Dreamtime

During an Australian walkabout, it was not uncommon for Aboriginal children to experience “Dreamtime.” Aboriginals believe that during Dreamtime their ancestors made the world. Hills were marsupials frozen in time. Rainbow serpents swallowed the sun and gave birth to the Milky Way—the river in the sky. Ancestors fished for turtles and stingrays in the Milky Way and used the stars as their campfires. Myths such as these make Dreamtime the foundation of all Aboriginal oral tradition and spiritual belief.

To go on an Australian walkabout is to spiritually connect with the land and thereby enter Dreamtime. This is a sacred experience available to all, even visitors. If one resists or fights or grieves, they’ll be given more time.

MARK NODEA / KANGAROO DREAMING – TURKEY CREEK

There is an important Ngarrangkarni (Dreaming) story for Kangaroos in the Gija culture.

There were two kangaroos – Jallangngenung, a kangaroo with short arms, and Jirrgan, a big kangaroo with long arms. They had collected Kirring (sugarbag, wild honey) from holes in the hills.

Jirrgan was greedy and using his long arms to dig out the Kirring, he ate it all up. This made Jallangngenung wild with anger. Both kangaroos grabbed their nulla nullas (fighting sticks) and had a big fight.

Jirrgan, the greedy one, won the fight and Jallangngenung ran away. As he ran away he threw his nulla nulla behind him, which became his tail. Jirrgan did the same thing. Jallangngenung said to Jirrgan – “I’m going to live in the hills, surrounded by spinifex, where are you going to live?” Jirrgan, the greedy one, said “I’m going to live in the black soil country (in the plains)”.

That is the difference between what type of kangaroo is found in any part of the country. What I have painted in this work is actually a fossilised kangaroo paw print in a large, flat rock in Warmun Community.

Historically speaking, the walkabout is a rite of passage in which young (adolescent) Aboriginal Australians undertake a journey that will help “transform” them into adults. The journey is usually made between the ages of 10 and 16. During this journey which can last for up to six months, the individual is required to live and survive all alone in the wilderness. During a walkabout, a young person can sometimes travel a distance of over a 1,000 miles. In order to survive this long hike, the participant in the walkabout must be able to make their own shelter and must be capable of procuring food and water for themselves.

That means he needs to hunt, catch fish, and also recognize and utilize edible and healing plants. The initiated youngster must learn to identify plants such as bush tomatoes, Illawarra plums, quandongs, lilly-pillies, Muntari berries, wattle seeds, Kakadu plums, and bunya nuts. Besides the obvious goal of the walkabout—to survive, the initiate also has to devote time to thinking and discovering their self. The teenager needs to understand the concept of bravery and to get in touch with his spiritual guides. While moving across the land, the initiate sings “songlines”, which are ancestral songs that serve as spoken maps. In the absence of modern instruments such as a compass or radio, the young person is guided by spirits.

Modern physicists and astronomers would probably have difficulty in empathizing with the Aboriginal conception and origin of the universe. Their universe is not the universe of the Big Bang, inanimate matter, dark energy, dark matter or accelerating expansion. In Aboriginal astronomy the origin of the universe goes back to a time called the Dreaming. It is a remarkable concept which Spencer and Gillen immortalized as the “dreamtime” or “alcheringa” of the Arunta or Aranda tribe of central Australia (Spencer and Gillen 1889). According to Stanner: “A central meaning of the Dreaming is that of a sacred, heroic time long ago when man and nature came to be as they are; but neither ‘time’ nor ‘history’ as we understand them is involved in this meaning,” (Stanner 1979). The Dreaming is not only an ancient era of creation but continues even today in the spiritual lives of the Aboriginal people. All life - human, animal, bird or fish - is part of an ever-transforming system that can be traced back to the Spirit Ancestors who go about the Earth in an eternal time called the Dreaming. As these spirit people roamed the Earth they made the mountains, rivers, the sky with its celestial objects and all the other features we see in the natural environment around us. The Aborigines are in fact co-creators of the universe they live in. The observer and the observed are the same entity.