tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/dreamtime-8644/articles
Dreamtime – The Conversation
2020-09-13T19:50:41Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/145923
2020-09-13T19:50:41Z
2020-09-13T19:50:41Z
New coins celebrate Indigenous astronomy, the stars, and the dark spaces between them
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357584/original/file-20200911-20-j92rhe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3000%2C2995&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Seven Sisters Uncirculated Coin. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Royal Australian Mint</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Two new coins have been released by the <a href="https://eshop.ramint.gov.au/">Royal Australian Mint</a> to celebrate the astronomical knowledge and traditions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. They feature artworks from Wiradjuri (NSW) and Yamaji (WA) artists that represent two of the most famous features in Aboriginal astronomy: the great Emu in the Sky and the Seven Sisters.</p>
<p>Both celestial features are found in the astronomical traditions of many Aboriginal cultures across Australia. They are seen in similar ways and have similar meanings between cultures on opposite sides of the continent and are observed to note the changing seasons and the behaviours of plants and animals and inform Law.</p>
<p>The project has been three years in the making, with the third and final coin in the series to be released in mid-2021.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/kindred-skies-ancient-greeks-and-aboriginal-australians-saw-constellations-in-common-74850">Kindred skies: ancient Greeks and Aboriginal Australians saw constellations in common</a>
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<h2>Gugurmin – The Emu in the Sky</h2>
<p>The Wiradjuri of central New South Wales are the largest Aboriginal language group in the state and one of the largest in the country. Wiradjuri astronomical knowledge is rich and complex, linking the land and people to the cosmos (<em>Wantanggangura</em>). Traditional star knowledge features bright constellations of stars, as well as constellations comprising the spaces between the stars.</p>
<p>One of the many “dark constellations” is that of the celestial emu, called <em>Gugurmin</em>. The emu is a silhouette of the dark spaces stretching from the Southern Cross to Sagittarius in the backdrop of the Milky Way. The galaxy itself is a river called <em>Gular</em> (or <em>Gilaa</em>), which is also the Wiradjuri name of the Lachlan River.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357421/original/file-20200910-22-m0k5m8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two decorative coins with Indigenous designs." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357421/original/file-20200910-22-m0k5m8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357421/original/file-20200910-22-m0k5m8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=289&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357421/original/file-20200910-22-m0k5m8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=289&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357421/original/file-20200910-22-m0k5m8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=289&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357421/original/file-20200910-22-m0k5m8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357421/original/file-20200910-22-m0k5m8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357421/original/file-20200910-22-m0k5m8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Two new uncirculated silver $1 coins commemorate Indigenous astronomy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Royal Australian Mint</span></span>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/stories-from-the-sky-astronomy-in-indigenous-knowledge-33140">Stories from the sky: astronomy in Indigenous knowledge</a>
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</em>
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<p>Wiradjuri watch when Gugurmin rises in the sky after sunset as a signal marking the emu’s behaviour patterns and changing seasons. When it rises at dusk in April and May, it signals the start of the emu breeding season, when the birds begin mating and nesting. By June and July, the male emus are sitting in the nest, incubating the eggs. In August and September, the chicks begin hatching.</p>
<p>The Emu in the Sky coin features the work of Wiradjuri artist <a href="https://www.parkesphoenix.com.au/peak-hill-artists-celestial-emu-coined/">Scott “Sauce” Towney</a> from Peak Hill, NSW. Sauce specialises in drawing and pyrography (wood burning) and was a finalist in the NSW Premier’s Indigenous Art Awards. The edge of the coin shows a male emu sitting on the eggs during the months of June and July when his celestial counterpart is stretched across the sky. It also shows men dancing in a ceremony, which takes place in August and September.</p>
<p>Gugurmin was one of the artworks Sauce created for a project entitled <em>Wiradjuri Murriyang</em> (“Wiradjuri Sky World”). This featured 13 traditional constellations for use in local school education programs, as well as public outreach. His art was incorporated into the <a href="http://stellarium.org/">Stellarium</a> planetarium software, enabling users around the world to see the movements of the stars from a Wiradjuri perspective.</p>
<p>Sauce’s work was incorporated into the Australian National Curriculum for the Year 7/8 module on <a href="https://indigenousknowledge.unimelb.edu.au/curriculum/resources/digital-technology-and-managing-indigenous-astronomical-knowledge">digital technology and managing Indigenous astronomical knowledge</a>.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-stories-behind-aboriginal-star-names-now-recognised-by-the-worlds-astronomical-body-87617">The stories behind Aboriginal star names now recognised by the world's astronomical body</a>
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<h2>Nyarluwarri – The Seven Sisters</h2>
<p>The artwork featured on the Seven Sisters coin is from Wajarri-Noongar artist <a href="http://www.yamajiart.com/artists/christine-collard/">Christine “Jugarnu” Collard</a> of <a href="http://www.yamajiart.com/">Yamaji Art</a>. Christine was born and raised in Mullewa, Western Australia and paints under the name <em>Jugarnu</em> meaning “old woman” in the Wajarri language. The name was given to Christine by her now deceased Grandfather.</p>
<p>The Yamaji people of the Murchison region in Western Australia refer to the Pleiades star cluster as <em>Nyarluwarri</em> in the Wajarri language, representing seven sisters. When Nyarluwarri sits low on the horizon at sunset in April, the people know that emu eggs are ready for harvesting.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357418/original/file-20200910-19-1aj87r2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357418/original/file-20200910-19-1aj87r2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357418/original/file-20200910-19-1aj87r2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357418/original/file-20200910-19-1aj87r2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357418/original/file-20200910-19-1aj87r2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357418/original/file-20200910-19-1aj87r2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357418/original/file-20200910-19-1aj87r2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Seven Sisters painting by Christine Jugarnu Collard and the Pleiades star cluster.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Christine Collard, Yamaji Art</span></span>
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<p>The story of the Seven Sisters tells of them fleeing to the sky to escape the advances of a man who wants to take one of the sisters as his wife. The man chases the sisters as they move from east to west each night, which appear to the northeast at dusk in November and set by April.</p>
<p>At the same time Nyarluwarri sets after the Sun in the west, the celestial emu (which is also featured in Yamaji traditions) rises in the southeast. Both serve as important seasonal markers.</p>
<p>The Seven Sisters and the Emu in the Sky were major themes in the <a href="http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pdf/2014JAHH...17..205G"><em>Ilgarijiri</em></a> – Things Belonging to the Sky art exhibition. This project saw radio astronomers and Yamaji artists come together to share knowledge under the stars at the site of the new <a href="https://www.skatelescope.org/australia/">Square Kilometre Array</a> (SKA) telescope.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-culture-and-astrophysics-a-path-to-reconciliation-42607">Indigenous culture and astrophysics: a path to reconciliation</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145923/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Duane W. Hamacher was the consultant for the commemorative coins on Indigenous Astronomy developed by the Royal Australian Mint. He received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Laby Foundation, and the Pierce Bequest at the University of Melbourne.</span></em></p>
Two new coins released by the Royal Australian Mint celebrate Indigenous astronomers, who have used the stars to map changing seasons, inform the behaviours of plants and animals, and encode Law.
