tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/the-dreamtime-series-8677/articles
The "Dreamtime" series – The Conversation
2017-07-04T20:09:51Z
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>
<hr>
<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/39637
2016-03-17T19:19:41Z
2016-03-17T19:19:41Z
Friday Essay: land, kinship and ownership of ‘Dreamings’
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110125/original/image-20160203-5857-1l5zhwx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Detail of Paddy Japaljarri Sims, Warlpiri, 2003, Yanjirlpiri Jukurrpa (Star Dreaming at Yarripirlangu).</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of the artist's estate, licensed by Warlukurlangu Artists, Yuendumu.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Aboriginal kinship is an integral part of <a href="https://theconversation.com/dreamtime-and-the-dreaming-an-introduction-20833">The Dreaming</a>, as are people themselves and their land (or “country” as it’s known in Aboriginal English). One’s place in the kinship system also determines one’s rights and obligations with respect to other people, country, and artistic expression. </p>
<p>Dreaming Law (not “lore”) thus governs traditional Aboriginal kinship, its relationship to land tenure and to “Dreaming” ownership and obligations.</p>
<p>Ownership of country, and the corresponding Dreamings are largely matters of inheritance; in some cases it’s possible to acquire additional Dreamings via exchange or other transactions, as a way of increasing cultural capital. </p>
<p>For other Aboriginal groups living in places mostly out of reach of the urban and suburban centres – such as the Yolngu Matha-speaking peoples of Arnhem Land in northern Australia and nearby islands, this is also the case. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115417/original/image-20160317-30247-8jqybj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115417/original/image-20160317-30247-8jqybj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115417/original/image-20160317-30247-8jqybj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115417/original/image-20160317-30247-8jqybj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115417/original/image-20160317-30247-8jqybj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115417/original/image-20160317-30247-8jqybj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=654&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115417/original/image-20160317-30247-8jqybj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=654&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115417/original/image-20160317-30247-8jqybj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=654&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This map attempts to represent the language, social or nation groups of Aboriginal Australia. CLICK TO ENLARGE.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Aboriginal Studies Press, AIATSIS, 1996.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Dreamings are owned</h2>
<p>In terms of the relationship between Dreamings and Aboriginal art, a limited parallel could be drawn with the contents of the Christian Bible. The Books that collectively comprise the Old and New Testaments have long restricted the subject matter portrayed by Christian artists.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112044/original/image-20160218-1264-1fy1cvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112044/original/image-20160218-1264-1fy1cvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112044/original/image-20160218-1264-1fy1cvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=718&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112044/original/image-20160218-1264-1fy1cvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=718&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112044/original/image-20160218-1264-1fy1cvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=718&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112044/original/image-20160218-1264-1fy1cvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112044/original/image-20160218-1264-1fy1cvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112044/original/image-20160218-1264-1fy1cvq.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, <em>Yanjilypiri or Napaljarri-warnu Jukurrpa</em> (Star or Seven Sisters Dreaming). CLICK TO ENLARGE.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of the artist and Warlukurlangu Artists Yuendumu.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>No individual is at liberty to write or add, willy-nilly, an entirely new “chapter” or Book to the existing Bible. Nevertheless, over time, Biblical interpretations have undergone considerable change.</p>
<p>The same goes for Dreamings, although perhaps to a lesser extent than in the Bible, because for aeons there was little outside cultural contact or influence on Aboriginal Australia. </p>
<p>Still, Dreamings and Dreaming narratives are understood and interpreted somewhat differently in the contemporary colonial context. The “politics of interpretation” is always subject to vagaries of the particular times and places in which people are living, and people will always understand religious or other texts through the prism of the present day.</p>
<p>What’s missing from the preceding analogy is the critical importance of Aboriginal kinship relationships in determining individual or group rights of representation of imagery or narratives. For Aboriginal people, exercising one’s entitlement to paint or otherwise render a specific Dreaming is not only limited to the available repertoire of Dreamings present on any given “country”, but also subject to kinship rights. </p>
<p>But what these two great religious art movements – Christianity and “The Dreamtime” or “Dreaming” – do share, is their narrative basis. These narratives can be sung, painted in condensed visual form, or rendered in other material or non-material form. </p>
<p>In both cases adherence to certain core or fundamental principles, truths, and subject matter is <em>de rigueur</em>, and if artists or others deviate from those socially acceptable core elements, then an outcry (and sometimes legal sanctions followed by punishment) ensues. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110110/original/image-20160203-5846-kyev81.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110110/original/image-20160203-5846-kyev81.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110110/original/image-20160203-5846-kyev81.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=882&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110110/original/image-20160203-5846-kyev81.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=882&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110110/original/image-20160203-5846-kyev81.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=882&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110110/original/image-20160203-5846-kyev81.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1109&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110110/original/image-20160203-5846-kyev81.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1109&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110110/original/image-20160203-5846-kyev81.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1109&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Athena Nangala Granites, Warlpiri, 2014, <em>Yanjilypiri</em> or <em>Napaljarri-warnu Jukurrpa</em>, (Star or Seven Sisters Dreaming). CLICK TO ENLARGE.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of Warlukurlangu Artists, Yuendumu.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the Christian context, when Robyn Archer curated the Adelaide Festival of Arts in 1998, some Christians, predominantly members of Adelaide’s conservative Greek Orthodox faction, raised vocal objections to the Festival’s signature poster showing a reconfigured Byzantine painting of the Virgin Mary holding or playing an accordion. </p>
<p>In some cases, the protesters asserted ownership over that imagery and walked around Adelaide ripping the posters down, accusing the Festival Director and others involved of blasphemy. Eventually, the print run was withdrawn. </p>
<p>In a similar vein, I have personally witnessed Kathleen Petyarre, the celebrated Eastern Anmatyerr artist, practically incandescent with rage, standing on her country, ripping the newly-completed canvas of a much younger artist into shreds while berating the young woman in a classical Anmatyerr grievance monologue.</p>
<p>This incident held the rest of us present utterly transfixed and silent. The reason for this unexpected outburst was perfectly analogous to the earlier example. It was ultimately an accusation of blasphemy as a result of the unfortunate young woman’s alleged deviation from Dreaming Law.</p>
<h2>Warlpiri kinship and the Jukurrpa</h2>
<p>For clarity’s sake, this article will focus solely on the Warlpiri kinship system and its relationship to Jukurrpa – the Warlpiri word concept translated generically as “The Dreamtime” or “Dreaming”. The emphasis will be on how these factors play out in artistic production. </p>
<p>Kinship rights and obligations apply to land ownership, while also regulating social relationships. These are all regarded as deriving from the Jukurrpa.</p>
<p>Intellectual copyright flows on from land ownership, giving certain groups or individuals rights of representation of the particular Jukurrpa connected with specific tracts of “country”. This can be represented in material or non-material form – for example, as visual art, oral narrative, song or dance. </p>
<p>The fact that only particular people are permitted to render specific subject matter in their artistic productions, also originates in the Jukurrpa. This system ensures the survival of specialised knowledge of all aspects of human existence, from zoology to astronomy to morality. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115242/original/image-20160316-8456-1xp7v3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115242/original/image-20160316-8456-1xp7v3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115242/original/image-20160316-8456-1xp7v3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115242/original/image-20160316-8456-1xp7v3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115242/original/image-20160316-8456-1xp7v3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115242/original/image-20160316-8456-1xp7v3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115242/original/image-20160316-8456-1xp7v3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115242/original/image-20160316-8456-1xp7v3j.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">Alma Nungarrayi Granites at Yuendumu, 2016, working on one of her <em>Napaljarri-warnu Jukurrpa</em> (Seven Sisters Dreaming), which is one of her Dreamings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of Warlukurlangu Artists, Yuendumu.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For the Warlpiri, the Jukurrpa governs every aspect of life. It accounts for the world, indeed the universe. It encompasses kinship Law; land ownership; ownership of specific Dreamings and the concomitant right to render/represent those “owned” Dreamings in visual (or other) form.</p>
<p>Thus the Jukurrpa mediates people’s kinship obligations and exchanges and their relationship with other species and the natural environment (including localised micro-environments). </p>
<p>Jukurrpa informs the full range of social interactions including one’s particular kinship positioning determining whom one is permitted to marry (or not), and excluding those who need to be avoided on account of taboo relationships. </p>
