Ankotarinja is believed to be the first man, created by Bunjil by granting a bipedal creature with the very last few specks of primordial matter. His strength and determination was envied by all gods except Bunjil himself, and many sought to claim his bride Dilga for themselves. However, such was his strength that he bested the gods in combat. Because he could only visit Dilga for short periods of time, as he was a creature of the land and she lived in the seas, Ankotarinja proposed that they move to live inland. There the couple had many children, the first humans.
However, humanity had many disadvantages. Ankotarinja's children were smaller, weaker, frailer and slower than most animals. Their triumph card was the minuscule specks of primordial matter which all of mankind contained; this was the source of man's intelligence, creativity, determination and ambition, which set them apart from animals whom the gods had not mingled with. Eventually they were trained and armed by their father to such a degree that no creature could breach into the human camp, for they would be torn apart by a rain of spears, clubs and boomerangs.
Another problem was that the land in which they had emerged was very hostile, being at the very north of the world (northern Australia). Bahloo befriended Ankotarinja and liked him so much, that he revealed the existence of a paradise to the south, what we know today as the Murray-Darling basin. For a thousand years humanity wandered in search of this supposed mythical place, splitting off into hundreds of nomadic tribes and petty kingdoms, who sometimes chose to follow their own way in another direction. Eventually Ankotarinja's host arrived at this place, supposedly founding the First Ankic Empire, though the First Man himself died from old age. Physically stronger than most gods, he was nevertheless cursed with mortality due to being a land creature of the type created by Eingana. The fall of his body was such that it uplifted a chunk of the Earth as one flips a table, creating Mount Kosciuszko and the Snowy Mountains. His spirit ascended to live eternally in Dilga's embrace.
Most of this information can be found on the Epic of Ankotarinja, contained in a series of inscripted stone tablets excavated from the First Ankic Empire's old capital. Its oral retelling is remarkably faithful to the originaly story, and provides anthropologists with an important image of how Aboriginal societies viewed the origin of mankind. Modern historians believe that Ankotarinja was in reality likely a tribal leader from the Malaysian Archipelago who led the first Homo Sapiens into the northern shores of Australia by sea.