Dreamtime, Aboriginal

Australian Aboriginal Culture

Numerous distinct cultural and linguistic groups span Australia, but with significant overlap in cultural practices and beliefs. The native people of Australia likely have the longest continuous culture of any group on earth. Archaeological sites throughout Australia provide evidence that indigenous people have occupied the continent for as long as 60,000 years. For most of this time they existed exclusively as hunters and gatherers. Men hunted animals such as kangaroos, emus, and turtles while women and children gathered fruits, berries, and plants. To prevent the overuse of any area of land and its resources, groups were mobile within a wide territory. According to Australian Aborigines, traditional lifestyles associated with existence as nomadic hunter and gatherers, as well as a newer way of life resulting from centuries of European contact, can be explained by reference to the actions and laws established by the Spirit Ancestors during the Dreamtime.

The Spirit Ancestors

The term Dreamtime is often misleading to Western thinkers who view time in a linear fashion and so mistakenly regard it as an event that was concluded in a distant past. But neither should the Dreamtime be thought of as time comprised of vast cosmic cycles, as found in many of the Eastern traditions. Rather, the Dreamtime may best be described with the term everywben, coined by anthropologist and historian W. E. H. Stanner or, similarly, as the “all-at-once-time,” in so far as past, present, and future coexist in an eternal now.

The Dreaming originated with the journeys of the Spirit Ancestors, who temporarily left their abodes under the ground and in the mystical sky realm to travel across the earth, creating the natural landscapes and living things that we see today. Taking a variety of human, animal, and other forms, the Spirit Ancestors endowed certain places with a particular power or sacredness [Page 347]while providing form to the landscape. These self-created Spirit Ancestors are not considered to be gods, but they do have significant power that can be used for either good or harm. For example, the Mimi spirits are described as tall, thin, stick-like figures that resemble humans. They live in rocky areas and although they may be mischievous at times, they are also credited with teaching the ancestors of today's Australian Aborigines how to hunt and cook as well as how to create rock paintings. Some indigenous groups maintain that particular rock paintings were left by the Mimi themselves.

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