<p>A person’s mode of addressing others is also regulated by the kinship system – specifying those with whom one may share a joke and those with whom any form of personal contact is off limits. </p>
<p>The Warlpiri kinship system is premised on the distinction between maternal and paternal relations. Kin terms also distinguish gender, age, seniority, and generation level. This complex system is also condensed into eight subsections.</p>
<p>Subsections are categories, into which every baby is born. They also link each child to specific Jukurrpa, which in turn are connected to land ownership. </p>
<p>The names of the Warlpiri subsections begin with “N” for girls/women, and “J” for boys/men. They are as follows:</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115423/original/image-20160317-30247-1e1j2ia.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115423/original/image-20160317-30247-1e1j2ia.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115423/original/image-20160317-30247-1e1j2ia.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115423/original/image-20160317-30247-1e1j2ia.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115423/original/image-20160317-30247-1e1j2ia.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115423/original/image-20160317-30247-1e1j2ia.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115423/original/image-20160317-30247-1e1j2ia.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115423/original/image-20160317-30247-1e1j2ia.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Courtesy of Mary Laughren.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the above, the ideal marriage partners have been grouped in clusters (for example, a Japangardi man should ideally marry a Nampijinpa woman). But in each case there are two other possibilities for marrying partners in unions that are not considered incestuous. Variants of this system exist throughout Aboriginal Australia.</p>
<p>These have become known as “skins”, classifying men and women as a function of their parents’ subsections. People’s “skin-names” are relational terms. Every single Warlpiri person is regarded as being related in specific ways to every other Warlpiri person, regardless of whether their relationship is directly biological. </p>
<p>Ties, whether classificatory or biological, come with specific obligations. The Warlpiri “skins”, are divided into two halves that anthropologists call “moieties”. </p>
<p>Against these elaborate kinship structures, the (predominantly) nuclear family model of kinship within Australia’s dominant culture and the terminology used to describe it, seems simple, even simplistic. </p>
<p>To provide just one relatively uncomplicated example, the Warlpiri use the word “warringiyi” when talking about or to their <em>paternal</em> grandfather, or any of his brothers or sisters; but “jamirdi” to describe or address their <em>maternal</em> grandfather and any of <em>his</em> brothers or sisters. </p>
<p>When referring to one’s paternal grandmother, or to her brothers or sisters, the word used is “yaparla”, while one calls one’s maternal grandmother “jaja”, as well as her sisters or brothers. </p>
<h2>Kirda and Kurdungurlu</h2>
<p>For every tract of land, and every Warlpiri Jukurrpa, there are two groups of land- and Jukurrpa-owners, with different responsibilities. </p>
<p>In the Warlpiri language, these two groups are known as “kirda” and “kurdungurlu”.</p>
<p>Kirda are the legal “bosses” (as described in Aboriginal English) for a particular ceremony, Jukurrpa site or stretch of “country”. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110113/original/image-20160203-5865-y3e6w4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110113/original/image-20160203-5865-y3e6w4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110113/original/image-20160203-5865-y3e6w4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=794&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110113/original/image-20160203-5865-y3e6w4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=794&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110113/original/image-20160203-5865-y3e6w4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=794&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110113/original/image-20160203-5865-y3e6w4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=997&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110113/original/image-20160203-5865-y3e6w4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=997&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110113/original/image-20160203-5865-y3e6w4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=997&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Justinna Sims Napaljarri, 2013, Warlpiri, <em>Napaljarri-warnu Jukurrpa</em>, (Star or Seven Sisters Dreaming). CLICK TO ENLARGE.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image licensed by Yuendumu Warlukurlangu Artists.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The kirda relationship to country is inherited from a particular person’s father’s side or from their father’s father’s side. </p>
<p>Sometimes kirda are described as “owners” of specific tracts of land but both kirda and kurdungurlu imply ownership. </p>
<p>The semantic scope of these terms is substantially different from Anglo-European notions of “land owners”. The co-owners, the kurdungurlu, whose rights derive from their mother’s father, fulfil a different function from that of kirda. </p>
<p>Kurdungurlu have been described as the “managers”, responsible for “policing” such things as ceremonies and Jukurrpa narratives and other forms of expression. Generally speaking, they are responsible for ensuring that the kirda “get it right”. They have the right to intervene if they believe that mistakes are being made. </p>
<p>Thus, over aeons, kurdungurlu safeguarded the integrity of cultural memory, in situations where a high level of memory labour was required simply for survival.</p>
<p>For those living in mostly arid, marginal country, for instance, the entire group might be doomed if a specific Ngapa Jukurrpa (Water Dreaming) person fails to locate a particular source of underground water.</p>
<p>While kurdungurlu <em>are</em> related to and responsible for particular Dreaming sites, this responsibility derives from their mother’s side. </p>
<p>Kurdungurlu are required to provide critical feedback to the kirda, with regard to country, sites and ceremonies, and to ensure that key activities are carried out by kirda in accordance with the Law. </p>
<p>Theirs could be described as a management role. The checks and balances involved could be likened to the relationship between the Australian House of Representatives and Senate. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110125/original/image-20160203-5857-1l5zhwx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110125/original/image-20160203-5857-1l5zhwx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110125/original/image-20160203-5857-1l5zhwx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110125/original/image-20160203-5857-1l5zhwx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110125/original/image-20160203-5857-1l5zhwx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110125/original/image-20160203-5857-1l5zhwx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110125/original/image-20160203-5857-1l5zhwx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110125/original/image-20160203-5857-1l5zhwx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Paddy Japaljarri Sims, Warlpiri, 2003, <em>Yanjilypiri Jukurrpa</em> (Star Dreaming at Yarripirlangu). CLICK TO ENLARGE.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of the artist's estate, licensed by Warlukurlangu Artists, Yuendumu.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In this context, the kurdungurlu have the right to insist on amendments to the kirdas’ assertion of rights over country, or to depictions of the specific Jukurrpa associated with that land. Encrypted in each Jukurrpa artwork are details pertaining to land navigation.</p>
<p>Knowledge is thus preserved in intact form, rather than being entrusted to any individual with sole responsibility for maintaining the integrity of that knowledge.</p>
<p>The kirda/kurdungurlu relationship is based on a principle of radical complementarity, involving an elaborate system of checks and balances. </p>
<p>It is a system of inheritance that emphasises the co-operative nature of land ownership, Jukurrpa (Dreaming) ownership and the right to depict specific subject matter. </p>
<p>It also translates into a system of co-ownership of specific Dreaming imagery deployed in any Warlpiri artwork or other creative expression.</p>
<p>For each Dreaming, for every tract of Dreaming-country, and for any given artwork, there will be one group of people who are kirda and another who are kurdungurlu. </p>
<h2>A family of ‘Stars’</h2>
<p>The late <a href="https://www.kateowengallery.com/artists/Pad454/Paddy-Japaljarri-Sims.htm">Paddy Japaljarri Sims</a> was kirda for the <em>Yanjilypiri</em> (Star), <em>Napaljarri-warnu _(Seven Sisters) and _Yiwarra</em> (Milky Way) Jukurrpa. </p>
<p>This he inherited from his late father, Jungarrayi. Paddy Japaljarri Sims was not only a celebrated Warlpiri artist but also an expert astronomer. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110111/original/image-20160203-5822-wc0mb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110111/original/image-20160203-5822-wc0mb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110111/original/image-20160203-5822-wc0mb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1195&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110111/original/image-20160203-5822-wc0mb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1195&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110111/original/image-20160203-5822-wc0mb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1195&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110111/original/image-20160203-5822-wc0mb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110111/original/image-20160203-5822-wc0mb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110111/original/image-20160203-5822-wc0mb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Paddy Japaljarri Sims, Warlpiri, 2004, <em>Yiwarra Jukurrpa</em> (Milky Way Dreaming). CLICK TO ENLARGE.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image licensed by Warlukurlangu Artists, Yuendumu.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Japaljarri’s <em>Yanjilypiri Jukurrpa</em> (Star Dreaming at Yarripirlangu), the lead image in this article, evokes a group of large rocks near a significant Star Dreaming site at Yarripirlangu, on Warlpiri country.</p>
<p>The rock clusters on that site resulted from a meteorite falling to earth thousands of years ago, leaving a large dent in the flattened ground. </p>
<p>The indentation provided an excellent dancing ground used in men’s large initiation ceremonies, for which Yarripirlangu became an important site. </p>
<p>Detailed renditions of <em>Yiwarra</em> and associated narratives were also part of this grand old man’s considerable knowledge-based artistic repertoire. </p>
<p>Japaljarri’s daughter, <a href="https://www.kateowengallery.com/artists/Alm532/Alma-Nungurrayi-Granites.htm">Alma Nungarrayi Granites</a>, is also kirda for several astronomy-based Jukurrpa, the right to which she inherited from her father. </p>
