Across a large portion of Aboriginal Australia, though not universally and with substantial regional variation, an ancestral being commonly rendered in English as the Rainbow Serpent is associated with water sources, including rivers, waterholes, and the rain itself, and with the shaping of the physical landscape during the Dreaming as this being moved across the land, its passage in some regional accounts forming the winding courses of rivers still visible today. The being is known under many different names specific to different language groups and regions rather than a single pan-Australian name, and its character, gender, and precise role differ considerably from community to community, ranging from a primarily creative and life-giving figure to one associated also with danger and the need for careful ritual respect around the sites connected to it.
Because responsibility for specific Rainbow Serpent narratives, and for the ceremonial knowledge bound up with particular sites associated with the being, rests with the custodians of the specific Country and language group concerned, this entry describes the widely documented general shape of the figure across the published ethnographic literature rather than any one community's particular story or sacred site.
Sources The World of the First AustraliansRonald M. Berndt and Catherine H. Berndt with Nourishing Terrains: Australian Aboriginal Views of Landscape and WildernessDeborah Bird Rose