Outback Facts: The Dreaming - Spiritual Links to the Land
Traditional Aboriginal Australia has its roots in the Dreaming, when ancestral spirit beings travelled across the country, creating the natural environment, humans, customs and laws, songs and stories. As the Dreaming ancestors travelled, they took the form of humans and animals, singing into creation the rocks, mountains, trees and rivers. They entered the earth and sculpted the landscape, creating the natural features we still see today. The great snake travelled all over the land, forming life-giving underground and inland rivers. The great fish swished its huge tail and splashed the water, marking bends in the river as it travelled to the sea. Such Dreaming stories crisscross every part of this country in a web of 'songlines'.
Blue Mountains
The beautiful peaks of the Blue Mountains in New South Wales are thickly woven with the legends of the Dharug people. Perhaps the most famous is the tale of the Three Sisters - impressive pillars of rock seen from Echo Point in Katoomba. The story tells of three sisters turned to stone by a sorcerer to protect them from the unwanted advances of three young men, but the sorcerer died before he could turn them back into humans.
Bawaka
Not only is it exquisitely beautiful, but the whole area around Bawaka in Arnhem Land is also a potent site of Yolngu ancestor stories and creation myths. Across the dunes at Yalangbara is the site where the Djang'kawu Sisters came ashore. This important Yolngu story varies from clan to clan across the region, but it broadly narrates the journey of two sisters who travelled by canoe across the sea from Baralku, the island of the dead. After arriving at Yalangbara, they journeyed overland through Yolngu country, naming places, plants and animals and creating freshwater springs.
Windjana Gorge National Park
The Windjana Gorge in Western Australia contains a cave depicting the wandjina, the mysterious ancestor spirits who have left their shadows in the form of world-famous rock paintings. These Creator beings of the Dreaming came from the sky and sea and hold the power to conjure up wet-season storms and lightning. These beings hold a unique place in Aboriginal spiritual life, and sites depicting them are sacred. Traditionally, each wandjina had its own custodian family who retouches the paintings annually.
Oenpelli
The main rock-art gallery at Injalak Hill (Arnhem Land) looks like a giant wall of graffiti, with dozens of human figures and animals layered one on top of another. The subject matter includes myths and stories such as the Rainbow Serpent and the dilly bag lady who, according to legend, wandered across the country handing out babies in dilly bags (woven grass or string bags), each baby representing a different language group in Arnhem Land.
Kakadu National Park
Koolpin Gorge in Kakadu is a restricted site taboo to the Jawoyn, who know it as 'sickness country'. Strangely enough, these hills are replete with uranium and, long before anyone had thought of nuclear weapons, the Jawoyn had divined the potential hazards of the area. Think about this as you watch the garnamarr, Kakadu's ubiquitous red-tailed black cockatoo winging lazily overhead with their 'creaking gate' call. The Jawoyn believe these huge black birds always fly north to escape sickness country, where their tails caught fire.
