Karatgurk
In Australian Aboriginal mythology of Victoria, the Karatgurk were seven sisters who represented the Pleiades constellation. According to a legend of the Wurundjeri people, the Karatgurk alone possessed the secret of fire, carrying live coals on their digging sticks to cook yams. They refused to share their coals, but were tricked by Crow into giving up their secret, after which they were swept into the sky and their fire sticks became the Pleiades.
↻ synthesized from 3 sources
When
- First attested
- 0 CE
- Attested period
- 0 – 2020
- Historical notes
- Oral storytelling tradition.
Relationships
- co occurs with
- Moinee, Droemerdene, Rageowrapper, Binbeal, Kondole, Lo-an-tuka, Loo-errn, Thinan-malkia, Tiddalik, Waang, Wambeen, Djurt-djurt, Thara, Kurok-goru, Balayang, Bunyip, Bunjil, Gnowee, Nargun, Baiame, Daramulum
- enemy of
- Crow
- manifests as
- Pleiades
Mentioned by
Sources
Source passages
“In the Australian Aboriginal mythology of the Aboriginal people of south-eastern Australian state of Victoria, the Karatgurk were seven sisters who represented the constellation known in western astronomy as the Pleiades.”
#31288 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001
“Karatgurk, seven sisters who represent the Pleiades star cluster”
#31363 · extracted by deepseek/deepseek-chat
“According to oral storytelling by the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation, in the Dreamtime fire had been a jealously-guarded secret of the seven Karatgurk women who lived by the Yarra River where Melbourne now stands. These women carried live coals on the ends of their digging sticks”
#31523 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001