1.4 Understanding Death

Death marks the end of a life, but an awareness of death shapes much of the living of our lives. And so humans everywhere have sought to understand death, with an eye perhaps to avoiding or delaying it. In the Australian Dreamtime, the immortal ancestor Purukapali was responsible for the introduction of death into the world. The story that follows is one version of this event.

How Death Came: The Purukapali Myth

(oral tradition recorded in twentieth century)

In the pleasant land of the Tiwi people, Purukapali lived with his wife, Bima, and their infant son, Djinini. This was in the earliest days when spirits became men and death had not yet come to the earth. In their camp also lived Purukapali’s younger brother, Tjapara, strong and handsome. Many times the brothers stalked wallaby together, but most often it was Purukapali who carried game into the camp and received the women’s praise.

Tjapara had no wife and he hungered for Bima. One morning after the brothers had returned from the hunt, Bima rose and placed the sleeping Djinini beside her husband, who was skinning a slain wallaby.

“I go find yams,” she said. “Guard the child. He will sleep now and will have my milk when I return.”

She picked up a net bag and walked off into the bush. Tjapara watched her swinging hips and said, “I saw shellfish at the shore. I will go gather them,” and he strode off toward the beach, leaving Purukapali with the sleeping child.

As soon as he was well out of sight, Tjapara quickly circled back through the bush and came upon Bima as she bent over her digging stick. Softly he crept upon her and clasped her from behind.

“Lie with me,” he urged.

Only a moment did the wife of Purukapali resist. Then the long hours slipped quickly by. In the camp the child cried for his mother’s milk. Still the couple tarried. From the camp came the faint voice of Purukapali calling his wife. Bima started to rise, but Tjapara was still eager. “Soon,” he said and pulled her toward him.

Now the Sun Woman carried her torch to the horizon and the shadows grew long. Again the voice of Purukapali sounded, angry and stricken. Bima rose to answer, but Tjapara placed his hand over her mouth.

“We must go bathe, or Purukapali will know we have lain together,” he said.

The two went to a hidden cove and entered the water. They played together in the coolness and ate some crabs they found near the shore. This was Tjapara’s favorite food. But Purukapali’s angry voice again reached their hearing. The frightened Bima took her net bag and hurried to camp. She found Djinini on the grass, cold and still. Death had come to him in the early darkness. Bima lifted the child and pressed him to her breast.

Now Purukapali turned on his wife. “He was hungry. He cried for you and you did not come. Now he is gone from us and will not return,” said the father, and he wrested the dead infant from Bima’s arms.

Bima began to moan and beat her breast. “I am a bad woman, for I let my son die,” she cried.

Hearing this, great anger came to Purukapali. Still holding his dead son, he turned on Bima and began to beat her with his freed hand. As she bent before his blows, Tjapara stepped from the bush and thrust himself between the couple.

“Give the child to me, brother, and I will bring him back to life in three days,” he said.

But Bima lashed out at Tjapara in despair. “You killed him!” she accused, “for you would not let me go.”

Now did Purukapali understand. Still holding fast to the child, he picked up a forked fighting stick and attacked. “You, too, shall die!” he screamed at his brother.

Tjapara refused to run and begged again for the child. But Purukapali threw the stick in response and struck his brother in the eye. “You will die as the baby died,” he shouted. In his excitement, Purukapali dropped the lifeless body of Djinini.

Half blinded, Tjapara fought back. Soon the two men were locked in combat. Blood gushed from Tjapara’s gouged eye and from the gashes on his face. He began to weaken.

Now Bima picked up Djinini and held him out to her husband. “Take the child you loved so dearly,” she pleaded. “Do not kill your brother.”

Her plea went unheard as Purukapali again hurled his killing stick. Tjapara fled to a tall tree and frantically began to climb. When he reached the top limb, he let out a great shout and leaped into the sky, rising higher and higher until he reached the moon.

Purukapali returned to camp and took Djinini’s body in his arms. “I shall die with my son,” he announced to the Tiwi people. “And all who now live also shall die.”

Then he danced the first ceremony of death and sang of the events that led to it. “This shall be your pukamani ceremony,” he decreed, “and you shall dance it to remember those who die.” Purukapali wrapped his son in paperbark, walked backward into the sea, and disappeared. As he sank beneath the surface, a whirlpool formed which marks the spot to this day.

Bima lived on, but grief soon made her haggard and old. She too wandered about the camp, complaining in a shrill voice until she, too, died. Her spirit lived on as the curlew bird, which still flits and cries mournfully about the beaches.

Tjapara became the Moon Man. He can be seen in the night sky, his face marked by the bruises and wounds that Purukapali inflicted. He still feels Purukapali at his heels, for he never ceases his restless journey. Hungry from his travels, he gorges on crabmeat, growing rounder and fatter each day until he has feasted so much he falls sick. His wasting body is the waning moon. Each month he dies, but after three days he comes back to life and begins his journey once again. His loneliness is over, for he has found many wives, the planets, who accompany him on his journey across the sky.

So death comes to the people of earth, the Tiwi say, but always life returns.

Source: Louis A. Allen, Time Before Morning (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1975), 215–19.