I have learnt so much more about the Aboriginal belief system and I have so much respect for it. I will attach my paper on The Dreaming below so as to express properly what I learnt. Unfortunately it was a small word count so I couldn't go into enough detail. I think the underlying feature of The Dreamtime that I found the most interesting was the layers of respect that each individual has for everything that surrounds them. It seems that nothing is better than anything else and that their beliefs are centred on respect for one another.
We briefly discussed The Dreaming, in relation to art, in the tutorial this week and not many people were willing to comment...saying that they felt 'inferior' and 'uninformed' and therefore they felt that they couldn't comment. I do not feel this way. I feel that by saying that you can not comment due to feeling 'inferior', or whatever excuse you can come up with, is buying in to the idea that Australians do not care for their Indigenous peoples. It is unfair and, frankly, ignorant to ignore the facts because you don't want to offend anyone or upset anyone. I can understand feeling like you don't know what to say because you don't have the information but I think it has been made pretty clear what the information is and where you can find it.
Perhaps I am being rude by having an opinion on this but I feel that these others are coming across as lazy, and I don't know if they are or if they are just naive and I am lucky for taking two Indigenous classes.
Reflective Paper:
While a variety of factors have shaped the diversity of Indigenous Australian philosophy and practices across the Australian continent, one of the central characteristics of the Aboriginal worldview is the concept of ‘The Dreaming’. Outline some of the key aspects of this belief system and discuss the significance of this concept for the Aboriginal people.
All cultures have decided social and individual laws, belief systems, philosophies and a collection of values, or a ‘worldview’[1]. Christianity, Catholicism, Judaism, Scientology etc are all based on different perceptions of what is real, what is possible and what is actual. Similarly, Aboriginal culture operates on a set of beliefs and knowledge. In Aboriginal culture The Dreaming makes reference to many different concepts and ideas. Minimally, The Dreaming consists of the laws of existence, the beings who first walked the Earth and therefore created these laws, the time in which this happened and the bond between humans, the land and other animals[2]. Above all, The Dreaming pertains to the land and the law. The land is continuing evidence that the stories of the Ancestral beings was reality. Inability to access the land means an inability to access the meaning for existence and, therefore, The Dreaming[3]. The Law is centered on relationships, how the people relate to the land and to other species. The Law is seemingly balanced by respect, no species has more authority than another and each conforms to its own laws.
In Aboriginal culture, The Dreamtime spirits were the first to walk the earth and therefore they created the laws of the land. The Dreaming spirits were often in human form, however they could change this at will. The spirits shaped the land, introduced language, tools and hunting and had relationships with other beings. Seemingly, most beings would eventually change form. Transitioning into different animals meant that their power became focused on a specific species, and although still powerful enough to continue shaping the land, they could often no longer return to their human state[4]. These beings form the belief system on which Aboriginal culture is based. There was punishment even in The Dreamtime for unacceptable behaviour and so there still is now. The spirits began the law that demands respect for all species and balance between land and people. They determined the conditions of existence for everything that lives and the differences between them. It becomes a system of relationships, giving and receiving and the only authority comes from the land.
‘Westerners have engaged in seemingly endless speculation about what distinguishes us from animals, be it the gift of language, of consciousness, of foreknowledge of death, of the ability to speculate, imagine, plan and execute plans. For Yarralin people shape is the key. All animals have language. That ordinary people cannot understand…[5]’
The Dreamtime myths cover issues that are similar to other mythologies, for example, the control and distribution of the elements and the charting of the stars. These particular ideas parallel those of, for example, Greek mythology[6]. However, I have found that when looking at Aboriginal myths and stories you must adopt the sense of the everyday. Aboriginal mythologies are created to educate people about how to live life everyday, they teach lessons that people can learn from. Often Aboriginal stories are used as warnings, the stories of the moon and the dingo allude that because of the moon’s spite after not being allowed to make love to his mother-in-law, death became a part of human existence. So, some of the Aboriginal mythologies are obvious in what they are punishing or discouraging, yet many Aboriginal mythologies demand prior knowledge. The stories belong to their own settings and often, the narrator assumes that the listeners have the knowledge to fill in the gaps throughout the stories. Incorporated in the narratives are often allusions that cannot be understood without comprehensive linguistic and cultural knowledge. It is also understood that the narrator will often have knowledge about the story that no one else possesses[7].
