Early Man

[Graybeard]

Hi Sherry ..... Well ... to change your Alias from Dolly to Sherry just PM Robert and he will fix it up for you.

Secondly .... The Dreaming .... well, thats a big ask .... I am not an expert. This is from an earlier post higher up

Some of them never stopped until they reached Australia 60,000 years ago. The record of their journey is contained in their 'Dreamtime'. the dreamtime is not a religion, it is the oral history passed down thru the countless generations so that the descendants may survive.

The DNA proof of their journey is that they carry a special DNA marker unique to Australian Aboriginals. This DNA Marker has recently been found, by the human genome project, in 2 citizens of Chennai (Formerly Madras, India). These two citizens were born, and have lived all their lives in Madras, as well as all their forebears for as far back as can be traced. This has been taken to show that the Australian Aboriginal passed that way on his incredible journey.

The reason that the Dreamtime is not a religion is that it NEVER makes a prediction for the future, it only tells the story of the journey of man, and the creation of the world. it has no God. It is full of Serpents and creatures of mythical status ... but versions of these creatures exist all around such as snakes and emus and crows and kangaroos.

The Dreamtime lays down Dreaming Paths that are followed to this day by Aboriginals on walkabout. There are very good reasons, scientific reasons, why these paths should be followed and certain actions, such as burning, are to be carried out.

The Dreamtime is not just the Aboriginal story, it is ours, yours and mine too.

Aboriginal people have told me dreamtime stories. The dreaming is really a creation myth. In fact, as the Aboriginals have the oldest known history in the world, then this also makes the dreaming the oldest creation myth in the world.

From your profile I see that you are in Canada, possibly even Gold-Bridge LOL.

I was going to say that if you watch NITV (National Indigenous TV) you can watch stories of the dreaming every night. But probably not in Canada. Many dreaming stories at first glance appear to be childrens stories. But in actual fact they contain information about paths or tracks throughout tribal land and what practices must be carried out at certain places at certain times in order that the land remains fertile.

There are many dreaming stories that are australia wide such as the rainbow serpent, but each tribal territory has additional dreaming stories that relate to that area alone. Australia is a very dry continent and the dreaming paths contain information that lead the tribe down thru all the generations to water holes and rockpools. Each generation learns their own dreaming as well as the wider dreaming.

A bit like we would learn our own history at school, with this difference, the history is still part of current reality. I am probably not explaining this very well, but it is a difficult concept to grasp. We see it as a story, but the Aboriginals see it as a current reality, a reality that binds them to their territory with certain rules and regulations that they must perform as caretakers of the land. Their ancestors are still alive in this land, waiting for them along with the ancestral beings that created it. The land is everything too them. It is their parent. Tho the stories appear simple and childlike to us, they contain many, many layers of meaning that are NOT accessible to the uninitiated.

If you read some first it will give you an idea.

Dreamtime Stories

Dreamtime DVDs

My own personal view is that they are all part of a primitive explanation of creation. But ... a big But .... when you are far from a white city or town and you are in the presence of an elder or storyteller, the stories really do have a palpable impact on your psych. You can almost feel their power. Its hard to shake off.

Hope this helps a bit ..... greg

[Graybeard]

Sherry .... This is a reply to a post from an american who was asking me about Aboriginals.

Two thirds of the way down starting with "Another thing that most people do not understand is that Aboriginal people ......" Is probably more related to the question you are asking about the Dreaming

Quote: ScalpCreek
I am a bit surprised that you can not even collect surface artifacts in Oz. Is that the law there? Oz has some very strict laws. My friend in Taz tells me that there are quite a number of hoodlums, who rob stores, people and vandalize private property there, and that police protection is somewhat lax. and I know you guys have very strict firearms laws too.

Hi Scalp

I am not sure of the exact laws. But you are not allowed to collect any artefacts at all, so far as I know.

There are a number of reasons that led to this law. When the English first settled here their House of Lords passed a decree that Australia was 'Terra Nullis'. In law this meant that the land belonged to no one, and therefore they could claim it.

This was an expediency that enabled them legally to kill, rape, terrorise and pillage any indigenous person who got in the way of the waterholes and land they needed to bring about a decent civilisation.

This law stood until the indigenous people of the Murray river area contested its legality in Court (I think late 80s to early 90s). They lost ... but most importantly they did not lose on the grounds that the land was not theirs .. they lost on the grounds that they could not prove that they had kept an un-interrupted kinship and association with the land from 1788 until their court case. This was a very big ask for any aboriginal to be able to prove and most thought that this finally settled it and 'Terra Nullis' stood.

As we were the people who had dispossessed then from maintaining this kinship (the court recognised kinship was equivalent to ownership) by forcefully resettling them and removing their children to white foster parents and destroying their culture ... This meant nothing in contesting ownership.

But in 1992 Eddie Mabo successfully proved that his people had done just that. They had passed down tribal law from ancestor to ancestor in an unbroken chain. The government had fought this all the way, even to the High Court, the last avenue for appeal. But they lost !!

As the government owned the islands that he (Eddie Mabo) and his kin were on they (the government) had to return the land. Since then they have had to return a huge amount of land in many other cases as well.

As this only applied to Government land most of the commercial property owners, graziers (ranchers ?) etc, were not overly concerned.

But in 1996 the Wik people successfully bought their case against the owners of pastoral leases on the western coast of Cape York peninsula. This meant that private property could be subject to these decisions .... many people became gravely concerned .. but to no avail, they continued to lose cases. The precedent had been set

Most people that hold, own, or lease large properties have now come to realise the inevitable. To forestall the loss of the land they have started to negotiate with the traditional owners (the Aboriginals) to come to some terms. The government, realising that the traditional owners would need help in these sort of negotiations appointed an Aboriginal committee that were skilled in these negotiations. And so the threat that could have divided us has been circumvented. Since then nearly all disputes have been resolved peacefully and amicably.

