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Published: December 10th 2008
Pukulpa pitajama Ananguku ngurkakutu
‘Welcome to Aboriginal Land’
Devils Marbles, 168km from the Three ways Roadhouse along the Stuarts Highway, Northern Territory.
Kwerrwympe/Munga Munga Dreaming: A women’s story
‘Two Warumunga ladies were traveling from Munga Munga (near Tennant Creek) to Karlwekariwe in the dreaming time. Kaytetye and Anmatyarr women from the south met together with these Warumunga ladies at Karlwekarlwe. Here they made a big ceremony. They were showing each other their dreaming (stories), all those Kwerrwympe. Before white people came, Aboriginal people made big ceremonies here about these Kwerrwympe’.
A senior Tradional Owner
The Dreaming is still here
Aboriginal people believe that people from the dreaming at Karlwekariwe live in the caves under the rocks here.
‘They’re real people like us. You can see them. A long time ago I went with my billycan down to the creek here to get some water. One of these secret people came out and started playing with me. I couldn’t go away.
My mother came and got me, saved me. After that we never camped at this place again, never. They’re kind these secret people, but they can make you mad. They can
change you into one of them. They can say, ‘Follow me’, and you can’t go back.
It happened like that for my cousin. He disappeared. The old people made a big ceremony, singing the ground and the rocks to make them let my cousin come back. We’ve lost that song now. We got no song to bring children back’.
A senior Traditional Owner
A prelude on our journey to the Ulhuru, near Alice Springs, NT. After a 2600km drive through the dessert on a journey to the heart of Australia. We stopped at Devil’s Marbles Conservation reserve, or known as Karlukarlu a spiritually significant and sacred sight to the Aboriginies. In the creation story of the dreaming the Rainbow Serpent fashioned the earth and then returned to a spot east of the Kimberleys at a place where the rainbow meets the earth. The Rainbow Serpent's eggs fossilized and became what non-Aborigines now call the Devils Marbles.
They are a collection of huge, round, red-coloured boulders, and although we have the mythological explanation, of which their power is believed in by the tribes, the scientific explanation is that they came from deep beneath the earth’s surface. They consist
of granite and were formed about 1640 million years ago.
To many this story may find meaning with the meeting of the secret people, the kind, beguiling people, that make you feel welcome, that make you feel safe, but take you away from your family, your morals, your inherent significance on this planet. That drive’s you to the edge of madness, with liability to never return.
Saved by our mothers, our at least the spirit of nature, the dreaming opens up awareness of other realms of existence, of the psyche, of not just the mind, but how our living with the accordance of the planet has been disrespected and practically lost. ‘We’ve got no song to bring our children back’….
The 'Dreamtime' is a misconceiving word, some aboriginal ancestors feel it is misleading in so far as it seems to portray an airy mysticism about it, when in actual fact living in the outback with nature is a hard reality.
This Ancient epoch of creation myths, Dreamtime legends, were explained in the woman’s ceremonies through the art of storytelling, explaining the origins and destiny of humanity leaving lasting impressions of the values of tribal life.
Road Trains
Serious Lorry Power! Check this bling bling machine A great book I picked up in Alice Springs, Wise Woman of the Dreamtime, is a collection of stories collected by K.Langloh Parker, a woman saved by an Aborigine girl from drowning. Her life threatening experience drew her forever into the depths of aboriginal culture. She devoted her lifelong intellectual and literary involvement to preserving these creation stories before the peak of colonialism banished them into non existence. Well it was an ‘ironic tragedy of belonging to, and in every way being a part of, the colonialism that destroyed the very people to whom she was indebted and in whom she had discovered such beauty and depth of spirituality.’ However the form of writing down these oral traditions does loose its living presence which is also the essence of communicating the feeling of any story. We can read a story in the paper but it will never effect us as the living reality of what we read. Regarded as a trusted friend, she was one of the earliest woman to have been disclosed these legends, ceremonies and secret culture of the Aboriginal customs. Her Christian upbringing and Anglo-Saxon conditioning understandably enabled her to be fully conscious of the belief
that there is more than one god, or that natural phenomena posses spirits, or a belief in spiritual being, and that the universe itself posses souls. And that the teachings of these souls are the principal of life and health. We know now, turning our minds eye to the re-balancing of our own health and that of the planet, that the principals of life and health are to be questioned and examined in minor and major detail, as we become conscious of our actions and re-actions.
