The heritage and culture of the Aboriginal people are among the oldest in the world. Rock drawings and engravings near Olary in South Australia are 34,000 years old. Aboriginal people believe they have been living on the continent since the beginning of time.
After Europeans discovered Australia, the number of Aboriginal people has been steadily declining, and in 1994, there were around 300,000 of them, including Torres Strait Islanders.
There are many different tribes that speak various languages. There are differences and similarities in their myths, way of life, and culture. Anthropological research in the last fifty years indicates the existence of 300-500 Aboriginal languages, with about 10% of Aboriginal people still speaking their own language.
There are many Aboriginal mythical stories that address the relationship between earthly and divine beings. Although they are simply told, they point to the divine origins of humans.
Myths evoke awe because they deal with profound and great mysteries. Initiated Aboriginal people They do not reveal the secret meaning of their myths. In Aboriginal society, there are multiple levels of initiation into the mysteries. In these initiations, the hidden meaning of myths and songs, rituals and ceremonies is passed down orally. Each song celebrates the unique role of the Ancestral Spirits within the sacred landscape, each song is a part of Creation itself.
Dreamtime is an important concept for understanding Aboriginal myths related to creation. Primordial beings, who had been sleeping beneath the surface of the earth, arose to create the world in Dreamtime.
In the Arrente language, the expression “altjiranga ngambakala” suggests that they “come from their own eternity”, “immortal”, “uncreated”. This is a key concept of Dreamtime or Dreaming. At the same time, “altjirarma” means “to see or dream eternal things” or “to see with the help of eternal vision”.
Before the earth was formed, there was dark, shapeless matter, an immense watery surface or a featureless plain. The spiritual p Words denote all space and all time from which that potential dark, nameless matter, ngallalla yawun (“all soft like gelatin”), consists. That concept is very similar to the chaos of Greek mythology or the concept of primal waters which, according to Hindu tradition, preceded creation.
Stories from the Dreamtime are the foundation of social and religious life. They tell of the journeys of these primordial beings and show how the landscape was shaped, how fire was created, how plants, animals, and humans were formed, and even how tools like spears and mills were created for everyday life for men and women.
The Aranda people from the interior say that at the beginning, the Earth was like a wasteland. There were no mountains or rivers, no light, because the Sun, Moon, and stars were still sleeping underground. There were no plants or animals, just semi-developed matter of semi-developed children who helplessly lay in places that would later become salty lakes and springs. Those shapeless children could not develop into men and women, but they neither aged nor died. Indeed, neither life nor death, as we know them, existed on the face of the earth at that time. But beneath the surface, life existed in the form of countless primordial beings who slept there, awaiting the call to emerge.
We do not know what called them to awaken, but one day their eyes opened and they broke through the surface of the earth, fertilizing it with their energy and strength. The sun and the moon also rose, and the earth was filled with light. This is a special, complex cosmogony. In order to create the human race, these beings, “born of their own immortality,” used stone knives, first to free the hands and feet of Inapatua, as they called the undeveloped children, and then they made fingers on their hands and feet with four swift cuts. Eyes and mouths were opened, noses and ears were shaped, and the initially shapeless Inapatua quickly grew into adults.1 In Aboriginal cosmology, everything and everyone, all space and time, are intertwined and interdependent, and everything is interconnected. Aboriginal people recognize that they carry within them the spark of their ancestors, which can be activated in ceremony and ritual, and that they have an unbroken connection to the time of creation, which they call the Dreaming or Dreamtime.
Spiritual beings created the sacred teachings of the Dreaming (Law); they established customs, taught people to hunt, use fire, and make cooking vessels, taught them to dance and perform ceremonies, and invented languages.
Mythical ancestors
Mythical ancestors play an important role in the creation and life of Aboriginal people, especially in their ceremonies. These beings that participated in the creation are ancestors, and some of them are associated with divine beings, stars, planets, the Sun, and the Moon. Djan’kawu is the collective name for three mythical ancestors: a male ancestor called Djan’kawu and his two sisters. The older sister was called Bildjiwuraroiju or Bildjiwuraru, a younger sister of Miralaidj, Malalait, or Mandalaidj. The two sisters are associated with the Sun, and one of their totems is the red-breasted parrot whose feathers resemble the colors of sunlight.
Bornumbirr is the Morning Star.
Nakarra Nakarra – the seven Dreaming sisters, corresponds to the star constellation Pleiades. They celebrate women’s lives, from gathering fruits to preparing for participation in ceremonies and their roles in initiating their sons. In the Dreamtime (Ngarangkarni), the seven sisters descended from the sky and traveled the land. They were the first women on Earth. They came to Earth to hunt and gather food, paint their bodies, and perform ceremonial dances.
Mirrabooka is the Southern Cross constellation. It always followed the tribes it loved and is the protector of humanity.