Duane Hamacher, Associate Professor, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/80462
2017-07-04T20:09:51Z
2017-07-04T20:09:51Z
Jukurrpa-kurlu Yapa-kurlangu-kurlu
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176683/original/file-20170704-32624-1c2acgb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rosie Tasman Napurrurla, Warlpiri 2002, Ngurlu Jukurrpa (‘Grass Seed; Bush Grain Dreaming’), line etching on Hahnemuhle paper. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Warnayaka Art Centre, Lajamanu, and Aboriginal Art Prints Network, Sydney</span></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176684/original/file-20170704-32566-1eb3inj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176684/original/file-20170704-32566-1eb3inj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176684/original/file-20170704-32566-1eb3inj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176684/original/file-20170704-32566-1eb3inj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176684/original/file-20170704-32566-1eb3inj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176684/original/file-20170704-32566-1eb3inj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176684/original/file-20170704-32566-1eb3inj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176684/original/file-20170704-32566-1eb3inj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jeannie Nungarrayi Herbert.
Ngarlkirdi Jukurrpa (Witchetty grub Dreaming) 1989
earthenware
20.2 x 20.2 cm diameter
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased from Admission Funds, 1991
O.9-1991</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Courtesy of Warnayaka Art Centre, Lajamanu</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>This article is an edited Warlpiri translation of “‘Dreamtime’ and ‘The Dreaming’ – an introduction”. <a href="http://theconversation.com/dreamtime-and-the-dreaming-an-introduction-20833">Read the English version here</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>It’s <a href="http://www.naidoc.org.au/">NAIDOC Week</a> and the theme this year is “Our Languages Matter”. The Warlpiri language is co-author Valerie Napanangka Patterson’s mother tongue. Like most Australian Aboriginal languages, Warlpiri is threatened from multiple directions, including by the Australian education, health and legal systems, and the dominant culture’s general apathy and lack of support for maintaining these globally endangered languages. Many have already been lost.</em></p>
<p><em>Even today in Australia linguicide persists. As recently as February 2016 the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-18/nt-warlpiri-minister-denied-request-to-speak-indigenous-language/7178298">NT politician Bess Nungarrayi Price</a>, whose first language is Warlpiri, was ruled disorderly by the NT Parliament and prevented from speaking Warlpiri in the House.</em></p>
<p><em>For the remaining Australian languages to survive, as Valerie Napanangka stated on <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4678265.htm">ABC’s Q&A on Monday</a>, Australians need to work as a team, and that’s what we’ve done in writing this article. To the best of our knowledge this is the first ever article written entirely in an Aboriginal language and published on a mainstream media outlet in this country. And Aboriginal languages really do matter - to all Australians. Language and identity are indivisible.</em> </p>
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<h2>Jukurrpa-kurlu yapa-kurlangu-kurlu</h2>
<p>Nyurruwiyi, ngajarra kalarlijarra tija warrki-jarrija <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/comment/obituaries/obituary-jeannie-nungarrayis-skill-in-the-warlpiri-language-made-her-an-advocate-for-bilingual-programs-20150205-136ohd.html">Jeannie Herbert Nungarrayi-jarra kuurlurla Lajamanurla (1953-2014)</a>.</p>
<p>Linguist-wiyi kalarna warrki-jarrija, ngula-jangkaju kalarna principal nyinaja Lajamanurlaju. Ngulajangkaju 2002-rla, Nungarrayirliji yirri-puraja Jukurrpa, yangka Warlpiri-patu-kurlangu.</p>
<p>Kulalpalu-nganpa yapa Warlpiri-patu purda-nyangkarla manu milya-pungkarla kardiyarlu, yikalu ngurrpa-wiyi nyina jukurrpaku nganimpa-nyanguku. Nganimpa kalu-nganpa puta pina-nyanyi, yikalu nyina Jukurrpaku ngurrpa. Kajilpalu pina-jarriyarla jukurrpaku, kajikalu-nganpa pinangkulku milya-pinyi. Jukurrparluju kanganpa yapa jungarni-mani manu pina-mani nyiyakantikantiki.</p>
<p>Kulaka Jukurrpaju nguna nyurruwarnu-mipa, jalanguju kanganpa karri kuruwarri yapakurlangu. Jukurrpaju ngulaju Warlpirikirlangu; Jukurrpaju ngulaju yapakarikirlangu-yijala. Jukurrpa ngulaju nyurru-warnu tarnnga-juku kujakarnalu mardarni-jiki nganimparluju. Tarnngangku-juku karnalu mardarni Jukurrpaju.
