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Aboriginal Australia Totemic Dreamtime
Animal Totems Shamanism
All Aboriginal tribes tell stories about the Rainbow Serpent. Although some elements of the Rainbow Serpent Story are known only to initiated members of the tribe, the illustration of the Rainbow Serpent has become public knowledge.
Rainbow Serpent Stories are Creation Stories so each of them is descriptive of the creation of the landscape where the storyteller lives. Rainbow Serpent artists often add clan symbols to the body of the Rainbow Serpent, symbolic of the connection between the clan and the land.
The Rainbow Serpent is linked with fertility, abundant plants and animals, protection, regenerating rains, watercourses, and peace. A female Rainbow Serpent, as the original mother creator, and, a male Rainbow Serpent, as the transformer of the land, are the two Rainbow Serpents most commonly depicted in Aboriginal ceremonies, art, and oral traditions.
When the Rainbow Serpent is not respected or laws are transgressed, the Rainbow Serpent can act as a destructive force, bringing floods and storms.
The story of the Aboriginals is in the land; the law is imprinted through the Dreaming Tracks or Songlines upon their sacred spaces. These Dreaming Tracks or Songlines distinguish all features of the land created by their Spirit Ancestors as they travelled across it.
Aboriginal Australia Dreaming Tracks Trees
These songlines are the footprints of their Spirit Ancestors as they sang Beingness into the landscape, setting the law. Today the journeys of the Spirit Ancestors are brought to life through these songlines. By performing the appropriate ceremonies and singing certain songs at precise points along the Dreaming Track, the Aboriginals gain direct access to the Dreaming. Many groups travell along Dreaming Tracks with their children, educating them by telling them stories of the Dreamtime.
Through the verses of these songs, Aboriginal Australians know every part of the landscape and where to find sources of water and food. They also use the songlines when they move about within the territory of the tribe or when visiting other tribes.
Going or Gone Walkabout happens when Aboriginal Australians undertake a spiritual journey to a belonging place to renew their relationship with their Dreaming and the Landscape. Clan members regularly move camp and go on cultural journeys for taking care and for corroborees, initiations, and other cyclical, ritualized ceremonies of the Dreamtime.
An individual can also go on walkabout. When an individual goes on a walkabout, it is different for different people. It can be a walk to where they originated; or it can be a walk to where they are part of the land and the land is part of them, a place of "Sacred Belongingness"... Go Back
Read Aboriginal Australia Articles
Animal Totems Shamanism,
Belonging Place Taking Care,
Corroborees Ceremonies,
Cultural Heritage,
Dreaming Tracks Songlines,
Glossary Terminology,
Kinship Elders,
Musical Song Dances,
Rainbow Snake Sacred Symbols,
Spiritual Beliefs,
Storytelling Custodianship
Visit other Beliefs Faiths Religions Traditions
Aboriginal Dreamtime,
Alchemy Alchemist,
Cosmos Astronomy,
Buddhism Buddhist,
Christianity Biblical,
Daoist Confucian,
Druidry Treelore,
Heathenry Ásatrú,
Hinduism Vedas,
Islam Sunnah,
Judaism Talmud,
Native American,
Paganism Wiccan,
Shamanism Shaman,
Shintoism Kami
Aboriginal Australia Totemic Dreamtime Copyright © 2002-2008 Maureen Grace Burns, Blessings Cornucopia. All Rights Reserved.
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