Kurikita, another mythical ancestor, was the wife of the celestial god Biami. She was completely covered in quartz crystals and when she turned, she gleamed in all directions. She was breathtakingly beautiful. Oh, young and full of life. In the Dreamtime, she left the earth and went to Wanclangganguru, a place beyond the clouds. She is connected to the emu called jarawajewa, who is her assistant and totem. She is also the mother of the Ravens (Waken, Waa, or Wahn), who are very important mythical ancestors associated with night or darkness and shadow. Ravens are also connected to the Canopus star.
The Sun Woman is Wuriupranili, and the Moon Man is Japara. Both carry a burning torch until they reach the western horizon; then they extinguish the flame and use the smoldering part of the torch to light their way back to the east through the dark spaces of the underworld. Every morning, the fire lit by the Sun Woman for her torch gives the first rays of dawn. She adorns her body with powerful ochre.
Rainbow Serpent
Another important concept of creation is the Rainbow Serpent. The Rainbow Serpent can be seen in most depictions of creation created by Aboriginal artists.
The revered and awe-inspiring Bolong, the Rainbow Serpent, is worshiped by all Aboriginal tribes throughout Australia. Alija as the Creator of life. When Bolong (who has both female and male aspects) created life, she categorized all living beings into certain categories.
In the Time of Dreams, the land was asleep. Nothing was growing. Nothing was moving. Then one day, Rainbow Snake woke up from her sleep and burst through the Earth’s crust, pushing away the stones that blocked her way. When she appeared, she looked around and started crossing the land in all directions. She traveled far and wide, grew tired, curled up and fell asleep. On the ground, she left winding tracks and the imprint of her body. When she had traveled the entire land, she returned to the place where she first appeared and called out to the frogs: “Come out.” The frogs slowly emerged from under the Earth’s crust, as they had full bellies of water that they had saved for the Time of Dreams. Rainbow Snake tickled their bellies, and as the frogs began to giggle, the water flowed through the ground and filled the tracks that Rainbow Snake had left on her path, thus creating rivers and lakes. Then, she began to grow. grass, trees rose and life began on Earth. All animals, birds, and reptiles woke up and started to follow the Rainbow Serpent, the Mother of Life, on the ground.
Moon
Most Aboriginal myths talk about the male Moon and the female Sun.
According to the Aborigines, the Moon brought two important gifts: fertility and hope for life after death. The Moon is a fertilizing male who bestowed his reproductive power to women, as well as plants and animals.
The Moon governs the waters in which it reflects. It causes floods and controls the tides. Its natural clock consists of 28 cycles. With three dark days and a pattern of rise and fall, it is the master of death and rebirth.
There is an idea of the nautilus shell as the skeleton of the dead Moon. And the Moon is depicted as the giver of life in a series of poems called the Cycle of Moon Bones:
The melodic percussion instruments are played, wooden trumpets are blown, and women dance in the moonlight and sing about how the Moon lived with his sister Dugong on the plains. the border with the bay of Arnhem. The Dugong was gathering tubers of water lilies and lotus roots for food, but the entire time leeches were sticking to her, so one day she rushed home and shouted: “Brother, I’ve had enough of these leeches! I’m giving up on life on land, I’m going to the sea and becoming a gong.”
“What should I do?” asked the Moon.
“You stay in the sky,” his sister said, “but first you must die.”
The Moon thought for a moment: “But I won’t die like other people,” he said, “I will come back to life.”
“Whatever you want,” said the Dugong, “but I won’t. When I die, I won’t return, and you can collect my bones.”
“I am different,” her brother said, “when I die, I will come back. Every time I get sick, I will become very thin and follow you to the sea, but then, only my bones will remain, I will throw them away and die.”
“I will become a pure spirit,” he thought, “but after three days, I will rise and return to the sky.”
As can be seen from this, they were well acquainted with The moon’s cycle; three dark days without the Moon. But in order to stay in the sky, it must die, and that is an idea worth considering.
Emu, crab, possum, frog, and bear are sacred animals of the Moon. Bone and boomerang are also associated with the Moon. The Moon Tree is encountered in many Australian myths, where a tall tree or a miraculously growing tree forms the ladder for the Moon Man to reach the sky. Sometimes the Moon Tree grows in the bush or in a garden. The birthplace of the Moon is a fascinating phenomenon in Aboriginal myths. There is mention of a valley where the land is the most fertile on Earth.
In the myth of the Dieyerie tribe of South Australia, Pirra (Moon) created all creatures under the guidance of the Creator Spirit called Mooramoora.
The moon’s cycle is connected with life and death. Bahloo, the waning moon every month, but grows back to its full size, is a sign to humanity that when a person dies, they will be returned to life on Earth by Baime (The Great Spirit, and hi This woman, Birrahgnooloo, is described as the Mother of All, provided it for him.
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Aboriginal people preserve their tradition orally, so the only recorded tradition we can access is the stories told to the white man in the last two centuries. These stories clearly show that Aboriginal people possess a deep understanding of the cosmos and of humanity, and they strive to live by its laws. Their connections with divine beings and with the Earth, the mother of all living creatures in the world, are still very much alive. The tradition that emerges from Aboriginal myths speaks in its universal language to the people of the modern world about some other, deeper dimensions of life.