lien | State Library of Queensland “Word of the Week” Week Fifteen.

As part of State Library’s commitment to the 2019 International Year of Indigenous Languages, we will be promoting a ‘word of the week’ from one of the 125+ Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages and dialects from across Queensland.
Week 15’s word is thuwathu [pronounced thoo-wah-thoo], from the Lardil language of Mornington Island in the Gulf of Carpentaria – it means ‘Rainbow Serpent’ a creation ancestor found in many language groups across Australia. Dick Roughsey published “The Rainbow Serpent” story in 1975 using Goorialla as another name that refers to the Rainbow Serpent.