Chinny-kinik
Basic account
Giant being in Aboriginal narrative: sparse in print, strong in place.
Account
Chinny-Kinik is recorded as a giant of Australian Aboriginal tradition. As with the other entries in this group, the external record is thin and the attribution unreliable.
The story
The published material describes a large hostile being of the same broad type as the other Australian entries here: dangerous to people, associated with particular country, defeated or escaped through wit.
We are treating this the same way, and for the same reasons set out under Murkupang and Thardid Jimbo: we cannot reliably identify the community whose tradition this is, and without that, a detailed account would be fabrication dressed as scholarship.
There is one further thing worth recording, which applies to this whole group.
The codex currently carries these entries because the original catalogue did, and the original catalogue took them from the general literature. That literature is not good. A responsible version of this section would be built by approaching the relevant communities, asking whether they wish the material published, and following their answer: including if the answer is no.
Until that work is done, these are placeholders with an honest label rather than entries with content.
A reader who wants to understand Aboriginal traditions of large beings would be far better served by community-published material, by AIATSIS resources, and by Aboriginal authors writing about their own countries, than by anything this page can offer.
Where it comes from
Australian Aboriginal oral tradition; specific community not reliably identified in available sources.
The name appears in twentieth-century compilations of Australian Aboriginal legend, with the problems described.
Community-controlled sources, language centres and Aboriginal authors are the appropriate authority.
AIATSIS maintains collections and protocols relevant to this material.
Motifs
Eater of people
The giant as appetite: it takes travellers, children or the sick. Frequently a warning attached to a specific dangerous place.
Also carried by: Amazimu (Zulu / Nguni), Cormoran (Celtic / Cornish), Dzunukwa (Kwakwaka'wakw / Northwest Coast), Giant of the Forest (Hausa / West African), Kee-Wakw (Abenaki / Wabanaki), Maero (Māori / Polynesian), Ojáncanu (Cantabrian), Oni (Japanese), Papinijuwari (Australian Aboriginal (Tiwi)), Polyphemus (Greek), Shuten Dōji (Japanese), Si-Te-Cah (Paiute), Stallo (Sámi), Tepegöz (Oghuz Turkic), Murkupang (Australian Aboriginal), Thardid Jimbo (Australian Aboriginal)
The wild one of the uplands
A hairy, solitary giant of forest or mountain, hostile to herders and travellers: the shape a frontier takes in story.
Also carried by: Dzunukwa (Kwakwaka'wakw / Northwest Coast), Giant of Kunar (Modern legend), Giant of the Forest (Hausa / West African), Kee-Wakw (Abenaki / Wabanaki), Maero (Māori / Polynesian), Nawao (Māori), Ojáncanu (Cantabrian), Olentzero (Basque), Oni (Japanese), Orion (Greek), Rübezahl (German / Silesian / Czech), Shuten Dōji (Japanese), Skrymir (Norse), Stallo (Sámi), Svyatogor (Slavic), Tsul 'Kalu (Cherokee), Murkupang (Australian Aboriginal), Thardid Jimbo (Australian Aboriginal)
What is disputed
Everything said under Murkupang and Thardid Jimbo applies.
We cannot verify the spelling, the language of origin, or the community. Names in these compilations were frequently transcribed inconsistently by non-speakers, and a misspelt name can be effectively untraceable.
The honest position is that this entry records that a tradition exists under approximately this name, and nothing more. We would rather publish that than a confident paragraph we invented.
Sources
- Australian Aboriginal oral tradition (community not reliably identified)
- 20th-c. legend compilations: unreliable, see disputed
- AIATSIS protocols for Indigenous knowledge
Whether this material should appear in a general catalogue at all is a fair question. We have kept a short entry rather than deleting it silently, because the gap and the reason for it are worth showing, but we would remove or correct it on request from the relevant community. Requests can be sent to hello@giantscodex.com.
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