I'll start with the quote Ian gave in another post:
"Fred Alan Wolf opens chapter nine of The Dreaming Universe (1994) entitled The Dreamtime with a quote from The Last Wave, a film by Peter Weir:
Aboriginals believe in two forms of time. Two parallel streams of activity. One is the daily objective activity ... The other is an infinite spiritual cycle called the "dreamtime," more real than reality itself. Whatever happens in the dreamtime establishes the values, symbols, and laws of Aboriginal society. Some people of unusual spiritual powers have contact with the dreamtime.
The traditions and lore of Australia's indigenous peoples belong to what may be the oldest continuous culture on Earth (circa 50,000 years). Indigenous Australian peoples conceive of all things beginning with The Dreaming or Altjeringa (also called the Dreamtime), a sacred 'once upon a time' [1] time out of time that forms an endemic cultural memeplex where archetypal shapeshifting ancestral Totemic Spirit Beings formed The Creation.
As Lawlor (1991: p.36) evocatively codifies:
The great ancestral beings were vast, unbounded, intangible, vibratory bodies, similar to fields of energy. They created by drawing vibratory energy out of themselves and stabilizing this energy and by specifying or naming - the inner name is the potency of the form or creature. The comparable image is the creation of sounds, words, or songs from the vibration of breath. Aborigines refer to the Dreamtime creation as the world being "sung" into existence. [2]
In The Dreaming Everywhen of unbounded timelessness, these shapeshifting Totemic Spirit Beings (sometimes called Sky Heroes, or Creative Ancestors) dream: dream of waking, waking in dream. Their dreamings are of their future waking pastimes, dreaming their past."
"'Dreaming' is also often used to refer to an individual's or group's set of beliefs or spirituality. For instance, an Indigenous Australian might say that they have Kangaroo Dreaming, or Shark Dreaming, or Honey Ant Dreaming, or any combination of Dreamings pertinent to their 'country'. However, many Indigenous Australians also refer to the creation time as 'The Dreaming'."
To begin, we need to place the Aboriginals in time and culture. I am only speaking here of the ‘Old People’ - the Aboriginals before the Europeans decimated them, and as there are many different tribes with different beliefs and practices, I will only refer to some of those that help draw the general picture. First, it is common to use the word ‘Aboriginal’, instead of the correct grammar ‘Aborigine’, as the latter word has historical unpleasant associations for them. It is an interesting issue of what is the connection between the current Aboriginals and the Old People, but that is outside this post, as I want to talk mainly to the Dreamtime.
The current Aboriginals, esp those in the remote north of Aust, have nothing but the highest respect for the Old People, and so should we. Latest dating indicates they have been continuously living in Aust for at least 60,000 years. You should try to get a picture of what their life was like, as that informs understanding of the Dreamtime. Conditions were very different across the continent - around where I live, which is from the mountain tablelands of my town to the the coast, about 50-100 km away, living conditions were perhaps the most pleasurable of any situation in the world. The tablelands were cool in summer, and the coastal strip was a fairyland of abundant water, fish, bird, animal and other wild life - temperature very mild aside from mid summer. It is hard to imagine a more comfortable life. All that has now changed of course - the forests, birds, animals, clean water, fish ... almost all gone.
The Aboriginals of the desert of Central and North Australia are what we think of as the ‘classic’ Aboriginal. Life for them could be extremely harsh. They lived as close to the land as was physically possible, and they had to know it so intimately they could survive the long droughts. Other than drought, there are many abundant food areas, if you know when and how to find them.
The point to get clear about is that they wore no clothes and had almost no possessions what-so-ever. Spears, bowls, digging sticks, woven baskets - that’s pretty much it, and none of these were persistent, they just made new ones as and when they needed them. They were totally hunter-gatherer, and often roamed willy-nilly around the country. Few other cultures could match their almost complete absence of material world possessions. After 60,000 years there is almost no residue of physical manifestations of their existence - a few rock paintings, and a few midden heaps of clam shells and that’s it. Australia is as clean and un-littered culturally from their long existence , as if they had never been here. Like magic, they left almost no trace.
