TYPE: Animistic Fertility Spirit
ORIGIN: Australasia
INFORMATION: Known to tribesmen on the Pennefather River, Queensland, Australia and believed to place mud babies in the wombs of pregnant women. The grandmother of a newly born infant buried the afterbirth, which was collected by Anjea and kept in a hollow tree or some such sanctuary until the time came to instill it into another child in the womb.
In Australian Aboriginal mythology, Anjea is a fertility goddess or spirit. People's souls reside within her in between their incarnations. She picks them up at their resting places in the sand, which are marked with twigs. The twigs are arranged in the ground so as to form a circle, and they are tied together at their tops, so that the resulting structure resembles a cone. The spirits are taken away for several years, but Anjea eventually creates new children from mud, and places them in the wombs of future mothers.