Male versus Female or Male in Female and Female in Male? Th e Issue of Sex Relations in Australian Myths

The social structure and gender relations in Aboriginal societies clearly indicate that the male domain is favoured in contact with the sacred. Nevertheless, male-female relations are not as unequivocally established as they are thought to be within Aboriginal mythology. The sex of sacred characters such as the Rainbow Serpent or Cannibal Monster is extremely flexible even within the same version of a myth. The general character of male/female relations tends to be one of exchange, where male sacred power is a derivative of the female power of fertility. The most sacred values, belonging to the sacred-secret realm, are established by the tension between male and female principles, marked by moving those elements that belong to one gender to the domain of the other. This construct also establishes the threat of desacralisation, connected with moving the object back to the domain it came from.

The social structure and gender relations in Aboriginal societies clearly indicate that the male domain is favoured in contact with the sacred. Nevertheless, male-female relations are not as unequivocally established as they are thought to be within Aboriginal mythology. The sex of sacred characters such as the Rainbow Serpent or Cannibal Monster is extremely flexible even within the same version of a myth. The general character of male/female relations tends to be one of exchange, where male sacred power is a derivative of the female power of fertility. The most sacred values, belonging to the sacred-secret realm, are established by the tension between male and female principles, marked by moving those elements that belong to one gender to the domain of the other. This construct also establishes the threat of desacralisation, connected with moving the object back to the domain it came from.