<p>Nungarrayi’s representational rights, deriving from her place in the kinship system, also translate into land rights and ownership. In turn, Nungarrayi has become particularly famed for her visual renderings of the Napaljarri-warnu Jukurrpa (Seven Sisters Dreaming).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112046/original/image-20160219-12817-8b06qa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112046/original/image-20160219-12817-8b06qa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112046/original/image-20160219-12817-8b06qa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=229&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112046/original/image-20160219-12817-8b06qa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=229&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112046/original/image-20160219-12817-8b06qa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=229&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112046/original/image-20160219-12817-8b06qa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112046/original/image-20160219-12817-8b06qa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112046/original/image-20160219-12817-8b06qa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=288&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, Warlpiri, 2011, <em>Yanjirlpirri or Napaljarri-warnu Jukurrpa</em>, (Star or Seven Sisters Dreaming). CLICK TO ENLARGE.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image licensed by Warlukurlangu Artists, Yuendumu, and courtesy of the Burkhardt-Felder Collection.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Dynasties of the Desert</h2>
<p>Lines of Jukurrpa ownership continue inter-generationally. Younger generations of the same familial line, including Justinna Napaljarri Sims (Paddy’s son’s daugher) and Athena Nangala Granites (his great granddaughter), have also inherited proprietary rights to <em>Napaljarri-warnu Jukurrpa</em>. These come with rights to specific “country” and representations of that country. </p>
<p>Paddy Japaljarri Sims’s wife, Bessie Nakamarra Sims, inherited the right to paint a different corpus of Jukurrpa, as kirda. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110115/original/image-20160203-5846-1sfoabt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110115/original/image-20160203-5846-1sfoabt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110115/original/image-20160203-5846-1sfoabt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110115/original/image-20160203-5846-1sfoabt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110115/original/image-20160203-5846-1sfoabt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110115/original/image-20160203-5846-1sfoabt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1090&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110115/original/image-20160203-5846-1sfoabt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1090&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110115/original/image-20160203-5846-1sfoabt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1090&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bessie Nakamarra Sims, Warlpiri, 2011, <em>Ngarlajiyi Jukurrpa</em> (Small Yam, Bush Carrot, Vigna Lanceolata Dreaming). CLICK TO ENLARGE.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of Warlukurlangu Artists, Yuendumu.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nakamarra’s entitlement to paint <em>Ngarlajiyi Jukurrpa</em> (Small Yam or Bush Carrot Dreaming) was passed down to her by her own father. </p>
<p>Nakamarra does not paint the same “star” Dreamings as her husband, or children, since her relationship to them is that of kurdungurlu. </p>
<p>The marriage system is premised on an individual marrying another person to whom one is somewhat distantly related. This, at base, is founded on genetics – it’s partly about <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/comment/obituaries/flying-doctor-took-genetic-knowledge-to-new-heights-20110620-1gbw2.html">avoiding birth defects</a>, especially when groups may be drawing upon a relatively small gene pool. </p>
<p>It’s little wonder that this kinship system has been described as exemplifying “the genius of the Warlpiri people”. </p>
<p>The same can be said of the kinship systems of all other Australian Aboriginal groups – but in a relatively brief article like this it’s barely possible to do anything like justice to their social, political and religious complexities.</p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em>This Friday essay is the sixth instalment in our <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/the-dreamtime-series">Dreamtime series</a>.</em></p>
<p><br>
<br>
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<br></p>
<hr>
<p><em>Disclaimer: The AIATSIS map used attempts to represent the language, social or nation groups of Aboriginal Australia. It shows only the general locations of larger groupings of people which may include clans, dialects or individual languages in a group. It used published resources from 1988-1994 and is not intended to be exact, nor the boundaries fixed. It is not suitable for native title or other land claims. To purchase a print version visit: <a href="http://www.aiatsis.ashop.com.au">www.aiatsis.ashop.com.au</a>.</em> </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Christine will be on hand for an Author Q&A between 3 and 4pm ACDT on Tuesday, March 22, 2016. Post your questions in the comments section below.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39637/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>In 2015 Christine Nicholls wrote a series of books on Aboriginal History for Macmillan Education Australia for use in the Australian National Curriculum (the Macmillan History series: 50,000 copies of each book have been published for use in all Australian primary schools). With respect to one of the books in that series (Nicholls, Christine, 2015, Country, Dreamings, Ancestors, Macmillan Education Australia, ISBN: 9781458660039), some of that material has been used differently in this article.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Many thanks go to the brilliant, though modest, Warlpiri linguist Mary Laughren, who provided feedback to an earlier draft of this article, and to Cecilia Alfonso and Gloria Morales, the excellent managers of Warlukurlangu Artists Yuendumu, <a href="http://warlu.com">http://warlu.com</a>, for their expeditious provision of most of the images in this article.</span></em></p>
Who owns a Dreamtime story? The Warlpiri, like all Indigenous groups, use a complex system of kinship that regulates which people can depict, sing, dance or talk about which Dreamings.
Christine Judith Nicholls, Senior Lecturer in Australian Studies, Flinders University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/25606
2014-04-29T20:30:33Z
2014-04-29T20:30:33Z
‘Dreamings’ and place – Aboriginal monsters and their meanings
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46801/original/kt6w87nj-1398145184.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nura Rupert, Australia, c.1933. Pitjantjatjara people, South Australia, Mamu (Spooky spirits) 2006, Ernabella, South Australia, synthetic polymer paint on linen 92x122cm.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ed and Sue Tweddell Fund for South Australian Contemporary Art 2006. Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide © Nura Rupert, courtesy of Ernabella Arts</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A rich inventory of monstrous figures exists throughout Aboriginal Australia. The specific form that their wickedness takes depends to a considerable extent on their location. </p>
<p>In the Australian Central and Western Deserts there are roaming Ogres, Bogeymen and Bogey women, Cannibal Babies, Giant Baby-Guzzlers, Sorcerers, and spinifex and feather-slippered Spirit Beings able to dispatch victims with a single fatal garrote. There are lustful old men who, wishing to satiate their unbridled sexual appetites, relentlessly pursue beautiful nubile young girls through the night sky and on land – and other monstrous beings, too. </p>
<p>Arnhem Land, in Australia’s north, is the abode of malevolent shades and vampire-like Wind and Shooting Star Spirit Beings. There are also murderous, humanoid fish-maidens who live in deep waterholes and rockholes, biding their time to rise up, grab and drown unsuspecting human children or adults who stray close to the water’s edge. Certain sorcerers gleefully dismember their victims limb by limb, and there are other monstrous entities as well, living parallel lives to the human beings residing in the same places.</p>
<p>The existence of such Evil Beings is an unremarkable phenomenon, given that most religious and mythological traditions possess their own demons and supernatural entities. Monstrous beings are allegorical in nature, personifying evil. </p>
<p>In the Christian tradition, we need to look no further than Satan. In the Tanakh, ‘The Adversary’, as a figure in the Hebrew Bible is sometimes described in English translation, fulfils a similar role. Often, akin to many of the Monstrous Beings that inhabit Aboriginal Australia, these evil supernatural entities are Tricksters, shape-changers and shape-shifters. </p>
<p>The trope of metamorphosis is evident in the real-life stories and media representations in Australia’s dominant culture: consider the image of the kindly old gentleman next door or the devoted, caring parish priest who shocks everyone by metamorphosing into child-molesters, creepy, predatory, though ever-charming. </p>
<p>As the celebrated British mythographer and cultural historian <a href="http://www.amazon.com/No-Go-Bogeyman-Scaring-Lulling/dp/009973981X">Marina Warner has noted</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Monsters are made to warn, to threaten, and to instruct, but they are by no means always monstrous in the negative sense of the term; they have always had a seductive side.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Warner also observes that mythical, malevolent beings are found the world over. Think of Homer’s Cyclops, the Night-Hag of Renaissance legend or the German Kinderfresser, which snatches and eats its young victims. Such beings embody people’s deepest anxieties and fears. </p>
<p>Monstrous beings are also depicted in many visual art traditions. Goya’s works of giants and child-eaters, including, for example, his gruesome rendition of <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/masseys/blood/images/gallery/ch2/Ch2-GalleryImage4-Goya_1820-3_Saturn-Devouring-His-Children_GGW-370.jpg">Saturn devouring his own child</a>, exemplify this. </p>
<p>All cultures, it seems, have fairytales and narratives that express a high degree of aggression towards young children. There are many reasons for this but ultimately it reflects the special vulnerability of the very young with respect to adults and the exterior world.</p>
<h2>Monstrous Beings in “Dreaming” narratives and art</h2>
<p>A terrifying pantheon of monstrous beings is one subject of visual artworks and traditional Aboriginal “<a href="https://theconversation.com/dreamtime-and-the-dreaming-an-introduction-20833">Dreaming</a>” narratives that merits inclusion in any typology of Aboriginal cultural and artistic traditions. </p>
<p>All of these figures materialise fear, bringing it to the surface. At the psychological level, the stories about these entities are a means of coping with terror. To this I would add that such monstrous beings also attest to some of the least palatable aspects of human behaviour, to the nastiest and most vicious of our human capabilities. </p>
<p>Importantly, in Aboriginal Australia, these figures and their attendant narratives provide a valuable source of knowledge about the hazards of specific places and environments. Most important of all is their social function in terms of engendering fear and caution in young children, commensurate with the very real environmental perils that they inevitably encounter.</p>
<h2>The desert regions: cannibal country</h2>
<p>The monstrousness of many, although not all, of these monstrous Desert Beings lies in their particular disposition towards cannibalism. </p>
