White-Crowned Hornbill

Berenicornis comatus

Status: Endangered, due to loss of rainforest habitat in Malaysia.

The Ngadju Dayak are a native people of Kalimantan (Borneo). Their creation myth tells of how at the beginning of existence, there was but a waterserpent. After the serpent, come two beings first as mountains, and then in human form, who represented duality and the upper and under worlds. In their primeval battle, they create as a consequence the elements of the universe: sun and moon, clouds, sea, land.

As reality is established, a tree of life comes into being. The two beings battle as hornbills, male and female, tearing the tree apart. From the ravaged pieces of the tree, and from the female hornbill, comes the first man and woman.

The hornbill is symbolic of the upperworld, and the waterserpent of the underworld.

References:
Mundkur, B. (1983). The cult of the serpent : an interdisciplinary survey of its manifestations and origins. United States: State University of New York Press.

Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth. (1984). United Kingdom: University of California Press.