The book is ‘dedicated to the re-imagining and re-dreaming of the existence of a harmonious relationship between humanity and all of the natural world. Just as Aboriginal women are the gatherers of the plants and the seeds, now is the time for the potencies of the Universal Feminine to be re-gathered, re-remembered with the traditional Aboriginal culture as a guiding force.’ With the edition of editing and commentary by Johanna Lambert, we can look at one tale of ancestral power in the fourth chapter, Tales of Healing.
Traditional healing, whether it be herbs, plants, meditation, psychotherapy, massage, chiropractic, osteopathy, reiki, or whatever helps the conscious body rejuvenate itself, accompanies clarification in its
Its a sign
Oh Yes its a sign.. manifested state that an ‘illness in their own characters and the negative projection that they had incurred. In this way, each person can grow in knowledge and ability to heal his or her own life’.
GOONUR, THE WOMAN-DOCTOR
Goonur was a clever old woman-doctor who lived with her son, Goonur, and his two wives. The wives were Guddah, the red lizard, and Beereun, the small prickly lizard. One day the two wives had done something to anger Goonur, their husband, and he gave them both a great beating. After their beating they went away by themselves. They said to each other that they could stand their present life no longer, and yet there was no escape unless they killed their husband. They decided they would do that. But how? That was the question. It must be cunning.
At last they decided on a plan. They dug a big hole in the sand near the creek, filled it with water, and covered it over with boughs, leaves, and grass.
“Now we will go”, they said, “and tell our husband that we have found a big bandicoots’ nest.”
Back they went to the camp and told Goonur
And another sign..
This one doesn't look to inviting however.. that they had seen a big nest of bandicoots near the creek and that if he sneaked up, he would be able to surprise them and get the lot.
Off went Goonur in great haste. He sneaked up to within a couple of feet of the nest, then gave a spring unto the top of it. Only when he felt the bough top give way with him, and he sank down into the water, did he realize that he had been tricked. It was too late for him to save himself, for he was drowning and could not escape. His wives had watched the success of their stratagem from a distance. When they were certain that they had effectively disposed of their hated husband, they went back to camp. Goonur, the mother soon missed her son and made enquires of his wives but gained no information from them. Two or three days passed, and yet Goonur, the son, returned not. Seriously alarmed at his long absence without having given her notice of his intention, the mother determined to follow the track. She took up his trail where she had last seen him leave camp. This she followed until she
reached the so-called bandicoots nest. Here the tracks disappeared, and nowhere could she find a sign of his having returned from this place. She felt in the hole with her yam stick and soon felt that there was something large there in the water. She cut a forked stick and tried to raise the body and get it out, for she felt sure it was her son. She dragged his body to an ant bed and watched intently to see if the stings of the ants brought any sign of returning life. Soon her hope was realized, and after a violent twitching of the muscles her son regained consciousness. As soon as he was able to do so, he told her of the trick his wives had played on him.
Goonur, the mother, was furious. “No more shall they have you as a husband. You shall live hidden in my dardurr. When we get near the camp, you can get into this long, big comebee (bag), and I will take you in. When you want to go hunting, I will take you from the camp in this comebee, and when we are out of sight, you can get out
and hunt as of old.”
And thus they managed for some time to keep his return a secret; and little the wives knew that their husband was alive and in his mothers camp. But as day after day Goonur, the mother, returned from hunting loaded with spoils, they began to think she must have help from someone, for surely, they said, no old woman could be so successful in hunting. There was a mystery, they were sure, and they were determined to find it out.
“See”, they said, “she goes out alone. She is old, and yet she brings home more than we two do together, and we are young. Today she brought opossums, piggiebillahs, honey, yams, and many things. We got little, yet we went far. We will watch her.”
The next time old Goonur went out, carrying her big combee, the wives watched her.
“Look”, they said, “how slowly she goes. She could not climb trees for opossums-she is too old and weak; look how she staggers”.
They went cautiously after her and saw that when she was some distance from the camp she put down her combee. And out of it, to
their amazement, stepped Goonur, their husband.