I an unsure, but the amount of land now held by tribal ownership would be between 10 and 20 percent of Australia. This means that in order to mine, farm, etc you must first obtain permission.

As well, many Museums have had to return their artefacts to the traditional owners. Before entering Aboriginal land held under native title you must obtain permission from the custodians of that land. It is now recognised that surface artefacts, whether on tribal, government or private land belong to the traditional owners.

More importantly, regarding surface artefacts is that the traditional owners were nomads. They only used rockshelters and caves as temporary accomodation and not very often. This means that artefacts and lithics from rockshelters give a biased view of pre-historical australia. New methods and methodologies for dating have been developed to examine surface artefacts as it is realised that they are the majority and that they contain the unbiased information. Very little geological change has occurred, and so there is very little stratification, even for very old objects, most of them are still only a few millimetres below the surface. Of course we have mountains, etc, but in the main Australia is a very flat arid continent. So flat that even light rain can expose, in some areas, thousands and thousands of artefacts. This is one of the reasons for the law preventing the disturbance or removal of surface artefacts.

I am sure that if any lawyers or law people are reading this they will question my simplified explanation of the High Court decisions, but generally speaking it happened as I have told it.

Another thing that most people do not understand is that Aboriginal people do not look on anything as their personal property. For example if you empty out your pockets right now you would probably say that all the items are your private property. But to an Aboriginal person this is not necessarily so, in a funny way Aboriginals do not believe they own anything, they believe that they are owned by the land and that their duty is to look after it according to the laws they were given by their ancestors.

When you see an Aboriginal tribe returning to their land for the first time having contested and won Native Title, you will see many of the women break down, sobbing, and apologising to the land for their having neglected it for so long. (Even tho they were prevented from caring for it thru no fault of theirs.) Like a mother being reunited with a lost child, who wastes no time with explanations, but simply hugs it to her bosom. For many of the older Aboriginals this (dispossession and repossession) all happened in their own lifetime.

'my poor land, my poor land' they say over and over ... its very moving ... really ... and if you have seen it you would not deny their sincerity. For them the victory of Native title is not a personal victory, but they did it for their 'poor land' and to satisfy their ancestors.

So you see, this puts surface artefacts in a totally different light from how us white fellers look at them. For us an artefact or lithic is something to put in a case and admire, for an Aboriginal, he would leave it where he found it, it still belongs to the land and the ancestors. He would only pick it up if he needed it temporarily.

In Australia we now have 2 maps ... one showing the nation and states as you would know it. Another showing the land as it would have looked (and may do again) under tribal law. Click Here for Aboriginal Map I have one myself, they cost 20 bucks or so

Scalp, hope I haven't bored you with all this. LOL ... regarding the crime rate over here it is probably slightly better than most countries, statistically. Its possible that your friend in Taz went thru a bad patch.

cool bananas ... greg

Sherry, hope this helps a bit more ... LOL ... greg

[dolly]

Hi and thanks Greg. Both posts were helpful and appreciated. The links were perfect, and I found them to be at my level of comprehension. I've always believed the earth should be respected, reviered and cared for, thus my interest in Dreamtime and the Aborigine. Sadly we only live in Gold Bridge 3 months out of the year, the other 9 months in Vancouver. Gold Bridge has a year round population of 43 and theres not enough work to live there all year. Only another week to go and off to paradise. No TV or internet up there I'll miss the TOE. Peace Sherry

[Mikal]

Cool bananas...great rendition of the Aboriginals you speak of....looks like culture has not changed too much when you consider our society has liked to dispossess alot of the younger generation to varying circumstances like foster parents, youth detention centers and cas safe houses and on a bigger scale we are still destroying the culture of other peoples in other nations....


peace Mikal

[melanie]

Cool bananas...great rendition of the Aboriginals you speak of....
looks like culture has not changed too much when you consider our society
has liked to dispossess alot of the younger generation to varying circumstances like foster parents,
youth detention centers and cas safe houses and on a bigger scale we are still destroying the culture of other peoples in other nations....


peace Mikal

Culture and Society ... Some call it the "Zombie Jamboree'' ... Unless of course you are AWAKE

[melanie]

Cool bananas...great rendition of the Aboriginals you speak of....

looks like culture has not changed too much when you consider our society has liked to dispossess alot of the younger generation
to varying circumstances like foster parents,

youth detention centers and cas safe houses and on a bigger scale we are still destroying the culture of other peoples in other nations....


peace Mikal

"In the 60's people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal."

[Graybeard]

In winter I'm a Buddist
and in summer I'm a Nudist

cool bananas ... greg

[melanie]

In winter I'm a Buddist
and in summer I'm a Nudist

cool bananas ... greg

Pearls of Wisdom.

[r.p.bibra]

Sherry .... This is a reply to a post from an american who was asking me about Aboriginals.

Two thirds of the way down starting with "Another thing that most people do not understand is that Aboriginal people ......" Is probably more related to the question you are asking about the Dreaming

Sherry, hope this helps a bit more ... LOL ... greg

Very touching indeed. Thanks Greg.love&regards.ls.

[r.p.bibra]

In winter I'm a Buddist
and in summer I'm a Nudist

cool bananas ... greg

Greg there is vast, expanseless nature to cover our nudity. Nakedness is in our thoughts.!ove.ls