Nyampurlu walyangku ka mardani Warlpiri Jukurrpa.</p>
<p>Nyampuju yirri-puraja Nungarrayirli Jukurrpaju yapakurlanguju.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176703/original/file-20170704-13176-1l1wk1q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176703/original/file-20170704-13176-1l1wk1q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176703/original/file-20170704-13176-1l1wk1q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176703/original/file-20170704-13176-1l1wk1q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176703/original/file-20170704-13176-1l1wk1q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176703/original/file-20170704-13176-1l1wk1q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176703/original/file-20170704-13176-1l1wk1q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176703/original/file-20170704-13176-1l1wk1q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Molly Tasman Napurrurla, Warlpiri, 2003, Marrkirdi Jukurrpa, (‘Wild Bush Plum Dreaming’), on Magnani Pescia paper, image size 490x320 mm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Warnayaka Arts Centre Lajamanu, and Aboriginal Art Prints Network, Oxford Street, Sydney</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>“Dreamtime” manu “Dreaming”: nyiyaku?</h2>
<p>Kardiyarlu kalu Jukurrpa ngarrirni “<a href="http://theconversation.com/dreamtime-and-the-dreaming-an-introduction-20833">Dreamtime” manu “Dreaming</a>”. Ngurrakari-ngurrakarirli kalu mardarni kuruwarri warlalja. </p>
<h2>“Everywhen”: tarnnga-warnu</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176687/original/file-20170704-7743-4q1iwt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176687/original/file-20170704-7743-4q1iwt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176687/original/file-20170704-7743-4q1iwt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176687/original/file-20170704-7743-4q1iwt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176687/original/file-20170704-7743-4q1iwt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176687/original/file-20170704-7743-4q1iwt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176687/original/file-20170704-7743-4q1iwt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176687/original/file-20170704-7743-4q1iwt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Valerie Patterson Napanangka, circa 1986. Napanangka was also a major contributor to the translation of Storm Boy by Colin Thiele - the first English language novel to be translated into the Warlpiri language.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Jukurrpaju nyurru-warnu, jalangu-warnu. Kamparru-warnu-paturlu kalalu mardarnu. Jalangu-warnu-paturlu kalu mardarni-jiki.</p>
<p>Anthropologist-rli yirdingki W.E.H. Stanner-rlu kala-jana kardiyaku yimi-ngarrurnu nyurruwiyi 1956-rla yapakurlangu Jukurrpa. Ngarrurnu “everywhen”. Yirrarnu pipa-kurra nyanungurluju, kuja: “One cannot ‘fix’ The Dreaming in time: it was, and is, everywhen”.</p>
<p>“Kulalpa nganangku wurduju-mantarla kuruwarriji. Tarnnga-juku ka nguna. Jalanguju.” (Valerie Napanangka Patterson, 2017)</p>
<h2>Yirdikari-yirdikari Jukurrpa-kurlangu</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176686/original/file-20170704-32624-1q0x9tp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176686/original/file-20170704-32624-1q0x9tp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176686/original/file-20170704-32624-1q0x9tp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176686/original/file-20170704-32624-1q0x9tp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176686/original/file-20170704-32624-1q0x9tp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176686/original/file-20170704-32624-1q0x9tp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176686/original/file-20170704-32624-1q0x9tp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176686/original/file-20170704-32624-1q0x9tp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Louisa Lawson Napaljarri (Louisa Lawson Napaljarri, c.1926-1931 -2001 ), Warlpiri, Lajamanu N.T., Yunkaranyi (Yurrampi) Jukurrpa (‘Honey Ant Dreaming’), 1986, acrylic on Belgian linen, 76 x 76cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© the artist’s estate, courtesy of Warnayaka Arts, Lajamanu</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Jukurrpaju kalu yirdi-mani yirdi-kari yirdi-kari Yapangku jarukari-jarukarirli.
Kardiya-wangurla-wiyi kalalu Yapa wangkaja jarukari-jarukari nyanungu-nyangu warlarlja, ngulaju panu, panu-nyayirni 250-pala-rlangu. Jaru warlalja kalalu wangkaja. </p>
<p>Kardiyarlu kalu Jukurrpa ngarrirni “Dreaming” manu “Dreamtime”, kala kulakalu purda-nyanyi Jukurrpaju yapa-piyarlu, lawa.</p>
<p>Warlpirirli kalu ngarrirni Jukurrpa nyanungu-nyangurlu jarungku. Kakarrara-malurlu Yapangku, Yarrirntirli (Arrernterli) kalu ngarrirni Altyerrenge manu Altyerr (kujalu nyurruwiyi yirrarnu pipa-kurra Althira manu Alcheringa). </p>
<p>Karlarra East Kimberley-rla kalu nyina Kija-patu. Nyanungurrarlu Kijangku kalu Jukurrpa ngarrirni Ngarrankarni; panukarirli kalu ngarrirni Ungud manu Wungud jarungku Ngarinyinirli, nyanungu-nyangurluju.</p>
<p>Pilbara-wardingkirli kalu ngarrirni Manguny jarungku nyanungu-nyangurlu. Yatijarra-malurlu kalu panukarirli ngarrirni Wongar, yangka kujakalu nyina Arnhem Land-rla, kakarrarni-nginti. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176688/original/file-20170704-7743-1gfb37i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176688/original/file-20170704-7743-1gfb37i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176688/original/file-20170704-7743-1gfb37i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176688/original/file-20170704-7743-1gfb37i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176688/original/file-20170704-7743-1gfb37i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176688/original/file-20170704-7743-1gfb37i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176688/original/file-20170704-7743-1gfb37i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176688/original/file-20170704-7743-1gfb37i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Maisie Granites Napangardi, Karnta-kurlangu/Kana-kurlangu Jukurrpa (‘Women’s Digging Sticks Dreaming’), 2000, acrylic on canvas, 120 x 122 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy Warnayaka Arts Centre Lajamanu, Peter Böhm Collection, and Burrinja, Melbourne.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Yirdikari-yirdikari Jukurrpa-kurlangu</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176692/original/file-20170704-15991-p4ytad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176692/original/file-20170704-15991-p4ytad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176692/original/file-20170704-15991-p4ytad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176692/original/file-20170704-15991-p4ytad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176692/original/file-20170704-15991-p4ytad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176692/original/file-20170704-15991-p4ytad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1012&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176692/original/file-20170704-15991-p4ytad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1012&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176692/original/file-20170704-15991-p4ytad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1012&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ronnie Jakamarra Lawson (c. 1928- 2012), Warlpiri/Pintupi, Lajamanu, 2003, Karnta-kurlangu Jukurrpa (‘Women’s Dreaming’), print on Magnani Pescia paper, image size 490 x 320 mm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of the Lawson family, Warnayaka Art Centre, Lajamanu, and Aboriginal Art Prints Network, Sydney.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Warlpirirli kalu yirri-purami Jukurrpaju yimingki nyanungu-nyangurlu. Yirdi panu kalu mardarni yangka Jukurrpa-kurlanguju. Kamparru-warnu ngulaju kuruwarri. Kuruwarrirli kajana yapaku milki-yirrarni Jukurrpa-warnu. Kuruwarri nyanjarla kalu yapa pina-jarri Jukurrpakuju, manu kalu-jana panukariki milki-yirrarni Jukurrpakari-Jukurrpakari kujakalu kijirni malkarri-rlanguju manu puwarrilypa-rlanguju.</p>