<p>In the farthest reaches of the Western Desert, in the Pilbara region, the brilliant although largely unheralded Martu artist and animator <a href="http://wedontneedamap.com.au/about/artists/yunkurra-billy-atkins">Yunkurra Billy Atkins</a> creates extraordinarily graphic images of cannibal beings, including babies (see animation still, below). </p>
<p>These ancient, malevolent Ngayurnangalku (Cannibal Beings) have sharp pointy teeth and curved, claw-like fingernails. They reside beneath a salt lake, Kumpupirntily (Lake Disappointment). In those environs they have been known to stalk and to feast on human prey – to be precise, Martu people. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46627/original/hmgg6qsw-1397710015.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46627/original/hmgg6qsw-1397710015.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46627/original/hmgg6qsw-1397710015.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46627/original/hmgg6qsw-1397710015.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46627/original/hmgg6qsw-1397710015.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46627/original/hmgg6qsw-1397710015.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46627/original/hmgg6qsw-1397710015.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46627/original/hmgg6qsw-1397710015.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cannibal Story (still), animation by Yunkurra Billy Atkins and Sohan Ariel Hayes, 2012.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy and copyright Martumili Artists and Fremantle Arts Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Of Kumpupirntily, ANU researcher <a href="https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/carty-jr">John Carty</a> writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>it is a stark, flat and unforgiving expanse of blinding salt-lake surrounded by sand hills. Martu never set foot on the surface of the salt-lake and, when required to pass it by, can’t get away fast enough. This unnerving environment is grounded in an equally unnerving narrative. Kumpupirntily is home to the fearsome Ngayurnangalku, ancestral cannibal beings who continue to live today beneath the vast salt-lake.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And if that isn’t enough, malpu (devil-assassins) inhabit the same vicinity.</p>
<p>As Billy Atkins <a href="http://mira.canningstockrouteproject.com/content/yunkurra-billy-atkins-kumpupirntily-lake-disappointment-oral-history">avows</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s dangerous, that country. I’m telling you that that cannibal mob is out there and they are no good. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The principal Ngayurnangalku (meaning something along the lines of “they’ll eat me”) narrative centres on two distinct groups of ancestral people, one that wishes to maintain the Ngayurnangalku practice of cannibalism, while the other contingent is vehemently opposed to it. </p>
<p>Martu man Jeffrey James, relating the narrative to John Carty, had this to say:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[One] night there was a baby born. They asked, “Are we going to stop eating the people?” And they said, “Yes, we going to stop,” and they asked the baby, newborn baby, and she said, “No”. The little kid said, “No, we can still carry on and continue eating peoples”, but this mob said, “No, we’re not going to touch”.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There isn’t any evidence that the Martu people ever practised cannibalism, but given the aridity and sparse distribution of vegetation and fauna on that very marginal and far-flung country, at times, in theory only of course, it must have been tempting. </p>
<p>In this respect, monstrous figures reflect what could be described as the potential vulnerabilities and fault-lines of specific Aboriginal societies and locations. This is so the world over.</p>
<p>Travelling further east into Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (“<a href="http://www.anangu.com.au/">Anangu</a>”) country, but staying in the Western Desert, the fearsome Mamu (see main article image), also cannibals, hold sway. </p>
<p>With large protruding eyes, they’re sometimes bald and in some cases hirsute. Their long hair stands upright, and they’re equipped with sharp fang-like teeth capable of stripping off their victims’ flesh. Dangerous shape-shifters, they are able to assume humanoid shape, but they’re also associated with sharp-beaked birds, dogs and falling stars. The Mamu, who also figure in Warlpiri and other desert groups’ narratives, typically reside underground, or live inside the hollow parts of trees. </p>
<p>The anthropologist <a href="http://sydney.edu.au/arts/anthropology/staff/profiles/ute.eickelkamp.php">Ute Eickelkamp</a> has written persuasively about Mamu from a largely psychoanalytic perspective, but also argues in <a href="http://www.healthinfonet.ecu.edu.au/key-resources/bibliography/?lid=3386">a 2004 article</a> that Western and Central Desert “adults commonly use the threat of demonic attacks [by Mamu] to control the behaviour of children”. </p>
<p>The belief system relating to Mamu activity has extended into the post-contact lives of older Anangu people. This is demonstrated by the elderly Pitjantjatjara people who accounted for the mushroom cloud released by the 1956 British program of testing atomic bombs at Maralinga on Anangu land as evidence of Mamu wrath and fury at being disturbed in their underground dwelling places and therefore rising up in a huge, angry dustcloud. </p>
<p>Trevor Jamieson recounts his family’s experience of the Maralinga testing program in the theatrical work <a href="http://www.australianstage.com.au/201207265644/reviews/canberra/ngapartji-ngapartji-%7C-big-hart.html">Ngapartji Ngapartji </a>.</p>
<p>Among other sorcery figures that feature in Anangu Tjukurpa (“Dreamings”) is Wati Nyiru (“The Man Nyiru”, the Morning Star). Wati Nyiru chases the Kungkarangkalpa, the celestial star sisters comprising the constellation known to the ancient Greeks as the Pleiades, through the night sky, with sexual conquest (among other things) on his mind. </p>
<p>The formidable artist Harry Tjutjuna, who paints at the <a href="http://www.ninukuarts.com.au/">Ninuku Arts Centre</a> in northern South Australia, has become feted for his renditions of the Wati Nyiru and also for his Barking Spider Dreaming Ancestor, Wanka.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46638/original/28ztkq9t-1397712150.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46638/original/28ztkq9t-1397712150.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46638/original/28ztkq9t-1397712150.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46638/original/28ztkq9t-1397712150.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46638/original/28ztkq9t-1397712150.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46638/original/28ztkq9t-1397712150.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46638/original/28ztkq9t-1397712150.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46638/original/28ztkq9t-1397712150.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Harry Tjutjuna, Pitjantjatjara, Walytjatjara, north-west corner of South Australia, Australia born c. 1928/1932, Wanka Tjukurpa (Spiderman), 2007, synthetic polymer paint on canvas 154cm h x 182cm w.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Collection National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, © the artist, courtesy Ninuku Art Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Further north in Warlpiri country, the Pangkarlangu is one of a number of frightening Yapa-ngarnu (literally “human-eating” or “cannibal”, or more colloquially “people eater”) figures that recur in certain Warlpiri Jukurrpa (“Dreaming”) narratives.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46626/original/t7pc9fpg-1397709921.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46626/original/t7pc9fpg-1397709921.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46626/original/t7pc9fpg-1397709921.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46626/original/t7pc9fpg-1397709921.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46626/original/t7pc9fpg-1397709921.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46626/original/t7pc9fpg-1397709921.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46626/original/t7pc9fpg-1397709921.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46626/original/t7pc9fpg-1397709921.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">Tjungurrayi, Charlie Tjararu, (also known as ‘Watama’), 1981, Pintupi language/cultural group, (c.1921-1999), Papunya NT, Untitled (painting of a Pangkarlangu, a Western Desert/Central Desert Bogeyman/Ogre figure) 336x356 mm (rounded corners), acrylic on canvas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flinders University Art Museum Collection, Adelaide, image © the artist's estate, licensed by Aboriginal Artists Agency Ltd</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Pangkarlangu are huge, hairy, sharp-clawed, neckless baby-killers, physically described in similar terms to popular representations of Neanderthals or perhaps Denisovans (see the recent work of Adelaide University’s <a href="https://www.adelaide.edu.au/acad/people/acooper_profile.html">Alan Cooper</a>, who has established Denisovan DNA in populations east of the Wallace Line). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46630/original/9qkk2ss2-1397710324.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46630/original/9qkk2ss2-1397710324.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46630/original/9qkk2ss2-1397710324.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46630/original/9qkk2ss2-1397710324.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46630/original/9qkk2ss2-1397710324.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46630/original/9qkk2ss2-1397710324.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46630/original/9qkk2ss2-1397710324.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46630/original/9qkk2ss2-1397710324.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Painting of the Pangkarlangu with a lost child on his shoulders, by Jillian Dixon Nakamarra, in Molly Tasman Napurrurla, with Christine Nicholls (translator and editor) 2002.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Pangkarlangu and the Lost Child, A Dreaming Narrative, Working Title Press, Adelaide, Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Pangkarlangu’s physical attributes were first described to me in the early 1980s by a now deceased Warlpiri woman who spoke little English, could neither read nor write and had never seen a visual representation of a Neanderthal, but her pencil drawing bore a striking resemblance to a Neanderthal. </p>
<p>The Warlpiri Pangkarlangu, which extends further across the Central and Western Deserts, usually wears a woven hair-string belt around his middle. This accoutrement is closely connected to his foul purposes.</p>
<p>Pangkarlangu, huge lumbering bestial humanoids, roam the desert in search of their desired quarry. In their spare time, they fight one another. They are classic representations of what has in recent years been described as “Otherness”.</p>
<p>Lost human babies or infants who’ve crawled or wandered away from the main camp are Pangkarlangus’ preferred food source, being juicy, tender and easy to catch. Pangkarlangu grab their prey by their little legs, upending them quickly, head down, tiny arms akimbo. </p>
<p>Warlpiri adults who are successful hunters use a similar technique to seize good-sized goannas or bluetongue lizards by their tails, in order to prevent them from inflicting deep scratches or painful gashes on the arms or hands of their captors. The Pangkarlangu models his baby-execution method on those human hunters of small game, killing the infants swiftly and expertly - by dashing their brains out on the hard red earth, in a single blow. </p>
