Aboriginal Dreamtime and Song lines

Aboriginal Artwork (Taken in Melbourne)

To Aboriginal people dreaming is not only the creation of life, but deals with everything and all things about life. It tells the stories about how the earth and its elements came to be, stories of the universe, and how the people should interact with everything. In this culture everyone exists in the dreaming. These beliefs are often viewed as a mythology in the western setting but for the aboriginal people, it is a reality. The aboriginal guide I met in Sydney, Evan, explained to me that the dreaming begins for every person in the fetus. Each person has a spirit from before birth and will exist after the death of that person as well. The past is a very important aspect of aboriginal culture. The dreaming relates to past creation and spirits of those who have passed. Beyond the creation stages of life, Dreamtime is used to outline the structure of daily life. For example, rules in society, ceremonies, song lines, and daily life are all part of the Dreaming.

Song lines are often told to tell stories of the Dreaming. These dreaming stories and songs differ throughout different indigenous clans across Australia but all cover similar themes. Often times these stories are related to the land, animals, people, vegetation, and sacred sites. These song lines are very educational in providing information about all parts of the aboriginal lifestyle. Also, many of the song lines have dances to accompany them for ceremonies and rituals. Stories, dances and song lines have all been passed down through generations, but some things are lost or changed. This also creates a difference in the individual stories told in different areas.

Men's Sacred Site in Uluru

The dreamtime involves rituals, some specific to men only and others women. This is called “Men’s Business” and “Women’s Business.” Many of the sacred sites I saw at Uluru were specific to one gender. Interestingly, Kata Tjuta (the Olgas) is specific to Men’s Business only. This is amazing because this natural land structure is over twice as tall as the Eiffel tower and longer than Ayer’s Rock.

Uluru (Ayer's Rock)

The Aboriginal people at Uluru, the Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara, do not call the creation and the stories the Dreamtime. This is because they do not believe the creation should be called a dream, as life is a reality. They believe that the word “dreaming” refers to a non-reality or changeable society, which these natives do not believe. “Dreaming” is not an aboriginal word in their language and is only used by European Australians. According to these natives, the world was originally empty before spirits arrived in the form of humans to create the land, plants and animals.

At Uluru

The story of how Uluru was formed goes like this. Two curious, uninitiated boys were traveling together when they heard a ceremony of the Mala Wallaby people near Kata Tjuta. The Mala people ended up being attacked by an evil spirit created by westerners, the Kurpany. It killed many Mala people and the rest fled running from the evil creature. In the meantime, the two boys began playing at their waterhole, creating mud by mixing the dirt and water. They continued to pile up the mud until it became Uluru.  Then, they started sliding and playing on the giant pile of mud. This is what created all of the gullies after the mud hardened.

Aboriginal song lines and stories are a great way of passing down traditions and culture. The Dreaming is considered the creation of life and its elements by most aboriginal clans and is widely accepted as a cultural belief in Australia.

Experiencing Healesville and Phillip Island

If you are an animal lover then experiencing Healesville Sanctuary and Phillip Island are a must while visiting Melbourne. I really enjoyed Healesville Sanctuary because it gave me the opportunity to see all of the famous Australian animals, with the opportunity to get close up, without walking around looking at encaged animals all day. I also enjoyed watching all of the little penguins waddle around Phillip Island on their way to their burrows.

Phillip Island is a while away from the city and has a refreshing view. Phillip Island Nature Park is a non-profit eco-tourism attraction that brings in people from all over on a daily basis. The island is really all about conserving the wildlife. At one point a Bed and Breakfast and golf course took up a large part of the island but were removed to preserve the island and help provide a stable environment for the penguins. I was also surprised when I was walking across a path, after the penguins had come ashore, and I was stopped because the penguin needed to cross the path to get home to its burrow. The penguins come ashore in groups of thirty or so penguins. They always come up on the same part of the beach and take the exact same path home every night. Therefore, visitors cannot use cameras because the risk of a flash going off would disrupt the penguin’s eyesight making them very lost.

After the sun went down I really enjoyed watching the penguin parade. The penguin parade has been a tourist attraction for over eighty years. In the last twenty years more bridges and viewing areas have been added to the island to better protect the penguin habitat. As the penguins come ashore, the head ranger sits in his skybox and counts each penguin. When I was at Phillip Island the number was around eleven hundred.

Seeing all of the famous Australian animals at the Healesville Sanctuary has been one of the big highlights of my entire trip so far. The Sanctuary has a beautiful layout and really is a sanctuary, not a zoo. The first animal I went to look at, of course, was the kangaroo. The Red Kangaroo is the largest kangaroo species, which can hop an average of four meters. I really enjoyed watching the kangaroos. I saw a mother feeding her baby and a kangaroo going crazy over an itch on its leg. As much as I liked the kangaroos, I actually preferred the wallabies. A wallaby is really just a smaller kangaroo, but I found them very entertaining.