<p>Yirdi panukari ngulaju pirlirrpa, yiwirnngi, kurruwalpa. Kajilparla yapaku jurnta-yantarla pirlirrpaju, kajika yapaju nyurnu-jarri. Pirlirrpa-kurluju ngulaju ka wankaru-juku nyina yapaju. Yiwirnngi karla nguna yapaku kuja palka-manu ngatingkiji, yangka kujarla miyalu-kurra yukaja kurruwalpaju. Yirdi panu kalu mardarni Warlpirirli Jukurrpakurlanguju.</p>
<h2>Pina-jarriya Australia!</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176693/original/file-20170704-32624-lt2nvd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176693/original/file-20170704-32624-lt2nvd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176693/original/file-20170704-32624-lt2nvd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176693/original/file-20170704-32624-lt2nvd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176693/original/file-20170704-32624-lt2nvd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176693/original/file-20170704-32624-lt2nvd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176693/original/file-20170704-32624-lt2nvd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176693/original/file-20170704-32624-lt2nvd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Henry Cook Jakamarra (‘Pardi Pardi’), Lajamanu-wardingki, born circa 1917-22, Yumurrpa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photograph by Christine Nicholls, 2002; reproduced with permission from Neil Jupurrurla Cook & family.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yungulu Australia-wardingki-paturlu, kardiyarlu manu panukarirli, pina-jarri yapakurlanguku Jukurrpaku manu kuruwarriki.
Jukurrpa-juku kajana nguna panuku yapaku, yangka Australia-wardingkiki. Kala kuruwarrikari-kuruwarrikari kalu-jana jarnku-jarnku mardarni warlalja-nyayirni, yangka kujakalu nyina ngurukari-ngurukarirla. Yapangku kalu purami nyanungu-nyangu Jukurrpa yangka warlalja yilpalu-jana pina-yungu kamparru-warnu-paturlu, nyurnu-paturlu, Jukurrpaku-ngarduyurluju.</p>
<p>Jalangu-jalangurlu yungulpalu kardiyarlu yampiyarla <a href="http://theconversation.com/dreamtime-and-the-dreaming-who-dreamed-up-these-terms-20835">“Dreaming” manu “Dreamtime”</a> ngarrirninja-wangurlulku. </p>
<p>Yungulpalu marda pina-jarriyarla yapakurlanguku yimiki. Yungulpalu Jukurrpa yirdi-mantarla yapa-piyarlulku.</p>
<p><strong>NGULA-JUKU</strong> </p>
<p>Dedicate-mani karnalurla Pardipardiki</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article was co-authored by Valerie Napanangka Patterson, a Warlpiri woman who lives in Lajamanu, NT, and currently works in the Learning Centre.</em></p>
<p><em>This article was amended on July 5 2017 to restore a section inadvertently removed in the editing process.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80462/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The theme of this year’s NAIDOC week is “Our Languages Matter”. Aboriginal languages under threat across Australia. Read a Warlpiri introduction to Dreamtime and The Dreaming.
Christine Judith Nicholls, Senior Lecturer in Australian Studies, Flinders University
Mary Laughren, Honorary Senior Research Fellow, School of Languages and Cultures, The University of Queensland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/20835
2014-01-28T19:46:46Z
2014-01-28T19:46:46Z
‘Dreamtime’ and ‘The Dreaming’: who dreamed up these terms?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39722/original/xc783g5k-1390439099.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">George Liwukan Bukulaptji, 1990, Yolngu, Galiwin'ku, (Elcho Island), Octopus Dreaming, Garumara, acrylic with natural pigments on canvas, 76x152cm.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© the artist's estate, licensed by Aboriginal Artists Agency Ltd; Burkhardt-Felder Collection, Switzerland</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>**
**We’re all, it seems, familiar with the terms “Dreamtime” and “The Dreaming” in relation to Aboriginal Australian culture, but – as I noted in <a href="https://theconversation.com/dreamtime-and-the-dreaming-an-introduction-20833">the first part of this series</a> – such terms are grossly inadequate: they carry significant baggage and erase the complexities of the original concepts. </p>
<p>So how did this terminology enter the English language?</p>
<p>In the late 19th century <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gillen-francis-james-6383">Francis Gillen</a>, the post- and telegraph stationmaster in Alice Springs – an Arrernte speaker (spelled Arunta at that time) and keen ethnologist – became the first person on record to use the expression “dream times” as a translation for the complex Arrernte word-concept Ülchurringa (“Alcheringa”; “Altyerrenge” or “Altyerr”), the name of Arrernte people’s system of religious belief. </p>
<p>Gillen, who had begun working in Alice Springs in 1892, collaborated with <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/spencer-sir-walter-baldwin-8606">Walter Baldwin Spencer</a>, a Lancashire-born biologist and anthropologist in “studying” the Arrernte. By all accounts, Gillen had forged mutually respectful relationships with the local Arrernte people.</p>
<p>Baldwin Spencer popularised Gillen’s words in his <a href="http://archive.org/stream/reportonworkhor02horngoog/reportonworkhor02horngoog_djvu.txt">1896 account</a> of the Horn Expedition. Without academic endorsement by someone of Baldwin Spencer’s standing, Gillen’s translation would in all likelihood never have taken off, let alone entered populist discourse. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39737/original/ngcgsp6b-1390442355.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39737/original/ngcgsp6b-1390442355.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39737/original/ngcgsp6b-1390442355.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39737/original/ngcgsp6b-1390442355.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39737/original/ngcgsp6b-1390442355.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39737/original/ngcgsp6b-1390442355.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39737/original/ngcgsp6b-1390442355.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39737/original/ngcgsp6b-1390442355.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Baldwin Spencer seated with the Arrernte elders, Alice Springs, Central Australia, 1896.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So the term owes its credibility and contemporary ubiquity to Baldwin Spencer and the other anthropologists who followed him in using words or expressions that included the morpheme “dream” as a generic translation for <em>all</em> Indigenous Australian belief systems. </p>
<p>Subsequent to that 1896 publication, variants based on Gillen’s usage have become integral to almost all of the English words or expressions used to describe Australian Aboriginal religion.</p>
<h2>“The Dreaming” and the politics of translation</h2>
<p>Initially the uptake of Gillen’s terminology was gradual, but it morphed over time into “Dreamtime”. In <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/elkin-adolphus-peter-10109">A. P. Elkin</a>’s 1938 book <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Australian_aborigines.html?id=DJSAAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">The Australian Aborigines: How to Understand Them</a>, the anthropologist began using “Dreamtime” more or less interchangeably with “Dreaming”.</p>
<p>But it was undoubtedly the esteemed Australian anthropologist <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/stanner-william-edward-bill-15541">W.E.H. Stanner</a> who gave the term “The Dreaming” the fillip it needed to propel it into the broader English lexicon. Since then, “Dreamtime”, “Dream Time” or “Dreaming” have been widely deployed as generic names for all systems of Aboriginal religious practice. This is reflected in the widespread usage of this terminology today. </p>