<p>After slaying his defenceless victim, a Pangkarlangu will string its little body around his waist, tying its legs onto his hairstring belt, so that its head dangles and bobs up and down as he strides along. The Pangkarlangu will continue on his roving quest for more chubby little babies who’ve strayed from the care of adults, and goes on catching them until his hairstring belt is full, and he’s completely circled by lifeless dangling babes. Then the Pangkarlangu makes a fire, chucking the dead tots onto the ashes, after which he settles down to gorge himself on a mouth-watering meal of slow-roast baby.</p>
<p>On one memorable occasion, in my presence, Lajamanu artist and storyteller extraordinaire Molly Tasman Napurrurla, in bloodcurdling language and with hair-raising vocalisation (although if it were possible to appreciate the dark, gothic tenor of the situation, at another level it was hilarious, owing to the brilliant use of black humour in Napurrurla’s performance) described and mimed the actions of the Pangkarlangu to an audience of deliciously terrified little children at the Lajamanu School. </p>
<p>Napurrurla re-enacted the Pangkarlangu’s apelike ambulatory motion as it clumsily thumped around the desert, with the heads of little babies attached to his hair-string waistband bouncing up and down and swinging about when the large, ungainly creature changed direction.</p>
<p>There was no doubt in my mind that such narratives are first and foremost about social control with respect to the specific dangers of the desert where, in the summer months, people can die horribly tormented deaths from thirst within a matter of hours. Such monstrous beings and their attendant narratives exist to impress upon and to inculcate into young children the need for obedience to older members of the family, and especially not to wander off into the desert alone, lest they meet a fate perhaps worse than that of encountering a ravenous Pangkarlangu. </p>
<p>Pangkarlangu, like other monstrous beings in Aboriginal Dreaming narratives, whether male or female, are more often than not depicted in figurative form (a rare occurrence in Central and Western Desert art, which is primarily iconographic) with grossly oversized genitals – their enormous members providing surefire evidence of malevolent intent.</p>
<p>Several years ago when I was negotiating with a publisher to write a children’s book about monsters in Aboriginal Dreaming narratives, all was going well until I showed him Pintupi artist <a href="http://www.nma.gov.au/collections-search/atsiaa/results.php?search=adv&propertab=Tjungurrayi%2C+Charlie+Tjaruru">Charlie Tjararu</a>’s beautifully executed and evocative painting of a Pangkarlangu (see above). As I explained the significance of the figure’s monstrously-proportioned genitalia, the man turned to me and said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>But, ah, Christine, but how are we going to explain the “third leg” to the kiddies?</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46639/original/h52d4df9-1397712232.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46639/original/h52d4df9-1397712232.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46639/original/h52d4df9-1397712232.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=699&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46639/original/h52d4df9-1397712232.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=699&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46639/original/h52d4df9-1397712232.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=699&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46639/original/h52d4df9-1397712232.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46639/original/h52d4df9-1397712232.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46639/original/h52d4df9-1397712232.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Harry Tjutjuna, 2007, Pitjantjatjara, Wati Nyirunya (‘The Man Nyiru’).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© the artist, courtesy Ninuku Art Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Monstrous figures in Arnhem Land</h2>
<p>As in the case of the desert regions, the repertoire of monstrous figures in Arnhem Land in the wet tropical monsoon-prone far north of Australia, speaks to the inherent dangers of particular environments. This is also reflected in artworks and narratives.</p>
<p>At one level, Yawk Yawks could be described as Antipodean mermaids – except for the fact that they are not benign. These fish-tailed maidens, young women Spirit Beings, with long flowing locks of hair comprised of green algae, live, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say “lurk”, in the deep waterholes, rockholes and freshwater streams of Western Arnhem Land in particular.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/47261/original/bt6fhfx2-1398750979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/47261/original/bt6fhfx2-1398750979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/47261/original/bt6fhfx2-1398750979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/47261/original/bt6fhfx2-1398750979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/47261/original/bt6fhfx2-1398750979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/47261/original/bt6fhfx2-1398750979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/47261/original/bt6fhfx2-1398750979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/47261/original/bt6fhfx2-1398750979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Luke Nganjmirra, Kunwinjku, 1990, Yawk Yawk Maidens, natural ochres on Arches paper, 75.5cmx102cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image © the artist, licensed by Aboriginal Artists Agency Ltd</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Children and young people particularly fear them, because they are believed to be capable of dragging people underwater and drowning them. Like most Aboriginal Spirits, they have the capacity to metamorphose, and can sometimes assume a presence on dry land, before morphing back into water spirits.</p>
<p>There are a number of celebrated artist-exponents of Yawk Yawks in Arnhem Land, including <a href="http://www.aboriginalartdirectory.com/artists/Luke%20Nganjmirra">Luke Nganjmirra</a>, a Kunwinjku painter working from Injalak Arts & Crafts, Maningrida-based brothers <a href="http://www.maningrida.com/mac-artists/owen-yalandja">Owen Yalandja</a> and <a href="http://www.maningrida.com/mac-artists/crusoe-kurddal">Crusoe Kurddal</a> (carvers), the sons of the late Kuninjku ceremonial leader Crusoe Kuningbal (1922-1984), and <a href="http://www.maningrida.com/senior-mac-artists/anniebell-marrngamarrnga">Anniebell Marrngamarrnga</a> (a weaver who fashions Yawk Yawk maidens from pandanus) who also works with the Maningrida Arts and Cultural centre. </p>
<p>Also in Arnhem Land are Namorroddo Spirits. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46629/original/zsghvr2x-1397710170.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46629/original/zsghvr2x-1397710170.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46629/original/zsghvr2x-1397710170.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46629/original/zsghvr2x-1397710170.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46629/original/zsghvr2x-1397710170.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46629/original/zsghvr2x-1397710170.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46629/original/zsghvr2x-1397710170.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46629/original/zsghvr2x-1397710170.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Garry Djorlom, Kunwinjku, 1991, Dancing Namorroddos, natural ochres on Arches paper, 76cmx95cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© the artist, licensed by Aboriginal Artists Agency Ltd</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They have long claws and at night fly through the air, long hair streaming, to prey on human victims. Parents control children by cautioning them not to run around outside at night, particularly when there is a high wind, which echoes the sound that the Namorroddos make as they whistle and swish though the night sky, their skeletal bodies held together only by thin strips of flesh. </p>
<p>Namorroddos are somewhat akin to vampires, in that they suck out their human victims’ life juices, after killing them first by sinking their long sharp claws into them. In turn, their victims are also transformed into Namorroddos.</p>
<p>And sorcerers abound, none more feared than the Dulklorrkelorrkeng, genderless, or rather, capable of assuming the characteristics of either gender, malignant Spirit Beings with faces similar to those of flying foxes, and that eat poisonous snakes with relish - to no ill effect. </p>
<p>Dulklorrkelorrkeng are known to go around with a whip snake tied to their thumbs, and they live in forests that have no ground water. In many respects they resemble the Namande spirits of western Arnhem Land. The late Arnhem Land artist <a href="http://gallery.aboriginalartdirectory.com/artists/lofty-bardayal-nadjamarrek.php">Lofty Bardayal Nadjamarrek</a>, of the Kundedjinjenghmi people, was esteemed as possibly the greatest living limner of the sorcerer-spirit Dulklorrkelorrkeng. </p>
<p>This account given here barely touches the surface of this vast topic. It points nevertheless to the extensive reach of Aboriginal Dreamings, culture, and visual art, which have the capacity to portray every aspect of human life, and the lives of other species too. </p>
<p>Ultimately, these Monstrous Beings and their narratives serve a critically important social function that contributes to the maintenance of life: that of instilling into young and old alike a healthy respect and commensurate fear of the specific dangers, both environmental and psychic, in particular places.</p>
<p><br> <em>This article is the fifth part in a series on “Dreamtime” and “The Dreaming”.</em>
<br></p>
<ul>
<li>Part one: <a href="https://theconversation.com/dreamtime-and-the-dreaming-an-introduction-20833">Dreamtime and The Dreaming: An Introduction</a> <br></li>
<li>Part two: <a href="https://theconversation.com/dreamtime-and-the-dreaming-who-dreamed-up-these-terms-20835">Dreaming and The Dreaming: Who dreamed up these terms</a>?<br></li>
<li>Part three: <a href="https://theconversation.com/dreamings-and-dreaming-narratives-whats-the-relationship-20837">Dreaming and Dreaming narratives: what’s the relationship?</a> <br></li>
<li>Part four: <a href="https://theconversation.com/location-location-location-two-contrasting-dreaming-narratives-20838">Location, location, location: two contrasting Dreaming narratives</a> <br></li>
</ul><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25606/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>
A rich inventory of monstrous figures exists throughout Aboriginal Australia. The specific form that their wickedness takes depends to a considerable extent on their location. In the Australian Central…
Christine Judith Nicholls, Honorary Senior Lecturer, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/20838
2014-02-12T19:33:07Z
2014-02-12T19:33:07Z
Location, location, location: two contrasting Dreaming narratives
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41311/original/4fv33567-1392164539.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Linda Namiyal Bopirri, 1990, Yolngu Matha, Dhuwa moiety, (Liyagalawumirr), Guruwara, Ramingining, Central Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Birds on Oyster Bank, (‘Oyster Dreaming’, ‘Wayanaka’), Acrylic and Natural Pigments on Canvas, 122x122 cm.
