, albeit likely unrelated myth, occurs in Woodlark Island.
See also
References
- "Belah Sun Woman: III - Kundu Lizard Man".
- "Belah Sun Woman".
- Jennifer Isaacs (2005). Australian Dreaming: 40,000 Years of Aboriginal History. New South Wales: New Holland. p. 142. ISBN 1-74110-258-8.
- Pianka, Eric R.; Vitt, Laurie J. (2003). Lizards: Windows to the Evolution of Diversity. ISBN 9780520248472.
- Pianka, Eric R.; Vitt, Laurie J. (2003). Lizards: Windows to the Evolution of Diversity. ISBN 9780520248472.
- Pianka, Eric R.; Vitt, Laurie J. (2003). Lizards: Windows to the Evolution of Diversity. ISBN 9780520248472.
- Patricia Montley, In Nature's Honor: Myths and Rituals Celebrating the Earth, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, 2005
- Patricia Monaghan, Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines, New World Library, 01/04/2014
- "Oceanic Mythology: Part II. Melanesia: Chapter I. Myths of Origins and the Deluge".
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