“Ah”, they said, “this is their secret. She must have found him and beg to know where he has been and pretend joy that he is back, or else surely now he is alive again, he will sometime kill us.”
Accordingly, when Goonur was alone, the two wives ran to him and said:
“Why, Goonur, our husband, did you leave us? Where have you been all the time that we, your wives, have mourned for you? Long has the time been without you, and we, your wives, have mourned for you? Long has the time been without you, and we, your wives, have been sad that you came no more to our dardurr.”
Goonur, the husband, affected to believe that their sorrow was genuine and that they did not know when they directed him to the bandicoots’ nest that it was a trap. Which trap, but for his mother, might have been his grave.
They all went hunting together, and when they had killed enough for food, they returned to the camp. As they came near to the camp, Goonur, the mother, saw them coming and cried out:
“Would you again be tricked by your wives? Did I save you from death only that you might again be killed? I spared them, but I would have you slain them, if again they have a chance of killing you, my son. Many are the wiles of women, and another time I might not be able to save you. Let them live if you will it so, my son, but not with you. They tried to lure you to death; you are no longer theirs, mine only now, for did I not bring you back from the dead?”
But Goonur, the husband, said, “In truth did you save me, my mother, and these my wives rejoice that you did. They too, as I was, were deceived by the bandicoots’ nest, the work of an enemy yet to be found. See, my mother, do not the looks of love in their eyes and words of love on their lips vouch for their truth? We will be has we have been, my mother, and live again in peace.”
And thus craftily did Goonur, the husband, deceive his wives and make them believe he trusted them wholly, while in reality his
mind was even then plotting vengeance. In a few days he had his plans ready. Having cut and pointed two stakes, he stuck them firmly in the creek; then he placed two logs on the bank, in front of the sticks, which were underneath the water and invisible. Having made his preparations, he invited his wives to come for a bathe. He said when he reached the creek:
“See those two logs on the bank? You jump in each from one and see which can dive the farthest. I will go first to see you come up.” And in he jumped, carefully avoiding the pointed stakes. “Right”, he called, “all is clear here, jump in”.
Then the two wives ran down the bank each to a log and jumped from it. Well had Goonur calculated the distance, for both jumped right on to the stakes placed in the water to catch them, and which stuck firmly into them, holding them under the water.
“Well am I avenged,” said Goonur. “No more will my wives lay traps to catch me”. And he walked off to the camp.
His mother asked him where his wives were. “They left
The great Ulhuru
We love you!!!!!!!!!! me,” he said, “to get bees’ nests.”
But as day by day passed and the wives returned not, the old woman began to suspect that her son knew more than he said. She asked him no more, but quietly watched her opportunity when her son was away hunting, and then followed the tracks of the wives. She tracked them to the creek, and as she saw no tracks of their return, she went into the creek, felt about, and there found two bodies fast on the stakes. She managed to get them off and out of the creek; then she determined to try and restore them to life, for she was angry that her son had not told her what he had done but had deceived her as well as his wives. She rubbed the women with some of her medicines, dressed the wounds made by the stakes, and then dragged them both onto the ants nests and watched their bodies as the ants crawled over them, biting them. She had not long to wait; soon they began to move and come to life again.
As soon as they were restored, Goonur took them back to the camp
and said to Goonur, her son, “Now once did I use my knowledge to restore life to you, and again have I used it to restore your wives. You are mine now, and I desire that you live in peace and never more deceive me, or never again shall I use my skill for you”.
And they lived for a long while together, and when the Mother Doctor died, there was a beautiful, dazzling bright falling star, followed by a sound as of a sharp clap of thunder, and all the tribes round when they saw and heard this, said: “A great doctor must have died, for that is the sign.” And when the wives died, they were taken up to the sky, where they are now known as Gwaibillah, the red star, so called from its bright red colour, owing, the legend says, to the red marks left by the stakes on the bodies of the two women, which nothing could efface.
Dreamtime events and ancestral behavior serve as a guide to what enhances physical life as well as those things that destroy or retard it. Upon these ancient indicators both cultural and healing practices were layed
down. Goonur the woman-doctor, with her great magical powers heals both her son and his wives and restores harmony to the group. In the legend it is also disclosed the relationship between the healer and the healed. That is one of co-dependency, or power and possession of one person or group over another.