</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><blockquote>
<p>Location, location, location. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The real estate agents’ hollow, hackneyed mantra takes on real purchase when applied to the distribution of <a href="https://theconversation.com/dreamings-and-dreaming-narratives-whats-the-relationship-20837">Dreamings and Dreaming narratives</a> across this continent and its surrounding islands. </p>
<p>Underpinned by <a href="https://theconversation.com/dreamtime-and-the-dreaming-who-dreamed-up-these-terms-20835">what has become commonly known</a> in imperfect English translation as “The Dream Time” or “The Dreaming”, the subject matter and attendant narratives of traditional Aboriginal visual artworks vary considerably across the mainland and islands of this place we now call “Australia”. These artworks portray key episodes in, or elements of, Dreaming narratives in a highly condensed visual language.</p>
<p>As far as Dreamings, Dreaming narratives and associated doctrines of “The Dreaming” are concerned, locality rules. And because these extended oral and painted narratives are grounded in particular “country”, they differ in subject matter from place to place, to a greater or lesser extent, depending on specific environmental features, landmarks, and the local flora and fauna. </p>
<p>Certain Dreamings do, however, extend over the length and breadth of the Australian continent and surrounding islands. Typically these include diverse “Water Dreamings”, since fresh water, above ground or subterranean, is the <em>sine qua non</em> of all human (and other species’) continuing existence. Various astronomy-related Dreamings, including “<a href="https://theconversation.com/dreamtime-and-the-dreaming-an-introduction-20833">Seven Sisters</a>” and “Milky Way” Dreamings, for instance, can be viewed from virtually any vantage point in Australia; hence these are also part of the Dreaming repertoire of virtually all Aboriginal groups.</p>
<p>Many Dreaming narratives take the form of lengthy epics, and involve journeying, detailing the inter- and intra-species encounters that take place in the course of those travels. These epics, cast in elevated language, are comparable with other great epic poetry. As with Beowulf, the Iliad, Virgil’s Aeneid, and the Portuguese Lusiads, these narratives often include high drama. They chronicle the full gamut of human transgression and capital vice, including lust and sometimes even rape and murder. A common trope is that of “men behaving badly” – and, sometimes, women too. </p>
<p>Creation narratives also encompass accounts of the foundational enactments of Ancestral Creator Beings, while simultaneously encrypting information about land navigation, and mapping ownership of group territory.</p>
<p>By considering two contrasting Dreaming narratives we can get a sense of their diversity, depth and groundedness in specific locations. </p>
<h2>Charlie Matjuwi Burarrwanga’s Baru – Crocodile Dreaming</h2>
<p>(Northeast Arnhem Land) </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39508/original/gtnq2tvz-1390274369.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39508/original/gtnq2tvz-1390274369.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39508/original/gtnq2tvz-1390274369.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=735&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39508/original/gtnq2tvz-1390274369.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=735&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39508/original/gtnq2tvz-1390274369.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=735&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39508/original/gtnq2tvz-1390274369.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39508/original/gtnq2tvz-1390274369.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39508/original/gtnq2tvz-1390274369.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">Charlie Matjuwi Burarrwanga, Galiwin’ku, Elcho Island, North East Arnhem Land, Yirritija Moiety, 1990, Baru, Crocodile Dreaming, acrylic with natural pigments on canvas, 84x105 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© the artist, licensed by Aboriginal Artists Agency Ltd; Burkhardt-Felder Collection, Switzerland</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The celebrated Gumatj artist, and leader of the Burarrwanga clan, Charlie Matjuwi Burarrwanga (born c. 1925 –) lives a semi-traditional way of life on Galiwin’ku, (Elcho Island) in northeast Arnhem Land. Several years ago, he recounted just one episode from the lengthy epic of Baru, his Crocodile Dreaming (see above), to a non-Aboriginal friend. That rendition, only one of the many parts contributing to the full account, took seven and a half hours in the telling, told in a single sitting. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41325/original/myykwbnn-1392173864.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41325/original/myykwbnn-1392173864.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41325/original/myykwbnn-1392173864.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41325/original/myykwbnn-1392173864.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41325/original/myykwbnn-1392173864.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41325/original/myykwbnn-1392173864.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41325/original/myykwbnn-1392173864.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41325/original/myykwbnn-1392173864.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Saltwater Crocodile, Crocodylus Porosus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons </span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The lengthy narrative underpinning Matjuwi Burarrwanga’s Baru – Crocodile Dreaming relates not only to the food chain in swampy crocodile country, but encapsulates a Creation story. At the visual level, the Mardayin (Marrayin) designs the artist deploys indirectly in this work reveal that the narrative is connected to men’s sacred ceremonial lives. </p>
<p>The artist’s affiliation with the Yirritja moiety is evident in his choice of <a href="http://www.aboriginalartonline.com/resources/articles.php">red, diamond-shape designs</a>, closely connected (<em>inter alia</em>) to the scales on the crocodile’s back, and to an Ancestral fire that swept through that country with great intensity, severely burning the crocodile and leaving the characteristic diamond-shaped scars on its back, as well as reducing its previously much longer legs to short stumps. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39982/original/bgrx3fn2-1390884631.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39982/original/bgrx3fn2-1390884631.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39982/original/bgrx3fn2-1390884631.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39982/original/bgrx3fn2-1390884631.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39982/original/bgrx3fn2-1390884631.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39982/original/bgrx3fn2-1390884631.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39982/original/bgrx3fn2-1390884631.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39982/original/bgrx3fn2-1390884631.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Desmond J. Brennan, 1990, Painted for Ceremony, Watercolour on Paper, 74x93 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Copyright the artist; Burkhardt-Felder Collection, Switzerland.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Parenthetically, it should be added that there are many Aboriginal Dreaming narratives detailing out-of-control bushfires. We ought not regard these life-threatening and life-changing events involving fire and water as exclusively contemporary phenomena.</p>
<p>Charlie Matjuwi Burarrwanga’s affiliation with the Yirritja moiety is equally apparent in the portrait of the artist standing on his own country (see above), painted by his non-Indigenous friend, the water colourist Desmond Brennan. Brennan’s work reveals the close connections between a clan member’s body painting designs and his or her artwork on introduced media. In fact, Baru – Crocodile Dreaming was the first painting Matjuwi ever produced on canvas.</p>
<p>An important part of all Dreaming narratives is the transmission of site-specific factual data, encapsulating natural science. The saltwater crocodile feeds on many other, smaller swamp dwellers with which it co-exists, including the <a href="http://australianmuseum.net.au/Mangrove-Jack-Lutjanus-argentimaculatus">Mangrove Jack</a> fish (<em>Lutjanus argentimaculatus</em>), called <em>warrta</em> in Burarrwanga’s language, Gumatj. Two Mango Jack are depicted in his artwork, disclosing their significance as part of saltwater crocs’ staple diet. </p>
<p>Apart from the central focus on the narrative relating to Baru, the saltwater crocodile, a number of design elements in this work are figurative, differentiating it from most Central and Western artworks.</p>
<h2>Lily Hargreaves Nungarrayi’s Liwirringki Jukurrpa or ‘Burrowing Skink Dreaming’</h2>
<p>(The Tanami Desert) </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41314/original/nj2pr7z8-1392166047.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41314/original/nj2pr7z8-1392166047.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41314/original/nj2pr7z8-1392166047.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41314/original/nj2pr7z8-1392166047.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41314/original/nj2pr7z8-1392166047.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41314/original/nj2pr7z8-1392166047.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1125&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41314/original/nj2pr7z8-1392166047.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1125&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41314/original/nj2pr7z8-1392166047.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">Lily Hargreaves Nungarrayi, Warlpiri, 2003, Liwirringki Jukurrpa (‘Burrowing Skink Dreaming’), 2003, etching, sugar lift painting and acquatint on two plates, on Magnani Pescia paper, image size 490x320 mm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of Warnayaka Artists, Lajamanu and Aboriginal Art Prints Network, Oxford Street, Sydney</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To illustrate the differences in Dreamings and their attendant narratives and their all-important relationship to specific “country”, I’ll discuss a contrasting Dreaming, a Burrowing Skink (lizard) Jukurrpa (see image above) from Warlpiri country in the Tanami Desert of Central Australia. </p>
<p>As a senior Warlpiri Law woman, Lily Hargreaves Nungarrayi has the right to paint a number of different Jukurrpa (“Dreamings”), including the Yilpinji (poorly translated as “love magic”) theme associated with the Liwirringki Jukurrpa or the Burrowing Skink Dreaming.</p>
<p>The burrowing skink, (liwirringki in the Warlpiri language, lerista species, squamata order) whose name was Wamarru, belonged to the Japangardi skingroup. Wamarru came from a place west of Yuendumu.
The burrowing skink is a smallish lizard, smooth-skinned and hairless, similar to a little snake. </p>
<p>In earlier times, especially in pre-contact days, this lizard, like other small game of the Tanami Desert region, was an important food source for Warlpiri people. Because the liwirringki characteristically digs itself into a burrow, Warlpiri women would dig it out with digging sticks (<em>karlangu</em>). This enabled these hunter-gatherers to capture liwirringki with relative ease, and kill, cook and eat it.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41327/original/fckh4ykz-1392174143.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41327/original/fckh4ykz-1392174143.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41327/original/fckh4ykz-1392174143.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41327/original/fckh4ykz-1392174143.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41327/original/fckh4ykz-1392174143.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41327/original/fckh4ykz-1392174143.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41327/original/fckh4ykz-1392174143.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41327/original/fckh4ykz-1392174143.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">Burrowing Skink.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Adam Stow, Macquarie University, Biological Sciences</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>According to this Yilpinji Dreaming narrative, Wamarru, who was already married, fell in love with Yurlkirini, a young Nungarrayi Burrowing Skink woman. Because the young woman was Wamarru’s classificatory mother-in-law, she was in the “wrong” skin group relationship to Wamarru for any kind of love match to occur between them. </p>
<p>According to Warlpiri law, and that of other Aboriginal groups, almost all forms of contact or communication between sons-in-law and mothers-in-law is strictly forbidden. In fact, the ultimate Warlpiri taboo, the love that dare not speak its name, is a sexual liaison or marriage between a mother-in-law and her son-in-law.</p>
