Kandimalal, Wolfe Creek
Rainbow Serpents, a falling star and a crater in the desert.
Key facts
- People and tradition
- Jaru people and neighbouring communities, Kimberley, Western Australia
- Region
- Australia
- When
- Recorded in the 20th century
Stories of Kandimalal belong to the Jaru people and their neighbours. This page describes only what has been publicly shared.
The story
The Jaru people call Wolfe Creek Crater Kandimalal. Stories recorded from Jaru and neighbouring Walmajarri, Kukatja and Ngarti people describe it in several ways. In one, two Rainbow Serpents made the winding creeks of the area, and the crater is where one of them came up out of the ground. Another links the name with digging for yams.
An elder told of a bright star that passed close to the Moon and fell, with a great explosion, making the crater; he said it had happened in his great-grandfather's time.
What science says
Scientists date the crater to about 120,000 years old, long before people are thought to have reached this part of Australia. So the falling-star story is unlikely to be a direct memory of the impact. It may instead show how communities brought together their own knowledge with what they learned from scientists who visited the crater from the 1940s onwards. Researchers who have worked with Jaru elders stress that the Rainbow Serpent stories are older and belong first to the community.
Did you know?
The crater is protected within a national park, and its full name is now Kandimalal (Wolfe Creek Crater).
Wolfe Creek is about 880 m across, one of the best preserved meteorite craters on Earth.