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Rainbow Snake legend

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

The Rainbow Snake

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.

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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Tiddalik the Thirsty Frog

In the Dreamtime, when animals still spoke the first language, the land woke to find no water anywhere. Rivers were empty, the
1 A sepia parchment-style illustration of the Fijian chief’s daughter fleeing barefoot through a mist-covered cloud forest on Taveuni Island, her torn wedding garments trailing behind her as she escapes an arranged marriage, symbolizing the sorrow that would give rise to the sacred Tagimoucia flower.

The Tagimoucia Flower

High on the mist-shrouded slopes of Taveuni, Fiji’s Garden Island, where cloud forests cling to volcanic peaks and crystalline lakes reflect the
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