<p>Notwithstanding, Japangardi the burrowing skink was so consumed by passion and sexual desire for Yurlkirini that he travelled to the place where she lived. At that point, Wamarru turned himself into a man and spun some bush string and then a hairstring love belt. It should be noted that it is not uncommon for Dreaming Ancestors to possess the ability to metamorphose from animal to person, and in and out into other states, then back again. </p>
<p>Equally, hairstring is an important accoutrement of seduction by Yilpinji, and is closely associated with a range of Dreaming narratives and Yilpinji artworks.</p>
<p>As a man, Japangardi put on the hairstring belt that he had spun from his spindle, and sang Yurlkirini, the young Nungarrayi, towards him, using a powerful Yilpinji love charm. Powerless to resist, Yurlkirini succumbed to his advances. Japangardi repeatedly made love to that Nungarrayi woman, then took her back to his country to live with him.</p>
<p>Two men made a big bush-fire targeting the two runaway <em>liwirringki</em> (now known as the “lover-boy” and “lover-girl”) who had run off together into the bush. The latter is a reference to a method of entrapment by fire of native fauna used by Indigenous people. Known as “firestick farming”, and still practised by Warlpiri and other groups, the method involves the regular burning of vegetation to facilitate the hunting of various species. </p>
<p>Firestick farming also encourages regrowth of scrub into more edible grasses, thereby increasing numbers of non-carnivorous grass-eating species such as kangaroos and wallabies, also part of the food chain and which are a significant part of the hunter-gatherers’ diet.</p>
<p>Lily Nungarrayi’s artwork shows women, who are depicted as U-shapes – the shape that one’s backside leaves imprinted on the red sand – sitting in a group performing the Liwirringki ceremony. The male and female burrowing skink Dreaming Ancestors are also depicted on the left side of the print. There is also a reference to a women’s ceremonial digging stick.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41316/original/zddvq5h5-1392166571.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41316/original/zddvq5h5-1392166571.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41316/original/zddvq5h5-1392166571.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41316/original/zddvq5h5-1392166571.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41316/original/zddvq5h5-1392166571.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41316/original/zddvq5h5-1392166571.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41316/original/zddvq5h5-1392166571.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41316/original/zddvq5h5-1392166571.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">L-R, foreground: Peggy Rockman Napaljarri (in profile, watching as ‘kurdungurlu’; Lily Hargreaves Nungarrayi (painting, facing); unknown child (back view); author Christine Nicholls being painted for ceremony (Kurrurumpa Napurrurla – back view) with Yarla Jukurrpa (‘Yam Dreaming’); Barbara Nakamarra (‘kirda’, painting, facing), photograph circa 1984.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo courtesy Digby Duncan.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is of scientific interest to note that all male reptiles of the Squamata order, including the burrowing skink, have two penises. This can be interpreted as a metaphor for Liwirringki’s aberrant sexual proclivities, as portrayed in this narrative. At another level this serves as a metaphor for Warlpiri polygamy.</p>
<p>Close analysis of the Liwirringki narrative in its entirety reveals that it, as with other Dreaming narratives, is replete with information about desert people’s traditional modes of managing the multiplicity of challenges presented by their harsh living conditions, climatic extremes, acute water shortages and resource-poor landscapes. The matter of responsible management of one’s close interpersonal relationships when one lives in a very small group is equally significant here, too.</p>
<p>In addition, people’s knowledge of practical ethology, the geographical distribution of various species of edible flora and fauna, methods of long-term environmental sustainability, and the solutions that they found in order not only to survive in such an inhospitable and arid place, but also to live well, are encoded in this and other Dreaming narratives. </p>
<p>These narratives involve a seamless synthesis of traditional Indigenous scientific knowledge with guiding principles for morality. The narrative structure of these narratives differs from Anglo-European traditions in that their “endings” often do not entail neat finales, but are often constituted as new beginnings. </p>
<p>Suffice to say a man needs to take great care, if he takes two or more wives, or the result may be more serious than small-scale marital disharmony.</p>
<p>In the next article I will look at the relationships between Aboriginal kinship systems and ownership of Dreamings and Dreaming narratives, which I’ve touched on in this and the previous articles in this series. </p>
<p><br>
<br>
<em>This article is the fourth part in a series on “Dreamtime” and “The Dreaming”.</em></p>
<ul>
<li>Part one: <a href="https://theconversation.com/dreamtime-and-the-dreaming-an-introduction-20833">‘Dreamtime’ and ‘The Dreaming’ – an introduction</a></li>
<li>Part two: <a href="https://theconversation.com/dreamtime-and-the-dreaming-who-dreamed-up-these-terms-20835">‘Dreamtime’ and ‘The Dreaming’: who dreamed up these terms?</a></li>
<li>Part three: <a href="https://theconversation.com/dreamings-and-dreaming-narratives-whats-the-relationship-20837">‘Dreamings’ and dreaming narratives: what’s the relationship?</a></li>
</ul><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/20838/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>
Location, location, location. The real estate agents’ hollow, hackneyed mantra takes on real purchase when applied to the distribution of Dreamings and Dreaming narratives across this continent and its…
Christine Judith Nicholls, Senior Lecturer , Flinders University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/20837
2014-02-05T19:46:01Z
2014-02-05T19:46:01Z
‘Dreamings’ and dreaming narratives: what’s the relationship?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40742/original/cpt4jvdd-1391570726.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Shorty Jangala Robertson, 2011, Warlpiri, ‘Ngapa Jukurrpa’ (Water Dreaming) – Pirlinyanu, 76 x 76 cm.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Copyright the artist; Warlukurlangu Artists, Yuendumu.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>To imagine what “Australia” was like B.C. (“Before Cook”, or before colonisation), one needs to envision the entire landmass of this island/continent and most of its surrounding islands and waters as crisscrossed by “Dreamings” (in popular parlance sometimes referred to as “Songlines”).</p>
<p>Each of the approximately 250 separate Australian languages had their own words for and substantial vocabularies relating to what has now become known in English almost universally as <a href="https://theconversation.com/dreamtime-and-the-dreaming-an-introduction-20833">“The Dreamtime” or “The Dreaming”</a>. These usages have now entered other world languages as global tags for Indigenous Australian religion, thereby dramatically reducing outsiders’ capacity to grasp the diversity of Australian languages and cultures. </p>
<p>(It should be noted here that “Australian languages” is the linguistically accurate terminology for Aboriginal languages – which have no connection to any other language families in the world. The terminology “Australian languages” also takes on a political edge for Aboriginal language speakers, many of whom regard all other languages spoken in Australia, including English, as foreign imports). </p>
<p>In the <a href="http://www.environment.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/192254/NRM_Aboriginal_Curriculum.pdf">Ngunnawal</a> and <a href="http://archives.samuseum.sa.gov.au/tindaletribes/ngarigo.htm">Ngarigo</a> languages, for instance, in and around today’s national capital, Canberra, The Dreaming is called “Daramoolen”, and it’s “Nura” in the <a href="http://www.dharug.dalang.com.au/Dharug/filedownload/FrontPage.html">Dharug</a> language, in the vicinity of Sydney. </p>
<p>Across some of the dialects of Western Desert languages, including <a href="http://guides.slsa.sa.gov.au/content.php?pid=300440&sid=2462642">Pitjantjatjara</a>, which crosses the borders of three states, South Australia, the Northern Territory and Western Australia, the word-concept is “Tjukurpa”. As a result of processes of colonisation, all of these words have been reduced to the catch-all English translation, “Dreaming”, or sometimes, “Dream Time”.</p>
<h2>Dreaming cartography</h2>
<p>When considering the routes taken by Dreaming Ancestors (Creator Beings, who travelled the country making all things in the natural world, instituting kinship systems and the Law), an apt – though left of field – visual metaphor comes to mind. Diagrammatically, these interconnecting “Dreaming” pathways forged by Creator Ancestors could be represented along the lines of the detailed maps of the London Tube, Parisian Metro, Tokyo Underground, and New York Subway systems, in which myriad transecting lines and stopping points (stations) create complex and intricately imbricated patternings. </p>
<p>Significantly, akin to those subway networks, interconnected Dreaming sites are <em>named</em>. So, with respect to the Warlpiri artist Shorty Jangala Robertson’s Ngapa Jukurrpa (a “Water Dreaming”), the artwork that heralds this article, the specific named site, Pirlinyanu on Warlpiri country, is traversed by several other Jukurrpa, including the Walpajirri Jukurrpa (Greater Bilby Dreaming; Macrotis lagotis). </p>
<p>Place names may refer to the flora or fauna in a specific place, its above-ground or subterranean water supply, or lack thereof, or allude to significant events that occurred in the narratives framing the specific Ancestral journeys across “country”.</p>
<p>For those wishing to read more about Aboriginal toponymic practices, Luise Hercus and Jane Simpson’s article <a href="press.anu.edu.au//wp-content/uploads/2011/03/ch0125.pdf">Indigenous Placenames, an Introduction</a> is a good starting point.</p>
<p>To provide some examples of Warlpiri placenames, Miyi-kirlangu, situated in southern Warlpiri country, translates as “the place of vegetable food”, literally “Vegetable food-belonging”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40774/original/ycs8hgfs-1391581054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40774/original/ycs8hgfs-1391581054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40774/original/ycs8hgfs-1391581054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40774/original/ycs8hgfs-1391581054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40774/original/ycs8hgfs-1391581054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40774/original/ycs8hgfs-1391581054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40774/original/ycs8hgfs-1391581054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40774/original/ycs8hgfs-1391581054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Flame like’ ant hills.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dave Nicoll/Flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other Warlpiri toponyms include Warlu-kurlangu, to the west of Yuendumu, which means the Place of Fire (literally “Fire-belonging” – kurlangu is a possessive). Today, the ancestral fire that burned across that area has been etched into the landscape itself, in the form of the many large, flame-like anthills on that country.</p>
<p>To this day, viewed from a distance, these ochre-red, flame-like shapes remain potent reminders of the ancestral Jukurrpa fire that swept through that country, dispersing species, taking many lives, including those of the two young men who eventually succumbed to their malevolent father’s powers of sorcery. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40740/original/wgt9r83t-1391569569.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40740/original/wgt9r83t-1391569569.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1210&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40740/original/wgt9r83t-1391569569.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1210&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40740/original/wgt9r83t-1391569569.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1210&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40740/original/wgt9r83t-1391569569.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1520&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40740/original/wgt9r83t-1391569569.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40740/original/wgt9r83t-1391569569.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1520&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dolly Daniels Nampijinpa Granites, 1998, Warlukurlangu Jukurrpa (‘Fire Dreaming’), acrylic on canvas, 80x160 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of Warlukurlangu Artists, Yuendumu; Collection Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure> <p></p>
