Cultural Background
Cultural Representation of the Landscape and the Dreaming
Traditionally, Aboriginal peoples’ understanding of the physical and metaphysical world was not written down. It was communicated from generation to generation in stories, songs, ceremonies, dances and art. Visual imagery and oral traditions are fundamental aspects of Aboriginal culture and lifestyle. While some Aboriginal cultural practices are specific to certain peoples or places, others – in particular, the central aspects of the Dreaming – are shared across vast distances and language groups. The Dreaming is at the centre of Aboriginal culture, and intergenerationally it links Aboriginal people to the physical and metaphysical world.
For Aboriginal people, the origin and occupation of their land is attributed to their ancestors and the spirit beings that either passed through the country or continue to reside there. The Dreaming is the time of creation: ancestral beings (which take the form of humans or animals or natural landscape features) travel the country creating the natural world and making the laws and customs for Aboriginal people to live by. The Dreaming (also commonly known as the Dreamtime) is not in the past; it is a continuing time and lives on in the natural environment. The spirits of the Dreaming take the form of natural features in the landscape such as rocks, mountains, valleys, rivers and waterholes. The Dreaming provides the unifying elements that create and maintain social cohesion within a group and explain the purpose and direction of life for each Aboriginal community. While the purposes of Dreaming stories vary, most relate to the creation of human beings and explanations of all the elements in their living and non-living environment. These stories might also explain why a group resides where it does by reinforcing its close relationship with the land in which the ancestral spirits reside.
Aboriginal people learn of the Dreaming through song, stories and dance, and through visual representations that are painted and carved on an array of objects. Creation songs of the ancestors are about law, culture and spirituality. Songlines, for example, describe a segment of the journey of the ancestral beings across the vast expanses of the country, and link particular Aboriginal language groups. As mentioned above, it was along these journeys of the ancestors that all the physical features of the land, as well as spiritual places, were created. The land was literally sung into existence. The ceremonial songs that pass on these stories remember not only the adventures of the ancestors but also the laws, skills and personal attributes required to survive and prosper.
Initiated people keep the sacred and secret elements of Aboriginal law and spirituality in stories, dances and art, and they are only disclosed to the initiated and to those who have demonstrated their worthiness.
Visual images in Aboriginal art are one way in which Dreaming stories are communicated. Aboriginal art is amongst the oldest in the world, and the visual and performing arts of Aboriginal communities across Australia represent the interaction between Aboriginal people and their physical and metaphysical environments in enduring traditions that go back to the Dreaming. The artworks include ephemeral paintings (for example, sand and body paintings), more permanent artwork (for example, tree carvings, rock engravings, bark paintings) and sacred religious artefacts (for example, tjuringas which are carved wooden or stone objects that represent aspects of the Dreaming).