Wuriupranili
The Sun-Woman
One of the astronomical myths from northern Australia describes how the sun-woman, Wuriupranili, and the moon-man,Japara, travel at different times across the sky. Each carries a torch of flaming bark, but when they reach the western horizon they extinguish the flames and use the smouldering ends to light their way as they return eastwards through the darkness of the underground world.
Each morning, the fire lit by the sun-woman to prepare her torch of bark provides the first light of dawn. The clouds of sunrise are reddened by the dust from the powdered ochre which she uses to decorate her body. It is then that the soft, melodious call of Tukumbini, the honeyeater, wakens the aborigines to the duties of another day.
"The First Sunrise - Australian Aborigenal Myths"
At sunset, Wuriupranili reaches the western horizon. But, before she returns by an underground passage to her camp in the east, she again decorates herselfwith red ochre, thus causing the brilliant colours of sunset.
(from "The First Sunrise - Australian Aborigenal Myths"
by Ainslie Roberts and Charles P. Mountford - Rigby Limited, Sydney 1971)
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