<p>These terms have also entered many other world languages: most now use the nominal “dream” somewhere in the word or words used to convey the concept.</p>
<p>In French, such language use is evident in academic articles such as <a href="http://www.revue-chimeres.fr/drupal_chimeres/files/01chi02.pdf">Espaces de rêves</a> (1983), by French anthropologists Félix Guattari and Barbara Glowczewski, and in Glowczewski’s 1989 book, <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/22393907">Les rêveurs du désert - peuple warlpiri d'Australie</a>. The title refers to Warlpiri people as “dreamers of the desert”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39988/original/phjcy863-1390885067.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39988/original/phjcy863-1390885067.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39988/original/phjcy863-1390885067.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=688&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39988/original/phjcy863-1390885067.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=688&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39988/original/phjcy863-1390885067.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=688&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39988/original/phjcy863-1390885067.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=865&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39988/original/phjcy863-1390885067.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=865&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39988/original/phjcy863-1390885067.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=865&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tess Napaljarri Ross, Warlpiri, 2013, Wardapi (Pilja) Jukurrpa (‘Goanna Dreaming’) – Yarripirlangu, acrylic on canvas, 107x91cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© the artist; Warlukurlangu Artists, Yuendumu, Private Collection, Croatia.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a recent communication, a Croatian colleague of mine working in Australian Studies at the University of Zagreb, Dr Iva Polak, wrote about the challenges she faced in translating the concept of “The Dreaming”:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In Croatian I (as the only person working in this academic field) translate The Dreaming as Snivanje, which is a gerund form. The morpheme is “san”. Its etymology is Old Slavonic or more specifically Latin (somnus). <br></p>
<p>The direct derivative gerund from “san” would be sanjanje, which directly connotes having dreams while you sleep. This is why I go for Snivanje and the plural form Snivanja (to indicate the pluralism of the concept), which is less frequent in usage and might at least cause a certain degree of defamiliarisation in readers’ minds. <br></p>
<p>Moreover, there’s no way in the world that you will hear that word in everyday usage, unlike the English “dreaming”. However, every time you want to write about it in Croatian, it’s useful to indicate immediately that this is a flawed term based on the English term “Dreaming”.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39971/original/n2gz4fww-1390880152.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39971/original/n2gz4fww-1390880152.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39971/original/n2gz4fww-1390880152.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39971/original/n2gz4fww-1390880152.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39971/original/n2gz4fww-1390880152.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39971/original/n2gz4fww-1390880152.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39971/original/n2gz4fww-1390880152.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39971/original/n2gz4fww-1390880152.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ronnie Jakamarra Lawson Warlpiri, 2002, Women’s Dreaming, screenprint; opaque paint on four acetates, on Magnani Pescia paper, image size 640x480mm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Warnayaka Art Centre, Lajamanu, and Aboriginal Art Prints Network, Sydney; catalogue image Australian Embassy, Zagreb</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Dreams and “The Dreaming”</h2>
<p>Admittedly, in traditional Aboriginal life-ways dreams are attributed with potent power. On occasion new narratives, songs, dances and ceremonies can be introduced via dreams, but this is by no means an everyday occurrence and is just one strand of the complex concept that has become so widely known as “Dreaming”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39734/original/tb82qy65-1390441233.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39734/original/tb82qy65-1390441233.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39734/original/tb82qy65-1390441233.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39734/original/tb82qy65-1390441233.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39734/original/tb82qy65-1390441233.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39734/original/tb82qy65-1390441233.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39734/original/tb82qy65-1390441233.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39734/original/tb82qy65-1390441233.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Teddy Morrison Jupurrurla, Warlpiri, Kurlukuku Jukurrpa (‘Wild Bush Dove (Pigeon) Dreaming’), 2003, etching, sugar lift painting and acquaint on two plates on Hahnemuhle 350gsm paper, image size 49x23cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of Warnayaka Arts Centre, Lajamanu, and Aboriginal Art Prints Network, Oxford Street, Sydney.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Unfortunately, the dream-related terminology serves to erase the complexities of the original concepts in the many different Indigenous languages and cultures, by emphasising their putatively magical, fantastic and illusory attributes, when <a href="https://theconversation.com/dreamtime-and-the-dreaming-an-introduction-20833">The Jukurrpa, Altyerr, Ungud, Ngarrankarni, Manguny, Wongar, and so forth</a> are understood by their diverse Aboriginal adherents to be reality, religion, and the Law. </p>
<p>These are religions grounded in the earth itself, which provide a total epistemological and ontological framework accounting for every aspect of existence.</p>
<h2>“Dreaming Ancestors” and “Dreaming Narratives”</h2>
<p>Dreamings are Ancestral Beings associated with life forces and creative powers, knowledge of which is on occasion communicated to people by means of dreams. Invisible beings, with diverse names across the different language and cultural groups, carry around knowledge of these beings. </p>
<p>As stated previously, the rituals, visual art designs, songs, dances, places and ceremonies associated with these beings can be – although are not routinely – communicated to people through their dreams while they sleep.</p>
<p>The “Dreaming” and the actions and behaviour of the Ancestral Beings, who are in and of themselves “Dreamings”, provide models or templates for all human and non-human activity, social behaviour, ethics and morality. </p>
