Reconciliation and Social Justice Library
Reconciliation and Social Justice Library
While all landscape features have their origins in Dreamtime creation stories, there are some places of special significance to indigenous peoples, as Justice Woodward described in the Royal Commission report on land rights in 1974:
Land generally has spiritual significance for Aborigines but because of the form and content of myths relating to it, some land is more important than other land. Certain places are particularly important, usually because of their mythological significance, but sometimes because of their use as a burial ground or important meeting place for ceremonies.
These special places are often referred to as 'sacred sites' -- a generic term for different types of places or areas of land or sea. Many sacred sites are places where particularly important events occurred during the Dreamtime. Others are places known as 'increase centres' where special ceremonies are conducted to ensure the wellbeing of particular species. Others are places of great danger, sometimes called 'poison grounds' or simply 'danger places', where it is believed that inappropriate action (such as the killing of a forbidden species, or the entrance of a stranger) will cause severe storms, sickness or even death.
The routes taken by the Creator Beings in their Dreamtime journeys across land and sea, are also of continuing significance to Aboriginal peoples. They link many sacred sites together in a web of Dreaming tracks criss-crossing the country. Dreaming tracks can run for hundreds, even thousands of kilometres, from desert to the coast and crossing through many 'countries'. Stories and songs which relate the creation events that occurred along Dreaming tracks may be shared by peoples in countries through which the tracks pass. For this reason Dreaming tracks are sometimes known as 'songlines'.
Sacred sites and Dreaming tracks also serve the important function of defining Aboriginal countries. Clan estates, and larger tribal or language areas, are largely defined not so much by rigid external boundaries but by the location and significance of sacred sites, Dreaming tracks and other special places. Sacred sites can provide the focal points and also often the name of clan estates. Similarly, the path of Dreaming tracks within or between estates help to define their size and shape.
Since sacred sites represent the cultural core of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander countries, it is not surprising that knowledge about these places has survived across much of Australia, even in places where other cultural knowledge may have been lost. Sacred sites have been documented in recent times in many remote and urban areas and continue to be of great significance to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.