<p>The art centre at Yuendumu is also called <a href="http://warlu.com/">Warlukurlangu Artists</a>, in recognition of that Jukurrpa. Other significant Warlpiri Jukurrpa sites are closely associated with male initiation, also reflected in their names. Many place names have spatial connotations, assisting people in their rotational navigation around the desert via interconnected sites. The attendant site-specific narratives are committed to memory, enabling precise routes to be framed within broader narrative contexts, which act as mnemonic devices.</p>
<p>Akin to the aforementioned railway networks in high-density areas, in the more highly-populated areas of pre-contact Aboriginal Australia – typically the “country” on which our capital cities are now located – a multiplicity of “Dreaming” intersections crisscrossed one another to create irregular grid patterns. </p>
<p>In arid, outlying areas, such as the Central and Western Deserts, some Dreamings thinned out, but nevertheless continued across the length and breadth of the landmass. </p>
<p>The routes taken by Dreaming Ancestors are memorialised in and on the land itself. As these Creator Ancestors travelled, planting languages into the ground, instituting social, cultural and legal practices, and stopping along the way to create flora, fauna, waterholes, landmarks, and other environmental features, they interacted with other species and with “country”.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nma.gov.au/history/research/conferences_and_seminars/collections_symposium_2009">Jay Arthur</a> has <a href="http://www.dnathan.com/eprints/dnathan______1999_review.pdf">written extensively</a> about “country”, a widely used word-concept in Aboriginal English:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The words that Aboriginal people use about country express a living relationship. The country may be mother or grandfather, which grows them up and is grown up by them. These kinship terms impose mutual responsibilities of caring and keeping upon the land and people … For many Indigenous Australians, person and place, or “country”, are virtually interchangeable.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Dreaming or Creator Ancestors</h2>
<p>As they journeyed through country, across water, underground or through the sky, Dreaming Ancestors or Creator Beings provided models or templates for all human and non-human activity and interactions, social behaviour, natural development, ethics and morality. </p>
<p><figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39195/original/ps6pq78f-1389851494.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39195/original/ps6pq78f-1389851494.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39195/original/ps6pq78f-1389851494.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=254&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39195/original/ps6pq78f-1389851494.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=254&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39195/original/ps6pq78f-1389851494.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=254&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39195/original/ps6pq78f-1389851494.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=319&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39195/original/ps6pq78f-1389851494.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=319&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39195/original/ps6pq78f-1389851494.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=319&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Abie Jangala, Warlpiri, Rainbow Men, 2003, etching, sugar lift painting and acquatint on one plate, on Hahnemuhle paper, image size 24x64cm. CLICK TO ENLARGE IMAGE.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of Warnayaka Arts Centre Lajamanu, and Aboriginal Art Prints Network, Oxford Street, Sydney.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
</p><p>While the narratives connecting the travels of these Dreaming Ancestors to specific sites may be sung or spoken, they collectively represent a significant body of oral literature, comparable with other great world literatures, such as the Bible, the Torah, the Ramayana, and the Greek tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles, to name but a few. </p>
<p>Like those aforesaid works, “Dreaming” narratives make little attempt to mask their fundamentally didactic purpose: to teach about the sacred geographies of specific cultural landscapes, that people might learn to live on specific “country” successfully, in accordance with the Law.</p>
<h2>Dreaming narratives</h2>
<p>The entirety of “country”, including its environmental features, its topography and landmarks, its flora and fauna, its water sources, was (and for many, still is) deeply etched and encoded with meaning, and connected by powerful narratives. “Country”, whether that be terra firma, the sea, freshwater, or the celestial realm, all of which are regarded as animate, living, breathing entities, always has a significant part to play in Dreaming narratives.</p>
<p>Lengthy narratives, epics expressed visually or through dance and music as well as spoken or sung, provide details about those ancestral journeys through “country”.</p>
<p>The following brief examples of Dreaming narratives from two different places in Australia, Central Australia and Western Arnhem Land, illustrate the nature of Dreaming narratives, and their situated-ness in specific country. This will be followed by a more detailed analysis of two more contrasting Dreaming narratives in the next article in this series.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40743/original/cjpj7dyw-1391570733.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40743/original/cjpj7dyw-1391570733.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40743/original/cjpj7dyw-1391570733.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40743/original/cjpj7dyw-1391570733.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40743/original/cjpj7dyw-1391570733.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40743/original/cjpj7dyw-1391570733.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40743/original/cjpj7dyw-1391570733.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40743/original/cjpj7dyw-1391570733.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Myra Nungarrayi/Patrick, Warlpiri, 2013, Ngalyipi Jukurrpa, Bush Vine Dreaming, acrylic on canvas, 750x1350cm. CLICK TO ENLARGE IMAGE.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of Warnayaka Arts Centre Lajamanu</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Lajamanu-based Warlpiri artist Myra Nungarrayi Herbert/Patrick’s Ngalyipi Jukurrpa (“Bush, Snake or Native Vine Dreaming”) is at one level a visual portrayal of the rope-like vine <a href="http://keys.trin.org.au/key-server/data/0e0f0504-0103-430d-8004-060d07080d04/media/Html/taxon/Tinospora_smilacina.htm">Tinospora smilacina</a>, a plant that grows on Warlpiri country. Ngalyipi served many purposes in earlier times, ranging from medicinal to ceremonial, the secular to the secret-sacred. In some ways it’s not unlike aloe vera. </p>
<p>Ngalyipi was used as a poultice to alleviate muscle and joint pain; applied externally to treat gastro-intestinal ailments; rubbed into wounds, boils, infected sores and the like; and taken by mouth to relieve the symptoms of colds, the flu, and related complaints. It was also used as a kind of rope for men to bind leaves to their ankles in public ceremonies called purlapa, and also to tie long, elongated witi poles to men’s bodies in more restricted male initiation ceremonies. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39989/original/w4pwd2cy-1390885080.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39989/original/w4pwd2cy-1390885080.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39989/original/w4pwd2cy-1390885080.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39989/original/w4pwd2cy-1390885080.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39989/original/w4pwd2cy-1390885080.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39989/original/w4pwd2cy-1390885080.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39989/original/w4pwd2cy-1390885080.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39989/original/w4pwd2cy-1390885080.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Warlpiri Purlapa Wiri (large-scale public ceremony) Lajamanu, Northern Territory, 1982.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photograph: Christine Nicholls</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The lengthy narratives relating to these male Witi ceremonies in which ngalyipi plays a role, and the travelling of the men and initiates from Jukurrpa site to Jukurrpa site, may only be divulged to certain senior persons in the appropriate kinship groups. </p>
<p>Some of what one can learn about the nature of Jukurrpa narratives is, however, evident in this brief description. At one level, detailed ethno-botanical knowledge relating to this useful, multipurpose vine is deeply embedded in the narrative, as is Warlpiri medicinal know-how. At the same time more restricted subject matter pertaining to a significant cultural practice informs the longer narrative.</p>
<p>In significant contrast, in terms of both subject matter and stylistic features, there’s Ralph Nganjmirra’s Diarrhoea Dreaming, the title of which may surprise some readers, given existing preconceptions about the unqualifiedly “spiritual” nature of Dreamings and their accompanying narratives.</p>
<p>Nganjmirra is a Western Arnhem Land (Kunwinjku) artist who paints with the <a href="http://www.injalak.com/">Injalak Art & Crafts group</a> at Gunbalanya (formerly known as Oenpelli), not far from Jabiru in Australia’s “Top End”. That “country” is markedly different from that of the Warlpiri desert dwellers. </p>
<p>This Dreaming artwork, as with other Western Arnhem Land painting, shows the characteristic “X-ray” style of that region. Rarrk (clan-owned cross-hatchings, which have been likened to the Scottish tartans in terms of familial ownership of the designs) also characterise artworks from this area. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39986/original/jdrr2f8h-1390884984.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39986/original/jdrr2f8h-1390884984.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39986/original/jdrr2f8h-1390884984.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39986/original/jdrr2f8h-1390884984.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39986/original/jdrr2f8h-1390884984.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39986/original/jdrr2f8h-1390884984.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39986/original/jdrr2f8h-1390884984.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39986/original/jdrr2f8h-1390884984.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ralph Nganjmirra, Kunwinjku, Diarrhoea Dreaming, 1994, natural ochres on Arches paper, 77cmx57cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© the artist, licensed by Aboriginal Artists Agency Ltd.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The narrative relates to the deaths of two Ancestral sisters, both pregnant, who accidentally consumed highly toxic cycad berries and drank salty water. As a result they died very nasty deaths involving dysentery and vomiting (we’ve been spared the vomiting in this artwork – the specific visual information that the artist who is the Dreaming owner chooses to disclose is at his or her discretion). </p>
<p>As is the case with Myra Nungarrayi’s work, Nganjmirra’s narrative operates on several levels. The Diarrhoea Dreaming encapsulates deep knowledge of the properties and location of local flora (ethno-botany, again). It also has a didactic function, that of instructing others about the toxicity of these berries, which is in this case a matter of life and death. </p>
<p>Finally, it offers a commentary on the fatally unwise actions of the two sisters, whose intemperate behaviour led to their premature deaths, and to the deaths of their unborn children. Thus the sisters act as “negative exemplars”, <a href="https://theconversation.com/dreamtime-and-the-dreaming-who-dreamed-up-these-terms-20835">as discussed in part two</a> of this series. </p>
<p>In common with other Dreaming narratives, Nganjmirra’s work has a dimension that cannot be shared with just anybody. </p>
<p><br>
<br>
<em>This article is the third 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/dreamtime-and-the-dreaming-who-dreamed-up-these-terms-20835">part two here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/20837/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>
To imagine what “Australia” was like B.C. (“Before Cook”, or before colonisation), one needs to envision the entire landmass of this island/continent and most of its surrounding islands and waters as crisscrossed…
Christine Judith Nicholls, Senior Lecturer , Flinders University
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.