<p>Importantly, Dreaming Narratives also have encoded in them important information regarding local micro-environments, including local flora, fauna and the location of water, deep knowledge of “country”, and survival in specific locations. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39728/original/xb25ntwj-1390440129.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39728/original/xb25ntwj-1390440129.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39728/original/xb25ntwj-1390440129.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1022&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39728/original/xb25ntwj-1390440129.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1022&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39728/original/xb25ntwj-1390440129.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1022&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39728/original/xb25ntwj-1390440129.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1284&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39728/original/xb25ntwj-1390440129.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1284&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39728/original/xb25ntwj-1390440129.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1284&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Angela Nangala Parlinjirri Kelly, Warlpiri, Lajamanu, 2011, Watiya Warnu Jukurrpa (‘Seed Dreaming’), acrylic on linen, 85x50cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of Warnayaka Arts, Lajamanu, Northern Territory</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As such, “Dreamings” are significant means of intergenerational knowledge transmission, which in pre-contact days occurred entirely by word of mouth.</p>
<p>It also needs to be noted that Dreaming Ancestors frequently behave badly, acting as what could be described as “negative exemplars”. In this regard, these often-flawed Dreaming Ancestors may be regarded as structurally similar to the Greek gods – although Dreaming Ancestors are <em>not</em> gods, because The Dreaming is neither a monotheistic nor polytheistic religion. </p>
<p>These Creator Ancestors frequently exhibit shabby, even at times socially-transgressive, tendencies, mirroring the less savoury attributes of human behaviour, including lust, greed, a will to power, violence, bloodthirstiness, the ill-treatment of women and young girls, and worse. </p>
<p>(Other religions – including Christianity, through the Bible – are sources of <em>somewhat</em> structurally similar approaches. “Thou Shalt Not …” frames most of The Ten Commandments.)</p>
<p>Dreaming Narratives act as vehicles for identifying both appropriate and inappropriate human behaviours. In practice, that means illicit or forbidden activities, base deeds and other forms of destructive human conduct are identified, condemned and proscribed as existing outside of the boundaries of Indigenous law.</p>
<p>“Dreaming” is not conceived as belonging in a historical past as is, say, the case with the Biblical book of Genesis, with which the concept is sometimes compared on account of its foundational Creation narrative. There’s some degree of overlap with the Biblical Genesis, however, in terms of the originary creative activity of Dreaming Ancestors. </p>
<p>While the period of creation in Genesis is understood to have occurred in the past, “The Dreaming” is conceptualised as an eternal and continuing process involving the maintenance of life forces, embodied or symbolised as people, spirits, other natural species, or natural phenomena such as rocks, waterholes or constellations.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39510/original/xvxxd3d2-1390274626.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39510/original/xvxxd3d2-1390274626.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39510/original/xvxxd3d2-1390274626.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39510/original/xvxxd3d2-1390274626.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39510/original/xvxxd3d2-1390274626.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39510/original/xvxxd3d2-1390274626.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39510/original/xvxxd3d2-1390274626.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39510/original/xvxxd3d2-1390274626.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gali Yalkarriwuy, Galpu, Galiwin’ku (Elcho Island), North East Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, 1990, acrylic with natural pigments on canvas, 122x122cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© the artist, licensed by Aboriginal Artists Agency Ltd; Burkhardt-Felder Collection, Switzerland.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In certain parts of Australia, “Dreamings” may be fishes or other sea creatures. A “Dreaming” may be an animal, a reptile, insect, a human Ancestor, or a type of flora. </p>
<p>Bush-medicine vines, bush bean trees, or what’s often generically and simplistically designated as “bush tucker” in titles of artworks, various kinds of yams, bush berries, bush tomato, bush onion – all of these and more feature. Other parts of the natural world or environment that are also “Dreamings” include water, specific waterholes, stars or constellations (the Seven Sisters, or Milky Way, for instance). </p>
<p>A “Dreaming” may be a shape-changer and manifest itself in various different ways or forms – for example, as a human but also a tree, star, or even a mosquito. </p>
<p>In terms of English language use, the idea of “Dreaming” has now firmly taken hold, when it would be more accurate and respectful for <em>all</em> Australians to learn – and to use – local Indigenous language terms for this complex concept. </p>
<p>As nursing <a href="http://www.artsandmuseums.nt.gov.au/northern-territory-library/collections/personal_papers_collection/guide_to_papers_of_ellen_kettle/ellen_kettle_biography">Sister Ellen Kettle</a>, who was for many years posted at the Warlpiri settlement of Yuendumu, <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/21111275?selectedversion=NBD25196">wrote in 1952</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… white newcomers have assumed the right to rename almost everything.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><br></p>
<p><em>This article is the second in a series on “Dreamtime” and “The Dreaming”. <a href="https://theconversation.com/dreamtime-and-the-dreaming-an-introduction-20833">Read part one here</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/dreamings-and-dreaming-narratives-whats-the-relationship-20837">part three here.</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/20835/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christine Judith Nicholls does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
** **We’re all, it seems, familiar with the terms “Dreamtime” and “The Dreaming” in relation to Aboriginal Australian culture, but – as I noted in the first part of this series – such terms are grossly…
Christine Judith Nicholls, Senior Lecturer , Flinders University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/20833
2014-01-22T19:36:33Z
2014-01-22T19:36:33Z
‘Dreamtime’ and ‘The Dreaming’ – an introduction
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39286/original/3r6cmhqg-1389932567.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rosie Tasman Napurrurla, Warlpiri 2002, Ngurlu Jukurrpa ('Grass Seed; Bush Grain Dreaming'), line etching on Hahnemuhle paper. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Warnayaka Art Centre, Lajamanu, and Aboriginal Art Prints Network, Sydney</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2002, Jeannie Herbert Nungarrayi, formerly a Warlpiri teacher at the <a href="http://www.schools.nt.edu.au/riverscluster/lajamanu/default.htm">Lajamanu School</a> in the Tanami Desert of the Northern Territory, where I worked for many years first as a linguist and then as school principal, <a href="http://www.aboriginal-art.de/EN/Literatur_Info_MCA_2002_469.htm">explained</a> the central Warlpiri concept of the Jukurrpa in the following terms: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>To get an insight into us – [the Warlpiri people of the Tanami Desert] – it is necessary to understand something about our major religious belief, the Jukurrpa. The Jukurrpa is an all-embracing concept that provides rules for living, a moral code, as well as rules for interacting with the natural environment. </p>
