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Rainbow Snake legend

Rainbow Snake shaping rivers and valleys in an Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime scene.

The Rainbow Snake

by
November 5, 2025
In the time before time, when the world lay flat and dry beneath a silent sky, the earth had no rivers, no valleys, and no song of water. The land cracked beneath the sun’s heat, and the first people wandered in search of cool shade and food. Beneath that quiet surface, however, something vast and powerful stirred. Deep within the
Sepia parchment illustration of the Rainbow Snake emerging from cracked earth, her rainbow scales glowing against the dry land.
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The Rainbow Snake

In the time before water flowed across the land, the earth lay parched and broken beneath an unforgiving sun. The East Sepik region of Papua New Guinea, which today bursts with green abundance and rushing streams, was then a place of endless thirst. The ground cracked open like old pottery,

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