ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a rapprochement between the two figures – serpent and spirit – and between the three-ologies in order to produce a dialogic anthropo/eco/theo/logy, or even better sacrality, between spirituality and materiality that cares for earth. The Rainbow Serpent is problematic for the way in which it imposes a unitary, homogeneous and anthropological ur-myth on culturally diverse and geographically dispersed Aboriginal cultures. The Rainbow Spirit is also problematic for white-washing the negative, pejorative connotation of the biblical serpent out of Aboriginal theology. The 'Rainbow Serpent' is not a monstrous swamp serpent which only kills and consumes, but the Great Mother/Goddess of new life as well. The 'Rainbow Serpent' is, in the words of the Noonuccals, 'the giver and taker of life'. Swamp waters are both life-giving and death-dealing – living black waters. The chapter concludes by arguing for marsh monsters and swamp serpents as figures that embody and express the earthly sacrality in the Symbiocence.