<p>The philosophy behind it is holistic – the Jukurrpa provides for a total, integrated way of life. It is important to understand that, for Warlpiri and other Aboriginal people living in remote Aboriginal settlements, The Dreaming isn’t something that has been consigned to the past but is a lived daily reality. We, the Warlpiri people, believe in the Jukurrpa to this day.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In this succinct statement Nungarrayi touched on the subtlety, complexity and all-encompassing, non-finite nature of the Jukurrpa.</p>
<p>The concept is mostly known in grossly inadequate English translation as “The Dreamtime” or “The Dreaming”. The Jukurrpa can be mapped onto micro-environments in specific tracts of land that Aboriginal people call “country”. </p>
<p>As a religion grounded in the land itself, it incorporates creation and other land-based narratives, social processes including kinship regulations, morality and ethics. This complex concept informs people’s economic, cognitive, affective and spiritual lives.</p>
<h2>Everywhen</h2>
<p>The Dreaming embraces time past, present and future, a substantively different concept from populist characterisations portraying it as “timeless” or having taken place at the so-called “dawn of time”. Unfortunately, even in mainstream Australia today, when and where we should know better, schmaltzy, quasi-New Age notions of “The Dreaming” frequently still hold sway.</p>
<p>The Australian anthropologist <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/stanner-william-edward-bill-15541">W.E.H. Stanner</a> conveyed the idea more accurately in his germinal 1956 essay <a href="http://www.blackincbooks.com/books/dreaming-other-essays">The Dreaming</a>, in which he coined the term “everywhen”: </p>
<p>“One cannot ‘fix’ The Dreaming in time: it was, and is, everywhen” wrote Stanner, adding that The Dreaming “ … has … an unchallengeable sacred authority”. </p>
<p>Stanner went on to observe that: “We [non-Indigenous Australians] shall not understand The Dreaming fully except as a <em>complex of meanings</em>” (my emphasis).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39015/original/hbjjvww9-1389666615.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39015/original/hbjjvww9-1389666615.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39015/original/hbjjvww9-1389666615.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=718&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39015/original/hbjjvww9-1389666615.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=718&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39015/original/hbjjvww9-1389666615.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=718&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39015/original/hbjjvww9-1389666615.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39015/original/hbjjvww9-1389666615.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39015/original/hbjjvww9-1389666615.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alma Nungarrayi Granites, Yanjirlpirri or Napaljarri-warnu Jukurrpa (Star or Seven Sisters Dreaming), 2011, acrylic on canvas, 91x76 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Warlukurlangu – Artists of Yuendumu http://warlu.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It isn’t possible here to offer more than an introductory glimpse into that constellation of meanings, any more than it would be to convey anything approaching a comprehensive understanding of other world religions in a brief article.</p>
<h2>Words in Aboriginal languages for and about the concept of “The Dreaming”</h2>
<p>B.C. (“Before Cook”) there were approximately 250 separate Aboriginal languages in what is now called Australia, with about 600-800 dialects.</p>
<p>It’s apposite and relevant to map Australia’s considerable geographical and environmental diversity onto this high level of linguistic and cultural diversity. Therefore it won’t be surprising to learn that there is no universal, pan-Aboriginal word to represent the constellation of beliefs comprising Aboriginal religion across mainland Australia and parts of the Torres Strait.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, since colonisation, this multiplicity of semantically rich, metaphysical word-concepts framing the epistemological, cosmological and ontological frameworks unique to Australian Aboriginal people’s systems of religious belief have been uniformly debased and dumbed-down – by being universally rendered as “Dreaming” in English – or, worse still, “Dreamtime”. </p>
<p>Neither passes muster as a viable translation, despite the fact there’s an element or strand in Aboriginal religion that <em>does</em> relate to dreams and dreaming.</p>
<p>As Maggie Fletcher (now visual art curator at the Adelaide Festival Centre) wrote in a 2003 Master’s thesis – for which I was the principal supervisor – <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/31795683?versionId=38577235">“Dreaming” Interpretation and Representation</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… an entire epistemology has been reduced to a single English word.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Not only that, words from many different languages have been squished into a couple of sleep-related English words – words that come with significantly different connotations – or baggage – in comparison with the originals.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39290/original/nrqw37rm-1389932955.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39290/original/nrqw37rm-1389932955.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39290/original/nrqw37rm-1389932955.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=183&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39290/original/nrqw37rm-1389932955.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=183&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39290/original/nrqw37rm-1389932955.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=183&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39290/original/nrqw37rm-1389932955.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=230&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39290/original/nrqw37rm-1389932955.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=230&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39290/original/nrqw37rm-1389932955.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=230&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Peggy Rockman Napaljarri, Warlpiri, 2010, Mukaki Jukurrpa (‘Bush Plum Dreaming’), acrylic on canvas, 39x125 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Warnayaka Art Centre, Lajamanu</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As noted earlier, the Warlpiri people of the Tanami Desert describe their complex of religious beliefs as the Jukurrpa. </p>
<p>Further south-east, the Arrerntic peoples call the word-concept the Altyerrenge or Altyerr (in earlier orthography spelled Altjira and Alcheringa and in other ways, too).</p>
<p>The Kija people of the East Kimberley use the term Ngarrankarni (sometimes spelled Ngarrarngkarni); while the Ngarinyin people (previously spelled Ungarinjin, inter alia) people speak of the Ungud (or Wungud). </p>
<p>“Dreaming” is called Manguny in Martu Wangka, a Western Desert language spoken in the Pilbara region of Western Australia; and some North-East Arnhem Landers refer to the same core concept as Wongar – to name but a handful.</p>
<h2>Satellite terminology for understanding “The Dreaming”</h2>
<p>As with other world religions such as Christianity and Judaism, there is an extensive, closely affiliated ancillary vocabulary complementing the central Indigenous term – that is, accompanying each specific Aboriginal language group’s name for their religion. </p>
<p>In the case of the Christian religion, word-concepts such as Holy Trinity; Advent; Ascension; Covenant; Pentecost; apostle; baptism and so forth, ideas with which many readers will be familiar, are also germane to coming to a deeper understanding of that religion. </p>
