Reconciliation and Social Justice Library
Reconciliation and Social Justice Library
For many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, including those living in urbanised areas of Australia, the significance of land and sea is intimately bound to the spirituality surrounding the origins of landscapes and seascapes, and the animals, plants and peoples that inhabit them. Such creation beliefs are found in most religions. As Helen Nunggalurr, from a clan in north-east Arnhem Land, has explained:
First, all the things in our environment were created by spirit beings which we call Wangarr. They created the different tribes and their languages. During their creation journeys they created animals, plants, waterholes, mountains, reefs, billabongs and so on. Today we can see their tracks in our land and where they stopped we can see their signs. These are the features in our landscape. This is why these places are our sacred areas which we must respect and care for. 1
Indigenous Australians' creation beliefs vary greatly from region to region, but they generally describe the journeys of ancestral beings, often giant animals or people, over what began as a featureless domain. Mountains, rivers, waterholes, animal and plant species, and other natural and cultural resources came into being as a result of events which took place during these Dreamtime journeys. Their existence in present-day landscapes is seen by many indigenous peoples as confirmation of their creation beliefs.
Torres Strait Islanders have many creation stories to explain the origins of their islands, reefs, sea and all the animals and plants important to them. As in Aboriginal Australia, many geographical features visible today provide reminders of the creation journeys of ancestral beings.
For example, the hill on Mer, with its rounded summit and long, sloping side, is Gelam the dugong.
Gelam arrived at Mer from the island of Moa. He came in a log of wood which he had carved in the shape of a dugong. When he arrived he lay down beside Mer facing towards the east. However, when the naiger (east wind) blew strongly it blew into his nostrils and so he turned to face the zai (south west). Gelam brought with him vegetables, fruit, seeds and spoil. He carried these in his left armlet. After he had settled down he scattered these around and they helped to make Mer fertile and rich in food crops. 2
These creation stories explain the origins of the natural world, and form the basis of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' customary laws. They also form the basis of relations between people, and between people and their environment.
Animals and plants are an integral part of ancient spirituality and contemporary kinship systems. According to Helen Nunggalurr:
These [creation] spirit beings, or Wangarr, gave us our totems as they changed from one form to another. Our word for totem is Mandayin. Most of the plants, animals and places around us are totems for one tribe or another. These totems are relations for us. For example, I call the long necked tortoise Maari, which means my mother's mother. This is because the long necked tortoise is sacred to Dhalwangu clan, which is Mitjarrandi's clan, and our two clans are related as grandmother and granddaughter.
Because we are related to most things around us and because we are surrounded by totems, we must respect and care for our environment according to our law.
The following story shows how the creation events of the creation period, or Dreamtime, are still important to indigenous Australians in contemporary life.
Muthali the wild duck travelled from Burrawandji until Maapura. At Maapura she made a spreading sweep of her wings on the earth and made a plain which became a swamp. She said, 'I have made this swamp so the people can have plenty of food to eat.' Then she reached Gulumarri on Elcho Island. From there she went to the Wessel Islands. She heard the noise of the water at Bandanguwamirr and decided to go there to lay her eggs which we can now see as egg shaped black stones.
At each place that she stopped at she spoke a different language, the language of that place. In this way she was teaching us about the importance of speaking our own separate language.
Muthali also landed at Langarra and the people of Langarra have built the school and houses on the place where she landed. Because of the wild duck's journey Ritharrgu, Warramiri, Wobulkarra, Guyamirrilil, Gandangu, and Gulungurr people are called sister clans to each other. 3
The following story describes the activities of ancestral beings, who are sometimes referred to as 'hero beings' and who often have the power to transform themselves into animal forms during their travels.
Uluru (Ayers Rock) was built up during the creation period by two boys who played in the mud after rain. When they had finished their game they travelled south to Wiputa, on the northern side of the Musgrave Ranges, where they killed and cooked a euro (large wallaby). Then the boys turned north again toward Atila (Mount Connor). A few miles south-west of the Mount, at Anari one boy threw his tjuni (wooden club) at a hare wallaby, but the club struck the ground and made a flesh-water spring. This boy refused to reveal where he had found the water and the other boy nearly died of thirst. Fighting together, the two boys made their way to the table-topped Mount Conner, on top of which their bodies are preserved as boulders 4
Such stories explain the presence of all features of the Australian landscape. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who have retained knowledge about their traditional country live in a world surrounded by reminders of their spiritual association with country. Even in the absence of detailed cultural information, the knowledge that natural features throughout Australia have spiritual origins makes land and sea especially significant to all indigenous Australians.
This special, indigenous association with land has been well documented by many government inquiries. In Western Australia, for example, the 1984 report of the Aboriginal Land Inquiry, chaired by Paul Seaman QC, concluded that the Nyungars (Aboriginal peoples) in the more urbanised south-west of the State have retained an affinity for land which is essentially equivalent to that of Aboriginal peoples living a more traditional lifestyle elsewhere in the State:
Although they cannot now identify particular areas of land as being owned in traditional law by particular ancestors, they have a lively awareness that their forefathers had all those traditional relationships with the land of the South-West which are found today in the most remote parts of the state.