‘The Dreaming is not simply a mythic past which describes creation-in it, “all time is eternally present”, and thus the spirit and the physical worlds are as one.[8]” The Dreamtime is a complicated and intricate weave of beliefs, knowledge, narratives, the Law and the land. It was naïve to think that The Dreamtime was simple and was basically made up of stories from across Australia about ancestors and animals. Instead it is a mixture of lessons, relationships and respect. The Dreaming teaches about having respect for your society and your culture. The Dreaming consists of many different ideas and concepts; basically it comprises the Laws of existence, the ancestral beings that are present in The Dreamtime stories and the relationships between humans, animals and the land. I believe that the most important thing for non-Aboriginal people to know is that the relationship that Aboriginal people have with the land is NOT for economical reasons, it’s not because they rely on the land for food or shelter. Aboriginal people have a strong relationship with the land because the land is evidence to them that the ancestral beings existed.
“To us alive now, one of the most important aspects of Dreaming is that the marks do not wash away. In this sense, Dreaming is quite literally 'grounded'. The earth is the repository of blood from Dreaming deaths and births, sexual excretions from Dreaming activities, charcoal and ashes from their fires. Dreaming life has this quality which defies change: those things which come from Dreaming— country, boundaries, Law, relationships, the conditions of human life-endure. Compared to the ephemeral existence of living things now, Dreamings carry on forever[9].”
References:
HUMS 1035, 2011, Lecture: Week 2, 1/8/2011, Worldviews
Robert Kenny, The Lamb Enters The Dreaming: Nathanael Pepper & The Ruptured World, (Scribe Publications, Victoria, 2007) Ch.10, pp.155
Deborah Bird Rose, Dingo Makes Us Human: Life And Land In An Aboriginal Australian Culture, (Cambridge University Press, 1992) Ch.3, pp.42-57
Dorothy Tunbridge, Flinders Ranges Dreaming, (Aboriginal Studies Press for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Studies 1988), pp. xxviii-xli
Megan Russo
[1] HUMS 1035, 2011, Lecture: Week 2, 1/8/2011, Worldviews
[2] Deborah Bird Rose, Dingo Makes Us Human: Life And Land In An Aboriginal Australian Culture, (Cambridge University Press, 1992) Ch.3, pp.42-57
[3] Dorothy Tunbridge, Flinders Ranges Dreaming, (Aboriginal Studies Press for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Studies 1988), pp. xxviii-xli
[4] Deborah Bird Rose, Dingo Makes Us Human: Life And Land In An Aboriginal Australian Culture, (Cambridge University Press, 1992) Ch.3, pp.42-57
[5] Deborah Bird Rose, Dingo Makes Us Human: Life And Land In An Aboriginal Australian Culture, (Cambridge University Press, 1992) Ch.3, pp.42-57
[6] Robert Kenny, The Lamb Enters The Dreaming: Nathanael Pepper & The Ruptured World, (Scribe Publications, Victoria, 2007) Ch.10, pp.155
[7] Dorothy Tunbridge, Flinders Ranges Dreaming, (Aboriginal Studies Press for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Studies 1988), pp. xxviii-xli
[8] Robert Kenny, The Lamb Enters The Dreaming: Nathanael Pepper & The Ruptured World, (Scribe Publications, Victoria, 2007) Ch.10, pp.154
[9] Deborah Bird Rose, Dingo Makes Us Human: Life And Land In An Aboriginal Australian Culture, (Cambridge University Press, 1992) Ch.3, pp.42-57