<p>So it is with Aboriginal religious belief. The Warlpiri religion, the Jukurrpa, has a host of word-concepts that are important adjuncts to the core concept. Included among these is <em>kuruwarri</em>, <a href="http://www.anu.edu.au/linguistics/nash/aust/wlp/wlp-lx-ref.html">defined</a> in the Warlpiri dictionary as: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>visible pattern, mark or design associated with creative Dreamtime (Jukurrpa) spiritual forces: the mark may be attributed to these forces, or it may symbolise and represent them and events associated with them; mark, design, artwork, drawing, painting, pattern. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>Pirlirrpa</em> is defined as “the spirit, the soul, the person’s essence”, and is believed to reside in the kidneys; <em>yiwiringgi</em> is a person’s Conception Dreaming, defined in the Warlpiri dictionary as an individual’s:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>life-force or spirit which is localised in some natural formation and which may determine the spiritual nature of a person from conception and the relation of that person to the life-force.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Or, in lay terms, closely related to the place where the mother believes she conceived the child. As Warlpiri man Harry Nelson Jakamarra – also in the Warlpiri dictionary – further elucidates, a child’s Conception Dreaming derives from the location where the mother believes her child to have been conceived:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… Kurdu kujaka yangka palka-jarri, wita, ngapa kuruwarrirla marda yangka wiringka, ngula kalu ngarrirni kurdu yalumpuju Ngapa-jukurrpa. Yalumpu ngapangka kuruwarrirla kurdu palka-jarrija.</p>
<p>(“When a baby is conceived, it might be in an important Rain Dreaming place, then they call that child Rain Dreaming. The child came into being in that Rain Dreaming site”). </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another key word in relation to the Jukurrpa, <em>kurruwalpa</em> <a href="http://www.peintureaborigene.com/article-les-reveurs-du-desert-de-barbara-glowczewski-113987024.html">has been defined</a> by the Polish-French anthropologist Barbara Glowczewski as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the spirit-child which, returning to the site where it had entered its mother, waits to be reincarnated into another child-to-be-born. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>There are numerous other associated word-concepts too, all relating to the central idea of the Jukurrpa, some of which are too sacred or gender-specific to reveal.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39378/original/54ydst7t-1390189976.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39378/original/54ydst7t-1390189976.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39378/original/54ydst7t-1390189976.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39378/original/54ydst7t-1390189976.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39378/original/54ydst7t-1390189976.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39378/original/54ydst7t-1390189976.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1055&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39378/original/54ydst7t-1390189976.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1055&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39378/original/54ydst7t-1390189976.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1055&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Molly Tasman Napurrurla, Warlpiri, 2003, Marrkirdi Jukurrpa, (‘Wild Bush Plum Dreaming’), on Magnani Pescia paper, image size 490x320 mm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Warnayaka Arts Centre Lajamanu, and Aboriginal Art Prints Network, Oxford Street, Sydney</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A challenge for all Australians</h2>
<p>Also akin to mainstream world religions, while these geographically and doctrinally diverse Indigenous Australian religious concepts do have a level of commonality – as is demonstrably the case with different denominations and branches of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and so forth – these Aboriginal religions cannot be regarded as monolithic entities. </p>
<p>Analogous with Christianity, in which there are doctrinal differences affecting the beliefs and practices of those who adhere to Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox or Coptic branches of Christianity, Indigenous regional and cultural differences need to be taken into account in order to develop a real understanding of the religion known in English as “The Dreaming”. </p>
<p>But what differentiates Aboriginal religion from other religions is its continuity with local landscapes or what Indigenous artist <a href="http://news.aboriginalartdirectory.com/tags/brian%20martin">Brian Martin</a> has described as “countryscapes”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39504/original/tfwbt456-1390273968.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39504/original/tfwbt456-1390273968.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39504/original/tfwbt456-1390273968.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=895&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39504/original/tfwbt456-1390273968.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=895&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39504/original/tfwbt456-1390273968.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=895&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39504/original/tfwbt456-1390273968.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1125&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39504/original/tfwbt456-1390273968.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1125&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39504/original/tfwbt456-1390273968.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1125&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Linda Namiyal Bopirri, 1990, Yolngu Matha (Durrurna clan, Dhuwa moiety), Oyster (‘Oyster Dreaming’, ‘Wayanaka’) Bank, Ochre on Bark, 64x95cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© the artist's estate, licensed by Aboriginal Artists Agency Ltd; Burkhardt-Felder Collection, Switzerland.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Dreamings, founded upon the actions of Dreaming Ancestors, Creator Beings believed responsible for bringing-into-being localised geographical features, land forms such as waterholes and springs, differ across the length and breadth of Australia. (For obvious reasons, there’s no Oyster, Stingray, Shark, Octopus, Squid or Saltwater Crocodile Dreaming in Central Australia). </p>
<p>The universal translation of these terms as “Dreaming” needs to be questioned. If Australia is to grow as a nation, to make right the relationships between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians, it’s time to start using the original terminology from Indigenous languages, to learn how to pronounce the words, and to talk about the Manguy, Jukurrpa, or Ngarrankarni, in place of the catch-all “Dreaming”. </p>
<p>It’s a more difficult path, but could also teach the rest of us a thing or two about Indigenous cultural, linguistic and religious diversity.</p>
<p><br>
<em>This article is the first of a series on “Dreamtime” and “The Dreaming”. <a href="https://theconversation.com/dreamtime-and-the-dreaming-who-dreamed-up-these-terms-20835">Read part two here</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/dreamings-and-dreaming-narratives-whats-the-relationship-20837">part three here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/20833/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christine Judith Nicholls does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In 2002, Jeannie Herbert Nungarrayi, formerly a Warlpiri teacher at the Lajamanu School in the Tanami Desert of the Northern Territory, where I worked for many years first as a linguist and then as school…
Christine Judith Nicholls, Senior Lecturer , Flinders University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.