My favorite part about the sanctuary was that I got up close and personal with a koala named Benny. Koalas are “drunk” and sleepy for twenty hours of the day from eating eucalyptus leaves.   There are over 750 different species of eucalyptus in Australia but koalas only eat sixty of the types. Koalas eat about a kilogram of leaves a day. Interestingly, Koalas predominantly rely on their sense of smell to guide themselves as they have poor eyesight. At the sanctuary I also enjoyed the bird exhibit as well as seeing a baby wombat, which was much cuter than I had imagined a wombat to be.

Here is a bit of history about Healesville Sanctuary I learned during my visit. The sanctuary was built in the 1930s, during the depression. During this time the steam train was used to get to the sanctuary. The sanctuary has always been a place for people to come and appreciate the natural heritage of Australia. As World War II emerged the sanctuary struggled to survive, but being the first to breed a platypus in captivity kept the sanctuary afloat. In 1956 the Olympic Games were held in Melbourne and a new platypussary was opened. The platypus was by far the weirdest animal in all of the sanctuary. You could say that it is almost a duck and a beaver mix. The platypus can eat enough food to equal his or her own body weight in a day. They also have enough venom to kill a cat or dog. Before Europeans settled in Australia, the land the sanctuary sits on today belonged to the Wurundjeri tribe. Many of the types of trees used to make aboriginal shields and canoes from still stand in the sanctuary today. In the 1980s breeding programs for endangered animals emerged in the sanctuary.

Wakagetti Cultural Dancers and Bush Yarns: Aboriginal Storytelling and Song

At the start of the Wakagetti Cultural Dancing the lead dancer welcomed the audience by paying his respects to those who have passed, mother earth, the land, and the stars. This continued onto a welcome dance. Traditional aboriginal dancing is a large part of the culture of indigenous tradition. Dancing is often used in rituals and ceremonies. These dances represent many key parts of aboriginal beliefs and lifestyles. I particularly enjoyed the aboriginal style of dance. All of the dances were simple and repetitive. The movements in many of the dances were representative of the behaviors of various animals. They all told stories and showed a connection to nature. Lots of jumping and shaking movements are incorporated into the dancing to help energize the body and wake the spirit. I found it interesting that boomerangs were used as musical instruments by slapping two boomerangs together. Chanting and making animal noises to go along with the dances were also incorporated into the musical aspect of the dancing.

The next dance I watched was dedicated to the mother, father, and ancestors. In this dance the two aboriginal dancers showed displays of a lizard, kangaroo, emu, and echidna. The following dance was a dance only performed by men. The dancers got all of the men in the audience to come and dance with them. This dance was a display of the four families of the kangaroo: the baby, mum, dad, and granddad. This showed how the kangaroo senses its natural predator, the dingo.

Another dance performed was called Red Breast Robin Bird. The story goes that the rainbow serpent travels through the land creating rivers along the way. While doing this the rainbow serpent ruins the homes of the red breast robin bird. The birds are obviously very upset by this horrible act by the rainbow serpent so they chase him down and kill him. After they kill the rainbow serpent, the birds cut him up into pieces and share these pieces amongst the rest of the red breast robin birds. This dance is a celebration for killing the rainbow serpent.

Aboriginal dance is passed down from generation to generation. The main performer started off one performance by thanking his grandmother for it. While talking to him after the show we discussed the meaning of the body paint he was wearing. He told me that he used the body paint to think of his grandfather who works with dolphins. His paint represented the dolphin. His belly was lighter than his back, he had five dots on his stomach like dolphins, and he created eyes on his face. He explained to me that he changes his body art day by day based on his feelings. Some days he paints his body in a way that makes him more in touch with the dances and makes him dance with more energy. Everyday he paints three lines on his body; one line for his mother, one for his father, and the last for his ancestors. I particularly enjoyed talking to him because he had a deep-rooted connection to his family and culture but also showed an interest with the modern world. We ended up talking about American basketball for a long time. He made a comment that Derek Rose needs to up his physio to help the Bulls out this season (which I liked, being a Chicago Bulls fan all my life). He had a great spirit and felt he had the best job in the world.

My favorite dance was called Little Lost Boy, a play dance. The dancers called a young boy up from the audience to help, making it really come to life. The story goes that when little boys grow up under the care of the mother they do not learn how to survive on their own. When they are old enough, they decide to wander into the sunset. Eventually the boys become very lost and give up on finding their way home. They sit down in the dirt and decide to wait until they are found. The mother gets worried when she cannot find her boys and when she finds them at last she dances this dance in celebration.

When the story telling dances finished the dancers did a farewell song and dance. They pay their respects to lost ones in this dance as well. The dancers did not say goodbye because this word is not used in aboriginal culture. This is because they do not say goodbye when people die, because their spirit lives on and they will see that person again.

At the Bush Yarns I learned about aboriginal tools used for hunting and in daily life. I first learned about the boomerang and how the style of boomerangs very from region to region. The clan living near Uluru does not use the traditional returning boomerang shaped like a V. The boomerang used here is made from a Mulga tree and just has a slight bend. The Mulga tree is very strong and well adapted to fire. The boomerang is used to skillfully slice through prey. Different tribes have boomerangs with different patterns carved on them.

