Aiden Evans's Profile

All aspects of the Aboriginal ceremonial life (including art, stories, songs, dances, rituals and totems) are derived from the Dreaming. The Dreaming is a term used to describe all knowledge and understanding in Aboriginal societies. Subsequently, the ceremonial life is a medium through which the core tenet of all Aboriginal societies, that is, the Dreaming is communicated. Art that is used in ceremonies offers a multifaceted interpretation and explanation of the Dreaming for different groups of Aboriginal people. Similarly, stories told during rituals are derived from the Dreaming. These Dreaming stories describe the process of creation, explain the foundations of various aspects of Aboriginal law and tradition. They are ways of teaching about right and wrong behaviour in society, and ultimately reinforce the importance of ceremonies to keep the Dreaming alive. In rituals the ancestor beings of the Dreaming are made present through the people and symbols involved. Balance rites are ceremonies that aim to ensure harmony within the land and assist the proliferation of a particular animal or plant. Initiation ceremonies at particular significant stages of people's lives lead them into a deeper understanding of the Dreaming. Because of the separation of Aboriginal people from their traditional land many important ceremonies that are ties to specific sacred sites of the Dreaming can no longer be done and have been lost.

All
of contemporary Aboriginal art is informed by a seemingly elusive concept
known as The Dreaming. The Dreaming is both the creation epoch in which
the world was formed, the Aboriginal equivalent of Genesis, as well as
the spiritual dimension of contemporary Aboriginal life, which is accessed
through ceremonial performance meant to reinvest the world with creative
energy, renewing plants and animals, and bringing the rains.

The
first events of The Dreaming established archetypal patterns and precedents
from which Aboriginal people organize themselves culturally, spiritually,
and in relation to their environment. The Dreaming is the underpinning
of all Aboriginal culture, from ritual to contemporary art. No matter
how seemingly abstract Aboriginal paintings may appear, they all have
an underlying narrative based on mythological creation stories referred
to as Dreamings (or a Dreaming in the singular). Each artist has custodianship
of segments of this vast mythological mosaic which maps the Australian
continent, connecting Aboriginal people to each other and to the land.
Yam Dreaming, Possum Dreaming, Rain Dreaming, and Fire Dreaming are all
stories that describe how things came to be as they are today at specific
places in the landscape.

 

 

The
participants in these Dreaming stories were spirit ancestors, the embodiment
of the first plants and animals, and natural elements, whose actions set
the natural order in motion. When these ancestral spirits finished their
business, they sank back into the ground from which they had emerged or
turned into rocks and trees, creating the physical features of the contemporary
landscape. The routes of their ceaseless journeys, the places where they
camped, fought, and loved, the tracks they made, became charged with their
sacred power. They left behind them the songs, dances, and designs with
which to recount their stories, providing the basis for Aboriginal ceremonial
life.

Dreamtime stories which talk about the Ancestors and Creation of the land give significance to all aspects of the landscape. Aboriginal descendants of particular Ancestral Beings have a very special relationship with the features of the countryside associated with the Ancestor.



Aborigines then are inseparably related to the land. The spiritual link between the person and his/her Ancestor through the land and animal species means that his/her link with a particular area of land cannot be taken away or transferred to somewhere else.



Compared with non-Aboriginal Australian attitudes to land it is for Aboriginal people something which cannot be bought or sold - Land is a source of his or her identity. This is the religious significance of land, but land also provided the group with its livelihood or means of living.

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