The Eaglehawk and Crow

Moiety Ancestors

Many Aboriginal communities are divided into two halves or 'moieties', which are often named after a Dreaming ancestral spirit who is considered the primordial ancestor of the groups or clans in the moiety. Each has its own Dreaming ancestry. Sometimes the moiety ancestor is considered the father and the clan ancestors his sons. This is told in the story of the Eaglehawk and Crow .

These two birds symbolize the opposites, the Ying and Yang into which the universe is divided. Thus Eagle, in South Australia, or Eaglehawk, in eastern Australia, represents Day or Light and Crow represents Night or Shade, as in the Ying and Yang circle, although as in Ying and Yang, the two halves are complementary, for example marriage must take place across the moiety line and certain ceremonies cannot be performed unless both moieties are represented.

This creation story explains the origin of the 'halves'. Once in the Dreamtime a mosquito was buzzing around the bush and as he buzzed he eventually transformed into a blowfly, then into a small bird and at last into Crow. Crow found himself alone and wanted a wife. At that time there were other ancestral beings which lived int he trees. He collected a lot of grass, heaped it up and set fire to it. The dense smoke rose into the tree-tops. He quickly sharpened the thigh bone of a kangaroo and stuck it in the ground with the sharp point upwards. He sang one of the tree beings to him singing that he would catch it and break its fall. One of them jumped and was impaled on the sharp bone. When he tugged it free, he found that it had a deep bleeding wound. He then carried the creature to the grass fire and purified it by smoking it. The wound stopped bleeding and he saw that the creature was a female Eaglehawk. He took it to his camp and eventually they became the first Crow man and Eaglehawk woman, the primordial ancestors of the Koori moieties. From them came the marriage rule of cross-moiety marriage.