Next, I learned about the spear and spear thrower. The spear is very long, taller than myself, skinny, and bendy. Spears made of soft wood hardly looked convincing enough to kill a kangaroo but when the guide threw it into the grass and I went to pull it out I couldn’t believe how deep it had gone. The spear thrower is used to catch big prey like kangaroos and emus but not for animals like turkey because not that much power is needed. Every spear has a peg at the end of it so that when a hunter spears its prey the peg will keep the spear in the animal, moving it deeper and deeper into its body when the animal moves.

Lastly, I was showed the club and shield. These weapons can be used in one-on-one combat but not in big battles amongst many men. The narrow length of the shield surprised me, as it hardly looks protective. This is because it is more commonly used as a sign of peace. When clans travel they hold up their shields to tell other clans that they come in peace. The front of each shield has a design for the clan describing skin type, language, and where you’re from.

Aboriginal culture is still full of many of the same traditions but has modernized a lot over time. Today, aboriginal people live in houses and have jobs to make money to survive. Traditions are passed on through generations but spears and dances are no longer used today for the same purposes. Although the aboriginal dances I saw were authentic they are not used for ritual purposes. Similarly, spears and boomerangs are no longer made for hunting. They are made for commercial purposes instead. When making spears and boomerangs today the youngest are still taught by their brothers how to properly throw one, passing on the culture and tradition.

Aboriginal culture is much more authentic in central Australia than it is on the coast because English settlers moved inland one hundred years after arriving on the coasts of Australia. After a hundred years in Australia, English settlers and aboriginal people started to respect one another more. Therefore, by the time the settlers moved to central Australia they had much better, less destructive relations with the native people. The clans around Ayers Rock are a great example of aboriginal culture and I am enjoying being immersed in it.

Understanding Aboriginal Art: The Australian Museum, Sydney

The Indigenous Australia Exhibit at The Australian Museum of New South Wales is full of insight about the history and culture of aborigines. When entering the exhibit there is a letter to all indigenous Australians. It says that they may see images of people who are now deceased and that no secret or sacred material is on display. It also identifies that the museum is on the land of the Gadigal people. I enjoyed seeing the aboriginal art and the exhibit showed how aboriginal people continue to share their culture.

There are many forms of aboriginal art. Traditionally, aboriginal art was made for cultural purposes. Some of the art was limited to only be viewed by initiated members. This is because initiated people had a better understanding and knowledge of their culture. Tools and daily objects such as the boomerangs, baskets, shields and spears are also viewed as art today. All of these art forms are full of similar marks and dreaming symbols. I was excited when I learned that the boomerang was first used in combat and in hunting before becoming a beach game.

On aboriginal artwork we see many symbols that are representative to various aboriginal groups. For example, some groups use a series of dots to show a journey; the more dots, the longer the journey. The swirl means water. A circle can mean many things from fire, home, or love. Many pieces of aboriginal art feature the landscape the clan resides in. They show the way people understand the land and the conceptual relationship shared with the people and the land. When looking at these map paintings, natural objects are not shown by their physical relationship to one another but instead, by their mythical relationship. The connection to the land is a key component of aboriginal life. This connection with the land and dreaming is shown through art.

Many materials are used to create aboriginal art. While walking through the exhibit, I saw works of painting on bark, wooden sculptures and tools, rock engravings and woven baskets. Ceremonial and celebratory ornaments were also on display. They were decorated with totems and motifs that showed spiritual life.

Another form of aboriginal art that is commonly overlooked is dance. Dancing is a large part of the spiritual aboriginal culture. Sticks, dishes, and dance boards were used by women, while men played many instruments. Dancing was a part of dreaming stories as well as ceremonies. I am looking forward to seeing this dancing at Ayers Rock next week!

While walking through this exhibit I found it interesting how the roles of men and women in society were clearly shown by what daily objects they made and used. In aboriginal society, men are the hunters and women the gatherers. For example, in the exhibit I saw shields and spears that men handmade for dances, ceremonies, and sometimes for combat. The rainforest peoples of north Queensland make the most artistically appealing shields. Women made bags and baskets that both genders used to gather food. This clearly demonstrates the roles in society that have been common stereotypes we still believe of men and women today. Women wove baskets to carry babies and do the less demanding work.

Barney Daniels Tgungurray 1988, Alice Springs, Northern Territory

My favorite artworks of this exhibit were the Rainbow Serpent paintings. Some were even bark paintings. In the image above we see a great example of how aboriginal art shows spiritual representations of natural objects and tells the stories and connections people had with the land. I learned that this painting shows dreamtime hunters searching for the eggs of the rainbow serpent. They found the eggs in caves. I am particularly drawn to the bright colors of this painting and enjoyed seeing some of the markings Evan told me about on the walkabout tour.

While exploring the rest of The Australian Museum I walked through many other exhibits; most two to three times the size of the Indigenous Australia Exhibit. The other exhibits had more security and people wandering through them. I also found the dinosaur and skeleton exhibit interesting, but I was a bit disappointed by how the aboriginal art was being viewed by the public. I later learned that many aboriginal art works have been reproduced without artist consent or regard for the cultural significance of the designs of the artists. I believe that this is a small-scale example of how the 200,000 aborigines in Australia are viewed by the modern world in Australia today.