The Story of the Rainbow Serpent
As told by Connie Rovina KUKUThaypan / Widi / Birriah
Connie Rovina is the artist behind the 2025 Canvas of Cairns installation, The Story of the Rainbow Serpent.
It began with the sound like a huge thunderstorm clap, and a blinding flash of Lightning that lit up the whole Earth creating the beginning of sunlight. This was the very first time the lands began shaking. The Rainbow Serpent was waking up from a very deep sleep, deep down below, within the great underground waters of the dry inland, and desert country. He begins his journey around our country travelling underground.
As he moved, he created ripples in the land above, pushing up hills and mountains, dividing land, creating an edge to our country. Creating beaches and seas. Sometimes the water from underground was able to stretch to the sea in underground caverns. Sometimes he broke through the surface of the ground, coming up through the wet and weak spots of earth, creating the natural water springs and sacred waterholes where spring-water fountains would open upwards to kiss the sunlight.
As he rose, sometimes he pushed through the earth until his body was visible. As he slithered along, his huge body created the gullies which grew bigger and bigger as he moved, until they turned into rivers that met with the sea.
As his body moved through these great rivers, the water from the springs flowed after him. He created the tides when he pushed through into the sea, and the spring water created the waves, as it hit the sea surface. It bubbled and frothed and danced in the sunlight. Since that day the water has ebbed and flowed all over the Earth.
When the shaking of the Earth settled down, the very first spirit beings were created from the knowledge of the Universe, and they lived in these beautiful places for a very long time. They are still the protectors of these beautiful places. They also sought guidance from the Sky Spirits, because the Sky Spirits could see the land from high above, and guide the Earth Spirit beings on how to travel along the Songlines. The Sky Spirits lit the travel pathways over country and seas, by their beautiful lights, pointing them in the right directions. We know them as the stars, and their stories are forever remembered in the constellations.
Eventually all kinds of spirit beings formed, and there are many stories of how they formed and where they are to be found. They began their lives as animals and plants. There were birds, sea creatures and sea plants, insects, mammals, and land plants, and eventually people.
When the people formed, they were entrusted to look after the land and the Earth, and they could communicate with all beings. These people are the Indigenous peoples. Even today, individuals are given special animals, land features, waterways, parts of the seas, and spirit to look after, throughout their lives. They are entrusted with knowledge to continue to tell the story to all the new people that are born into the following generations.
Some of these people are still the Guardians of special places, and the Rainbow Serpent has particular connection to these people. The secrets of the land have been passed onto them. They know the stories of old times. The Rainbow Serpent told the people how they must respect places, and to ask permission to travel across the land, or waters with messages, which had to be given before passing.
We know that these messages came via many forms. Sometimes timber message sticks or bullroarers, or rock, sometimes bone or feather, sometimes art and stories, or dance and didgeridoo, and music, and ceremony. Sometimes sand thrown, or smoke blown over country. Sometimes storms and rain, sometimes mist and wind and snow. The Message on the Wind. Sometimes animals or birds carried the message too. Sometimes it was Spirit, the Travellers Over Country.
There are stories of meetings of animals between land and sea. Of how different animals connect and transform to suit their new environments such as the fishes, and turtles and serpents as they travel through freshwater springs that meet the sea, or how land bound birds transform into soaring sea birds to deliver sacred messages across vast expanses.
Today, Indigenous people still continue to tell of these kept traditions. The Rainbow Serpent has long gone underground again, but we still feel his power and his spirit, and that is why we need to continue to respect Spirit, the land and the seas.
Written and adapted by Connie Rovina, 11 June 2025.
Four Rivers Fishing Place, Connie Rovina, 2024, acrylic on canvas
