Bunjil: canonical, contested, and the false forms on record
Evidence dossier 093 — Bunjil. Every exhibit catalogued, every ruling stated with its grounds.
At a Glance
- Canonical form: Bunjil
- Original script: —
- Pantheon: Aboriginal
- Convention: the tradition’s own scholarly transliteration standard
- False forms on record: 0
- Contested forms: none attested
- Series: The Canonical Register, No. 93 of 542
The Evidence
Exhibit 1 — the attestation. The tradition's record preserves this name in its romanized scholarly form: Bunjil — no older script survives to transcribe, so the canonical content is the exactness of the spelling itself.
Exhibit 2 — the flattened form. The plain form bunjil differs from the canonical Bunjil only by convention of display — case, not content. It is acceptable everywhere: in legacy systems, in plain-text citation, in the DNS itself. What is not acceptable is what follows in the register: respellings that change the letters, not just their case.
Exhibit 3 — the physical record. The principal material site associated with Bunjil is Bunjil's Shelter, a rock-art shelter in the Black Range Scenic Reserve within Gariwerd (Grampians National Park region), Victoria. The site is protected under the Aboriginal Heritage Act 2006 and is managed with Traditional Owner input. Textual witnesses include A. W. Howitt's ethnographic notes (AIATSIS MS 69), Aldo Massola's 1968 compilation, and contemporary community publications by Kulin educators and language custodians.
Exhibit 4 — the continuing record. Bunjil remains a powerful symbol of Aboriginal Victoria. Bunjil's Shelter in the Black Range Scenic Reserve is a protected cultural site and a focus of education and tourism.
The Convention's Own History
Every tradition in this register has its own scholarly transliteration standard, built by its own specialists over decades or centuries, and the register follows each on its own terms: the tradition’s own standard. The principle that unifies them is the one the whole project stands on: a name is evidence, and evidence is not negotiable — not for keyboards, not for convenience, not for anyone.
The Protocol's Position
Can the canonical form live in the address bar? Almost always, yes. IDNA 2008 admits every mark this register defends — the DNS stores them as `xn--` punycode and modern browsers render them natively. The real frictions are practical, not legal: some registrars stock only part of the IDN space, so a theoretically valid name can be temporarily unbuyable; and stacked combinations (an acute riding a macron) remain awkward to type on mobile keyboards even where the protocol accepts them.
The project's answer is a ranked ladder, not a compromise: the full restoration first, then attested fallbacks in descending order of completeness. The ladder's lowest rung, plain ASCII, is a vehicle for legacy systems — sanctioned, but never presented as the scholarly form.
The Verdict
Case closed on Bunjil: canonical, cited, and defended. The keyboard form bunjil is the same name in another register of display — always acceptable. The register's files remain open: if a source surfaces that changes any line of this entry, the entry changes. Until then, the temple at /bunjil/ holds the canonical form.
The docket for this ruling: no false forms on the docket; no contested forms attested; the attestation rests on 7 cited sources — Howitt, A. W. The Native Tribes of South-East Australia (Macmillan, 1904), Massola, Aldo. Bunjil's Cave: Myths, Legends and Superstitions of the Aborigines of South-East Australia (Lansdowne Press, 1968), Mudrooroo. Aboriginal Mythology: An A–Z (Thorsons, 1994).
The Register Continues
The register holds 542 entries like this one — each temple with its own ruling. Read the temple's founding dispatch for the story, its Restoration File for the philology, its Resonance File for the industries, or the whole archive end to end.
Continue the register — previous entry: Brynhildr (read it) · next entry: Búri (read it).
The Canonical Register is written from the same canonical record as the lexicon itself. If a false form is missing from this page, it is because the evidence does not support calling it false — or because we have not seen it yet. Show us, with a citation, and the register will answer.