In contemporary society we have an example of this in so much as we completely surrender responsibility for health to a system of drugs and surgery. This culture provides only the mechanistic interpretation of our bodies and is devoid of guidance about the bodies interaction with mental and psychic processes, as well as the dependency of bodily health upon the ‘health’ of an undisturbed environment. Consequently we have masses of people dependant upon this system. Some aspects of western medicine are attempting to come out of pharmaceutical control in adopting alternative healing methods. This includes the belief in psychic powers strong enough to enable the sick to believe in themselves.
We can view within the story the complex human interrelationships involved in the process of healing. It contemplates the difference between how this power exists in a meta-physical or archetypal context (mother earth) and how
Rock Paintings
It is unknown how many thousands of years these could possibly date back to the same power can distort or disturb on the level of human psychology. Interestingly the nomadic lifestyle, where there is no motivation to accumulate and possess, there is no way in Aboriginal language or societal forms, by which possession or ownership of another person or thing can be expressed or enacted. This therefore avoids falling prey to the psychology of power or possession, whether it be to heal, save or govern.
In Aboriginal cosmology the spiritual ancestry of each person is interwoven with the birds, insects, animals and plants through lineages extending back to the Dreamtime. This world view is known as totemism. The ants in the story are the totem for Goonur, they come to her aid in resuscitating both her son and his wives. Animal totems put us in touch with the characteristics and behavior of animals, even the smallest of creatures and insects. An Aboriginal person might refer to this legend as “ant dreaming” or “ant language”, because it is based on characteristics and potentialities of human life that have been identified with the ant.
Goonur, the mother, bears resemblance to the life giving queen ant. Ants are a powerful totem, inhabiting all five continents
The Dancefloor..
Well the male ceremonial meeting place, but also great sound acoustics because of the shape of the rock. Hhmm sounds like an idea for a venue.. in numbers never approached by other insects. Ants have astonishingly precise capabilities to pick up and respond immediately to changes in their environment. ‘For example, minute fluctuations in humidity, atmospheric pressure, magnetism, or electricity prior to rainfall are translated immediately into chemical messages that ants pass throughout their population. This shared information results in a flurry of activity in which they may alter various structural and behavioral aspects of their life, including the elaborate passageways of their anthills.
The chemical information that reflects the attunement of insects to the surrounding conditions is transmitted in their venom when they bite a person. Therefore, it is believed that an ant or insect bite can provoke a change in a person’s bodily chemistry that allows for a quickening adaptation to a particular place. We can remember that one next time we get an itchy sting and swelling of the skin, they’re actually helping us to acclimatize.
During Aboriginal shamanistic initiation rituals, masses of stinging ants are used as part of the process of inducing near-death trances…Tarantula venom has been used as a hallucinatory drug by poets, philosophers and artists seeking to shed their conditioned mindset and open their consciousness to unknown
The kitchen..
Parts of the rock here where good for hanging up emu and grinding down seeds for flour. Food preparations would be taking place here. dimensions. Contracting on the central nervous system, heightens emotional and sensory exaltation and intensity, both pleasurable and horrific…prolonged use results in serious degeneration of the central nervous system!
The death-rebirth experience achieved by heightened sensory perception, in Aboriginal spirituality these trance like states open neural centers within their bodies to communicate with the silent ancestral voices emanating from sacred sites or dreaming places, achieves what is called a healed state through deeper connectivity to both the natural and metaphysical aspects of creation.
Within a seemingly simple Dreamtime story we have been able to reflect not only on the use of chemicals derived from insects in ancient healing practices but also on the way psychological, psychic, and metaphysical factors are woven into the Aboriginal knowledge of healing.’ Holistic healing methods today such as homeopathy take into consideration psychic and psychological conditions, including dreams to diagnose the physical ailments. Within homeopathic remedies the dilution of the substance is present not in molecular but only atomic quantities. The substance has been taken back to its atomic ancestry. The molecules of water of which we are mostly made up of, work on a vibratory level, as do the source substance when it
is diluted with water. Therefore resulting in a direct transformation of this ancestry vibratory imprint to the energy vibration of our own system.
