Australian Aboriginal mythology

The Aborigines are descendants of the first humans who settled in Australia. These earliest settlers came to the area from Asia perhaps about 50,000 years ago, or perhaps as much as 20,000 years earlier, according to archaeologist Scott Cane. They came from Southeast Asia, probably by boat.

Over the millennia, Aborigines lived as hunters and gatherers, moving from place to place to obtain the resources they needed to live. They used stone tools, some of which they attached to wooden handles. About 10,000 years ago, they developed the boomerang, an effective thrown weapon. (The type of boomerang that returns was used more for recreation.)

The Aborigines had a rich culture—perhaps the oldest continuously practiced human culture on Earth. They practiced burial and made jewelry from shells—indeed, Aboriginal shell beads from about 32,000 years ago are thought to be the oldest human jewelry. They painted images on rocks using natural pigments, and the "X-ray" art from Arnhem Land, which is about 4,000 years old, shows details of human and animal anatomy.

Part of the Aborigines’ complex culture was their mythology. The central myth of Aborigines is that of the Dreaming, or Dreamtime. In Arrernte, an Aborigine language, the Dreaming is called Tjukurrpa, which means "to see and understand the law." The Dreaming is a powerful, overarching myth that links past, present, and future but also explains the shape of the land and connects the people to the land and to every thing found on it. The law referred to in the Arrernte word reflects the responsibility shared by the living Aborigines to care for the land entrusted to them. As one elder puts it, "Our story is in the land . . . it is written in those sacred places . . . My children will look after those places. That’s the law" ("The Dreaming" para. 6). Aborigine mythology is transmitted orally and through images.

History

The first people to reach Australia traveled during an ice age, when sea levels were low, which meant that land bodies were more extensive than they are now and that bodies of water separating them were both smaller and less deep. These differences made it relatively easy to cross from islands north and west of Australia to the coast of that continent. Some scientists have argued that the massive explosion of Mount Toba, a volcano in Sumatra, caused this ice age. This eruption, which occurred about 74,000 years ago, is thought to have been the largest and most catastrophic volcanic explosion in the planet’s history. The devastation caused not just by the eruption but the resultant smoke and ash was so widespread, archaeologist Cane has suggested, that all humans in a wide area had to flee for new places to live, leading some to travel as far as Australia.

Over the millennia, the Aborigines spread, populating the continent from one coast to the others by about 35,000 years ago. They might not have settled the drier interior of Australia until about 10,000 years ago. Population density varied according to the climate of the area in question, with fewer people in the harsh interior. The exact size of the Aborigine population cannot be known, and estimates vary widely, from 300,000 to more than a million or so when the first European settlers arrived in the 1780s.

Over time, the Aborigines developed more than 200 different languages and a few hundred different larger groups, based on shared language and area. Since there was trade and communication between groups, it is thought that most Aborigines spoke more than one of these languages. Large groups called estate groups were tied to an area of land, their estate. Within that larger group, Aborigines were organized into clans, each one tracing itself to one of the Ancestors. The Aborigines actually lived in smaller groups called bands that consisted of two or so families. These bands generally lived in different parts of the estate group’s area. All these kinship groups could be traced either through an individual’s father or mother, but patrilineal descent was the more common form. Clans gathered at certain times of year, when abundance of resources permitted. During these gatherings, they shared stories, reinforcing and remembering the myths associated with the clan.

White settlers—who came primarily from Britain—treated the Aborigines harshly from their arrival. They were seen by these settlers as inferior beings with no right to the land they had lived on and husbanded for millennia. Aborigines were made to work for little or no wages, and children were forced into European schools and to adopt European ways. Australia’s government has made efforts in recent years to be more accepting of Aborigines and end discrimination. In 2008, the head of Australia’s government formally apologized for the past mistreatment. The government has also taken some steps to try to recognize Aborigine rights. Some sites sacred to Aborigines have been returned to them. One of these is Uluru, a giant sandstone monolith in central Australia. Ownership was returned to the Anangu, an Aborigine people, in 1985. They have leased it back to the Australian government, where it is part of a national park. While more than a quarter-million visitors are drawn to the park each year, they must follow the rules set by the Anangu.

Aborigine sacred sites have been taken over by dominant white society, and efforts were made in the past to squelch Aborigines’ beliefs. Nevertheless, the myths have lived on. In some remoter areas of the continent, where isolation makes it easier, Aborigines practice traditional rituals.

Beliefs and Practices

The Dreaming relates that the Ancestors, the original spirits, are the source of human life and the natural world. They walked over the land, which was without any features—it had no rocks or rivers, no mountains or trees. The Ancestors created the landforms seen now. They also established the bonds that link Aborigine groups to specific areas of land. With this creation work done, they themselves transformed, and their bodies became trees and rocks, bodies of water and stars. These sites that were once the body of an ancestor are sacred places to the Aborigines and have strong spiritual power. This power is ongoing, and, since the Ancestors’ spirit is still present, that power can be tapped. The Ancestors can release this power into the world as long as the Aborigines follow the law; indeed, they must release it for life to go on.

