Kurrea

Also called Kurria, Kurreah.

The Kurrea is a giant crocodile-like monster of Australian Aboriginal Dreaming tradition that turned from hunting animals to hunting people until the warrior Toolalla exploited its fear of the bumble tree.

Tradition: Australian Aboriginal folklore
Region: New South Wales, Australia (place of origin)
Symbols: Crocodile

Symbols

Judged against the description by a model. Meanings are our own paraphrase.

Crocodile is image-domain The crocodile denotes voracity lying still at the threshold of water and land, capable of sudden devouring, yet brooding its young with improbable care.
why
The Kurrea is a giant crocodile-like monster of Australian Aboriginal Dreaming tradition that turned from hunting animals to hunting people until the warrior Toolalla exploited its fear of the bumble tree.

Traits

Read from the figure's description, which a model wrote. Open "why" for the sentence a trait came from.

Form

Impervious hide resists conventional weapons
why
Accounts describe Toolalla exhausting his entire supply of spears against the creature without managing to wound it

Behaviour

Weakness to specific animal or object
why
His escape depended on a piece of specific local knowledge: the Kurrea feared nothing in the world so much as the bumble tree, which the tellings identify as its mother-in-law.
Tunnels through earth creating rivers and valleys
why
This story is generally told as an origin account, explaining a particular watering hole said to have been formed by the hollow the Kurrea's frightened spinning left behind, one that fills and becomes useful for drinking during the wet season.

Utility powers

Earth manipulation
why
at which point the pursuing Kurrea stopped short, spun in a circle gouging a deep hollow into the earth, and fled back toward the swamp rather than approach the tree.

Roles

Judged from the works' own entries, not from the description. Carries: the figure holds the role. Meets: the role is in its stories, held by something it meets.