‘The death-rebirth cycle is the Dreamtime law, a universal triadic code of creation, preservation, and destruction, inbuilt in the childbearing, nursing, and menstrual cycle of women. Therefore, women’s roles as birth givers, nurturers, and healers must be paramount in leading humanity through this crucial transmission… The feminine (the holder of balance between life and death) must again be fully present and empowered on earth and in human society so that the inevitable healing ritual of humanity’s rebirth can begin.’
Ulhuru-Kata Tjuta National Park
The Ulhuru-Kata Tjuta National Park simply blew my inner being away. The immense power and presence of these rocks brought emotional response in awe of its existence. The Anangu Traditional owners worked in conjunction with the commonwealth reserve, who are 23 years into their 99 year land lease after handing the deeds back to their rightful owners.
Words cannot describe...the presence of this place.
Not one tribe lived here permanently, and you had to be invited by the Anangu. 'Dreamtime' Creation stories arose from the rock. Tribal gatherings may
Creation Myth..
There is a creation myth regarding this part of the rock that looks like a mans face, but the sun seemed to catch a part of the camera lens at this point and the part of my brain that was recording this monumentous story was momenterily fryed. Sorry bout that.. last for a 3 week period, and date back to more than 22,000 years ago...
The 'Dreamtime' is a misconceiving word, some aboriginal ancestors feel it is misleading in so far as it seems to portray an airy mysticism about it, when in actual fact living in the outback with nature is a hard reality.
According to R.Lewis, whose publication I invested in for 5 dollars, and who has worked in the aboriginal 'art industry' since '93, the Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime is an alchemical, hermetic, Jungian type of psychological process by which balancing the one and zero give us a total grasp of reality. (Funnily enough that is how music is made and mastered digitally on computers through the binary language of computers. The same codes we dance to at great ancestral gatherings, taking Hallucigens to heighten our perception to the ancestors) The passage was jargon but from what I could decipher basically the balancing of two forces masculine and feminine. The 'Dreamtime' are Creation Myths, stories, and at a very basic level we can interpret some of these.....
'Frill-necked Lizard'.......Walek, the frill-necked lizard, led the lizard people of Nelgi Island (50kn N. of Cape York). They
had yet to discover fire and their cooking procedures, using sun heated stones, were subsequently long and laborious. But Walek had a sister living in the far-off islands of Papua New Guinea from where smoke was often seen to rise. It was Walek who undertook the long and dangerous journey to his sister’s village. At first, she refused him and then gave him a cold coal, but he persisted and finally returned to a hero's welcome with the gift of fire.
Because Lizards are connected with thieves (stealing fire) and shape shifting, we might relate this to the little boy who came from nowhere and would never tell anyone about himself. He was very lovable and was adopted by the tribe, but soon all manner of things, except the Tjurunga and other sacred objects went missing. He was eventually caught and was about to have a thrashing administered when a falling spear injured him and he died. His body was covered with bark but the next day it had disappeared and in its place, there was only a Lizard.
What’s the lesson here children?
Answers on an e mail please..or read on..
Teachings... and the moral of the story
was.. well in another story the lizard lost his tail for stealing, It teaches about the consequences of stealing and lying. It also teaches that the tail contains protein, a valuable food source.
When everyone gathered to the rock for the period they were there stories, teachings were depicted visually on the rock, almost like a blackboard/whiteboard in todays classroom situation. Here we see a leaf pattern. Circles within circles depicted water holes/sources, ripples or no water. Animal footprints teach which animals make which footprints, to spot for hunting.
One part of Uluhuru's cove made good sound, like an ampitheatre, this is where the party was at, and the male ceremonial rites. Another was like a large kitchen area that the women prepared food, the parts with rock paintings a time for teachings, & water collected from small reseviors not to be played in but to be taught through stories that the waters should not be disturbed, of course so that the water was not contaminated. It must be reiterated with great seriousness, the valuable precious resources must be respected.
And so concludes these travels, as I make my way back to the other side of the
world. My mother brought me into this world, and now I too must head the call to look after and return to the family unit as she is critically unwell, and so hence forth the birth-rebirth cycle abides.
Thank you Australia, I have loved every minute of this beautiful journey.
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