The Gagadju people’s story of Warramurrungundjui, a fertility goddess, is an example of these stories. It tells how this Ancestor rose out of the sea, then gave birth to the first people. She also gave them languages. She brought yams and other plants with her and used her digging stick to make waterholes. When she was finished creating, Warramurrungundjui turned herself into a rock.

Many Aborigine groups have myths of Rainbow Serpent, another creator, who is male in the myths of some groups and female in the myths of others. These myths relate that as Rainbow Serpent moved across the Earth, she also brought magic that caused rain, which filled the grooves made in the ground by her body. As the rain filled the grooves with water, they became the creeks, rivers, and lakes found across the land today. The myth goes on to explain that her breast milk made the land fertile and by digging into the earth, she raised up hills and mountains in some areas. Other parts of the Earth were left flat, and some were without water so they became deserts. Rainbow Serpent then went on to create all living creatures. She also created humans and taught them to be the stewards of the land.

Another myth relates the origin of the monolith Uluru. Alinga, the Lizard Man, was very fond of his boomerang. He was a giant, and he could hurl it with such force that it sometimes took several days to return to him. One day, he heaved the boomerang with all his might. Though Alinga waited patiently for days and weeks, the boomerang never returned. Finally, after years had passed, he set out to find the boomerang. He eventually discovered it stuck in the ground. Unable to wrench it from the Earth, despite his great strength, Alinga left it, where it became Uluru.

The paths walked by the Ancestors in ancient times are called songlines. These songlines connect the sacred sites. For thousands of years, living Aborigines have gone on "walkabouts," following the songlines pertaining to their groups. As they walked, they sang the song associated with the songline, which not only tells the story of the Ancestor’s journey but reveals how to reach the next sacred site. When the Aborigine walkers reach a site, they carry out ritual actions to release its spiritual power.

Males are given the responsibility of maintaining the sacred power of these sites and of knowing the songs. They learned the songs by undergoing an initiation that marked their transition from childhood to adulthood and which began anywhere from six to sixteen, depending on the group. Boys are taught by elders, and the instruction included both information for survival in the natural world and the sacred songs and stories. In some groups, women wailed as the boys left the camp, reflecting the belief in a spirit that would swallow the initiates and then spit them out again, which symbolized the boys’ transition to knowledge and adulthood. In another symbol of the boys’ rebirth, men would swing a bullroarer frog over the heads of the boys as they learned stories. That frog symbolized a mythic creature associated with death and rebirth.

Several kinds of animals belonged to each clan. Individuals would choose one of those animals as their totem animal, which had special spiritual significance. Often people did not eat their totem animal, as it was seen as being of the same spiritual substance as they were. Some people speculate that by choosing different totems, people from a small group ensured that they did not overeat a particular resource.

Art has sacred significance; it is not self-expression, but spiritual communication. As one Aboriginal artist said, "You have your traditional artwork that ties in with the land and ties in with the creation, where your boundary is, how far your ancestor has travelled. It’s all written in art" (Kerwin 72). Dot patterns are frequent motifs; the dots can represent vegetation. These same patterns can be found on rock paintings, sand paintings, and body art. Some ground art, such as sand painting, is used for instruction, the ground serving as a blackboard. Some modern Aborigines have adopted newer, European technologies for their art, rendering traditional symbols and themes in oils and acrylics on canvas.

Song and dance are also part of some spiritual ceremonies. While some Aborigines do not want their photograph taken, fearing that the camera captures their soul, others have accepted photo and video technology. Some groups even use the latter to preserve traditional practices like more public, less sacred, dances. Either way, the decision is based on an abiding respect for and adherence to tradition. The Dreaming lives in the present.

Bibliography

"About Uluru and Kata Tjuta." Parks Australia. Parks Australia, 2016. Web. 18 Feb. 2016. <http://www.parksaustralia.gov.au/uluru/people-place/amazing-facts.html>.

Berndt, Ronald M., and Catherine H. Berndt. The Speaking Land: Myth and Story in Aboriginal Australia. Rochester: Inner Traditions, 1994. Print.

Cane, Scott. First Footprints: The Epic Story of the First Australians. Sydney: Allen, 2014. Print.

Kerwin, Dale. Aboriginal Dreaming Paths and Trading Routes: The Colonisation of the Australian Economic Landscape. Eastbourne: Sussex Acad., 2010. Print.

McLeod, Pauline E., Francis Firebrace Jones, and June E. Barker. Gadi Mirrabooka: Australian Aboriginal Tales from the Dreaming. Englewood: Libraries Unlimited, 2001. Print.

Peters-Little, Frances, Ann Curthoys, and John Decker, eds. Passionate Histories: Myth, Memory and Indigenous Australia. Canberra: ANU E Press and Aboriginal History, 2011. Print.

Somerville, Margaret, and Tony Perkins. Singing the Coast. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies, 2010. Print.

"The Dreaming." About Australia. Commonwealth of Australia, 31 Mar. 2015. Web. 18 Feb. 2016. <http://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/dreaming>.