Pangkarlangu, Wonder, Extinction

This paper analyses an ethnographic case study of a Pangkarlangu visitation of the Aboriginal town of Yuendumu (Northern Territory) that took place in 2013. Pankarlangu are cannibalistic giants, who have been haunting Warlpiri country since the Dreamtime. Celebrated in myths and songs as well as in Warlpiri-language schoolbooks, they had literally become the stuff of legend until a family of three (a mother, father and child) was sighted near Yuendumu that year. The lengthy hiatus in Pangkarlangu sightings gave rise to the suspicion that like other species Pangkarlangu may have died out in the aftermath of colonial turmoil, as well as to contemplation of the implications such extinction may have for understandings of the Dreaming. I analyse this ethnographic material by paying special attention to the notions of wonder and extinction.