The importance of dreaming in Australian Aboriginal Religion
'The Dreaming' is a term that refers to all that is known and all that is understood by Aboriginal people. It is central to the existence of traditional Aboriginal people and their lifestyle and culture, for it determines their values and beliefs and their relationships with every living creature and every feature of the landscape. It is the way Aboriginal people explain the beginning of life and how everything in their world came into being. It tells of the journeys and the deeds of Spirit Ancestors who made the trees, rocks, waterholes, and rivers, mountains and stars as well as the animals and plants, and whose spirits inhabit these features of the natural world today.It is the natural world that provides the link between the people and the Dreaming, especially the land (or 'country') to which a person belongs. Aboriginal people see themselves as related to, and apart of, this natural world and know its features in intricate detail. This relationship to the natural world carries responsibilities for its survival and continuity so that each person has special obligations to protect and preserve the spirit of the land and the life forms that are a part of it. These obligations may take the form of conservation practices, obeyin
They are not 'fairy stories' but rather an accurate and valid oral history of Aboriginal people. The Dreaming should be treated with a great reverence and respect. The most sacred place to the Red Kangaroo clan is a small natural spring known as Krantji. It has long been the traditional duty of each generation of the Red Kangaroo Clan to honour ceremonially this place. This spring is the birthplace and everlasting home of Krantjirinja their Original Ancestor, the leader of their Red Kangaroo clan. Without intentionally being Euro centric one might consider that The Dreaming is as important to Aboriginal people as the Bible and the whole ethos of Christian belief are to devout Christians. Each Aboriginal group has a Dreaming of its own although there are often similarities between them. The Pitjantjatjara word for it is 'Tjukurpa' but other words are used by different groups and different linguists; for example, 'Djugurba'. The Dreaming is the most acceptable English word to Aboriginal people. They have asked us to use it rather than terms like 'mythology'. They have also asked us to use the words 'Dreaming Story' rather than 'myth', 'legend' or 'fable'. Naturally, there are many different kinds of visual art in Aboriginal Australia. Some modern paintings are clearly representational and might depict, for example, totemic ancestors in recognisable forms. Central Australian Aborigines like the Walbiri and Pintupi, however, employ a more abstract style, which to uninformed Europeans appears to be non-representational. Yet the "abstract" nature of these paintings fits neither into representational categories of art nor into abstract art in the sense that we usually mean it. To understand these paintings, (but not to understand precisely what is being said, what the specific narrative or narratives are, or what each mark might represent, but rather to understand the essence of the works) one has to start from the ways in which Aborigines envision them - The Dreaming. Central desert paintings contain the essence of aboriginal thought; by examining them one can begin to gain access to an Abor
Some common words found in the essay are:
TGH Strehlow's, Dreaming Central, Spirit Ancestors, Aboriginal Dreaming, Walbiri Pintupi, , Red Kangaroo, Aranda Aboriginal, Dreaming Stories, red kangaroo, Aboriginal Australia, aboriginal people, natural world, kangaroo clan, red kangaroo clan, people dreaming, dreaming trails, aboriginal society, edwards wh, ecology red, song dance, ecology red kangaroo,
Approximate Word count = 1419
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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