Metamorphosis

Gods and magicians alike have the power of shape-shifting. They change both their own shape and that of mortals whom they encounter without the slightest difficulty.

The kangaroo ancestors of the Pitjentara can transform themselves into kangaroos, another mythical ancestor sets the dogs to chase them, but as they are supernatural the dogs can not catch them. (1) In a Pitjentara kangaroo myth the wind blows a pubic tassel away. The pubic tassel becomes a child who is then taken away to be initiated. Mouse women after having been “made into women” (i.e., cut, deflorated) by a kangaroo man become dogs, and attack the kangaroo man. Most of the mythical ancestors were imagined as having human shape but they could always transform themselves into the animal they represented. (2) An emu man could change himself into an emu when he wanted to do so. (3) A man named Arininga arose at a small water-hole called Anira and separated into two men, one of whom was a Kumara and the other a Purula. (4) At sunset the two became one again and went down into a deep waterhole. At daylight the men again came out and split into two. They stroked their whiskers and euro men came out. (5) A man of the green-snake totem arose living first under the ground. Before leaving he transformed himself into a water-snake. (6)

In a Marind anim (New Guinea) myth the uninitiated mythical beings become flying dogs and fly overseas. Then the flying dogs transform themselves into a palm tree. (7)

In a Kiwai story a mythical woman is trying to escape from the hero Sido and in doing so she changes the shape of her feet into those of a bird so as to leave a bird's footprints. Then she assumes the claws of a crab, then the feet of a kangaroo, then of a cassowary and finally she has the feet of a pig. There was a big tree in the bush. When she approached the tree it shrunk to quite a small size. She was tired and sat on the small bush to rest and as she did so the tree inserted a twig into her vulva. At the same ti