Bunjil

Bunjil is the wedge-tailed eagle creator ancestor of the Kulin nation peoples, whose traditional country covers much of what is now central and western Victoria, credited in the publicly documented portion of Dreaming tradition with shaping the land, creating the people, and establishing the moral and social law that governs Kulin society, before eventually ascending into the sky, where he is associated by some accounts with a bright star.

One of the best known and most publicly accessible sites connected to Bunjil is Bunjil's Shelter, a rock art site in the Black Range near Stawell in the Grampians, Gariwerd, region of Victoria, featuring a painted figure of Bunjil accompanied by two dingoes, a site that has been actively protected and is presented to the public with the involvement and consent of the traditional owner communities who maintain the tradition connected to it. Bunjil's significance extends across multiple distinct Kulin nations, including Wurundjeri, Boonwurrung and other groups, each holding related but not identical tradition concerning him.

Bunjil remains an actively significant figure in contemporary Kulin nation cultural and political life rather than surviving only as historical or ethnographic record, most visibly reflected in the naming of Melbourne's Bunjil Place cultural centre and other public institutions and landmarks across Victoria that draw on his name and significance with the involvement of Kulin nation communities and traditional owner organisations.

Protection of Bunjil's Shelter and the wider Gariwerd landscape connected to Bunjil and other significant ancestral beings has also been a live focus of joint management arrangements between Parks Victoria and traditional owner groups, reflecting a broader and ongoing pattern in which Aboriginal Australian sacred sites are managed today through active partnership between government bodies and the communities whose Law and connection to country the sites express, rather than treated purely as archaeological heritage disconnected from any living tradition. As with Baiame, this entry presents Bunjil at the level of information the relevant communities have made publicly available, rather than summarising restricted ceremonial content.