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Storytelling and Song often accompanied by dance movements have been a central element of Aboriginal Australian life since the beginning of time. There are songs for every event including: hunting, funerals, seasons, animals, and landscapes. Traditionally these stories have been passed down by the Elders through song and dance usually around campfires. Complex community and kinship patterns determine the ownership of Dreaming Stories; and, ancient initiatic rite and law protects the conveyance of the ceremonial knowledge and wisdom. Paintings of story images and symbols on natural canvases such as rocks depicting tracks, waterholes, stars, rivers, hills, sacred sites, and ceremonial activity can only be done by those authorized by tribal law to do so. Some stories are secret or sacred and can only be told to certain people. If they are told to the wrong person, it is a serious violation of the law. Men have secret sacred stories about initiation grounds that can only be revealed to initiated males. Women have stories unmarried women are not permitted to hear.
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. A walkabout is when Aboriginal Australians undertake a spiritual
journey to a belonging place to renew their relationship with their Dreaming and
the Landscape.
Dreamtime songs are a series of short verses that describe happenings or locations associated with ancestors. Ceremonial songs include portrayal of pertinent occurrences with dance movements. The songlines of the Dreaming Tracks have one characteristic melodic form throughout, even songs depicting the travells of an ancestor across thousands of miles. The Aboriginal Australians call this responsibility to safeguard the land and all species, "Taking Care". They sang songs and performed ceremonies to ensure the propagation of each species and the fruitfulness of the land. They perform their ritual obligations to the land by singing for the country the songs of the "Dreamtime", often accompanied by dance, and sometimes sand drawings. Aboriginal Australia music included traditional ceremonial songs handed down through the generations which replicated the songs sung by the ancestors during the Dreamtime. The original ancestor spirits taught others many songs for healing; for controlling the weather, and for telling tribal history. The propagating powers they left behind in the country to ensure plenty were best accessed during corroborees through their Dreaming symbols and songlines. When these songs were sung, living men felt they were in the Dreamtime. The positions of the planets and stars were used by the Aboriginal Australians for gathering food; for finding their way from one place to another; and for the timing of rituals and ceremonies. They also created new songs from time to time when there were significant historical happenings. Clapping sticks, Didgeridoo, rattles, and two boomerangs clapped together were the most common musical instruments... Continue on
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