This indicates a fact of their ‘focus’. Little time and energy was spent on physical endeavours, aside from food which wasn’t that problematic. The real focus of their lives was in the non-physical. Their ceremonial, navigational, and person-to-land life was very intensely spiritual. The full force of personal ambition was played out in the field of the spiritual. Not that they were all ‘holy’ by any means - they were humans like any others, and had their fair share of gross: murders, rapes etc.
When a boy reached puberty, he left his mother (he could even retain access to her breasts for all that time in some cases), to whom from then on he was ‘dead’. A very dramatic life change. He would undergo his first initiation, in which his foreskin was cut off, and he then had to become an adult, in all that that means. He was initiated into one of the Dreamtime stories, and all it’s landscape associations. It was observed in the schools, that immediately after initiation, boys began to draw their song lines in the customary dot method, when up till then they drew just like every white kid. Women also had their counterpart.
That’s the background. The Dreamtime existed long before humans, and continues to exist - there is a parallel world type of approach. When Aboriginals die, they go with their tribe or subgroup to the Dreamtime. They have no concept of ‘individual’ existence and thus never face birth or death alone - that idea which is so pivotal to our Toltec/Buddhist/et al path has no meaning to them. They ‘belong’, to country, totem, tribe, ‘skin’ etc - belonging is everything to them.
The classic Dreamtime is about powerful beings who swept across the land, and made the land, and everything in it. Everything, absolutely everything, in the land is connected to the Dreamtime. If not by specific identification, then by association with its own totem story.
A typical case. Some great hoary male being will be chasing some female beings, in order to have sex with them. This is common - the Dreamtime beings were capable of anything. Current desert Aboriginals will hear no bad stuff about the Old People, but in the Dreamtime, anything goes, or went (however you view it). He will sweep down over the mountains, and at this point, the story teller will point to the actual valley in the hills which was created thereby. He will stop and pant awhile, all excited, with sperm dripping from his penis - points to rock where he stopped, and water pools where semen fell (similar to Hindu in that way). Women were hiding - points to cave where they hid, and rocks where they stood.
The chase goes on, trees, rocks, hills, creeks, all are the ‘physical’ components of the song line story, and in the story, knowledge of the land is embedded, so that they who know the song line can safely travel that way. Aboriginals become very unsure when they step off their known story land, as they have no map for survival, and that is crucial.
The point I want to make, is that the land and its features is intimately aligned with the Dreamtime and its stories. The Dreamtime is happening now, and in the distant past. Each person is also complexly embedded into this by belonging to a specific ‘dreaming’ - say crocodile dreaming, or honey-ant dreaming, or barramundi dreaming.
One of the most famous is the Rainbow Serpent, which is the dark thread running through the Milky Way - better seen in the southern hemisphere. He is the big guy in most stories.
A typical evening around the fire - songs will be sung with ‘low’ level words and meanings. As the night progresses, and the uninitiated go to bed, the same songs will take on a new meaning with some changed or new words. Then later, as only highly initiated remain, even more secret meanings appear in the same songs. This way, the same song ties everyone together, but allows for levels of significance and power. The more songs one knows, the more such a person is feared and respected. Songs have power, as they are the Dreamtime, and can be used to call good or bad.
The position of the witch doctor is interesting. They belong with the tribe, and do a lot of healing by sucking stones out of kidneys. The sorcerer is another figure who stands mostly outside the tribal scene, which is curious, as he appears to be an ‘individual’. Greatly feared, he travels in feather slippers so as to leave no trace. Much of the witch doctor/sorcerer stuff is astral travelling - up to the Rainbow Serpent, or across the land. There are many interesting stories recorded.
Pictures of Aboriginals, esp from the desert, are stunning - they often have extremely noble miens - quite strikingly beautiful in their rugged way. They also exude a wise, calm dignity that is almost completely absent from modern human experience. In my early days of study I used to gaze at these faces, and seep into a world so steeped in integrity, hardship and spirit. Also pictures of the Dreamtime physical objects - especially trees, which had a wild powerful emanation.
Lastly, I should mention the sky. The skies of the Australian outback are like none other - they are for me the greatest manifestation of the power of the Dreamtime. I can’t explain, but it is noticeable in pictures also - so vast and the clouds stretch to eternity!
