The Emu in the Sky

Not every picture in the sky is made of stars. Across Aboriginal Australia, people have seen an emu in the dark clouds of dust along the Milky Way. This page follows one detailed account, from the Kamilaroi and Euahlayi peoples, published with the people who hold it.

An emu made of darkness

In a 2014 paper (opens in a new tab) written with Euahlayi Law Man Michael Anderson, participants described the Emu stretching along the dark lanes of the Milky Way from the Coalsack, beside the Southern Cross, to Scorpius. The Emu in the Sky is Gawarrgay, or Gawarghoo; the emu bird itself is dhinawan. Western stick figures draw lines between bright stars; this figure is the dark between them.

A calendar in the sky

The paper describes the Emu as it looks in the middle of the evening, around 9 p.m., and how its changing shape (opens in a new tab) was read through the year:

• April and May: the Emu stretches from the south to the south-east with legs, running. It is female, chasing a mate at the emus' mating and egg-laying time, a reminder that eggs can be collected.
• June and July: the legs disappear. The male is sitting on the nest, and eggs can still be taken.
• August and September: the neck fades and the body looks like an egg. The chicks are hatching, and the egg season is over.
• November: the Emu sits low on the horizon, in a waterhole, and the waterholes are believed to be full.
• Summer: the Emu has all but gone, having left the waterholes, which are dry. Its head returns in February and its body in March.

What is up there is down here

Participants spoke of a belief that the sky and the ground mirror each other (opens in a new tab), so that what is seen above is also below. The Emu's changes tie to looking after the emu as a food resource and to caring for country and its waterholes.

Many emus, many tellings

The authors found reports of an Emu in the Sky (opens in a new tab) across Aboriginal language groups in many parts of Australia, with different details; the earliest written record, from 1857, has the Boorong people of Victoria placing an emu in the Coalsack. Stories like this carry several levels of meaning. The paper deliberately leaves the ceremonial level aside, and so does this page. It is one account, not the view of every Aboriginal community.

Seeing it

The Emu is made of dust seen against the Milky Way, so it needs a sky dark enough to show the Milky Way at all. Its head lies by the Southern Cross, and its body runs toward Scorpius; the sky finder can tell you when those are up where you are.