-Caveat Lector-
The aborigines of Australia represent a 40,000 year old culture which,
in its isolation, survived relatively INTACT since the Paleolithic Age, an
age when remarkably "modern" cave-paintings (using "perspective,"
rediscovered only in the Renaissance!) and quite realistic sculptures were
crafted by a "Cro-Magnon" population in southern Europe
which was so adept at primitive technology that it wore sewn clothing and
sandals
and most likely lived NOT in caves (used as sacred shrines) but in huts above
ground.
Existing outside the "mainstream" of "Civilization" which originated in
the Fertile Crescent and the alluvial plains of Egypt and the Indus, the
Australian Aborigines knew of no visitations by Sitchin-style "gods," no
"wars in heaven," and may not even share an equivalent of our "universal"
Flood myth -- so they may be the best possible example of what human COMMUNAL
life was, throughout the world, and for tens of thousands of years -- prior
to our modern notion of "Civilization" being IMPOSED on it by anomalous
warrior-elites originating in the discrete areas noted above, going forth to
CONQUER.
THE ABORIGINAL UNIVERSE
by David Jensen
http://arcturus.pomona.edu/australia/australia4/australia4.html
The Australian Aborigines felt a strong connection to nature
which shaped their view of the universe and their place in it.
They believed they were an element of a much greater entity
called nature. Nature to the Aborigines was the environment in
which they lived and everything in it, living or non-living. They
realized the importance of nature and sought to preserve it. They
expressed closeness to nature through totems, or affiliations
with a particular aspect of nature, which in turn shaped their
mythologies and their vision of the world.
The Aborigines essentially had a symbiotic relationship with
nature. The Australian Aborigines were a people of hunters and
gatherers that lived off of the harsh desert land. Their
livelihood depended on what their environment would provide them
for food, shelter, and water. The Aborigines had a clear
dependence on nature. Nature was an entity that included
everything in their Australian world, from living creatures and
plants to geological formations and weather. Nothing was excluded
and nothing was insignificant. Everything had its place and
function in nature and they believed man to be included in this
system as well. Human beings were to honor different living
things or natural phenomena by performing rituals. To the
Aborigines this worship benefited both themselves and the
collective natural world. The Aborigines received food, water,
shelter, and other necessities in return for sustaining the
natural world with their ceremonies and rituals. Elkin writes
that "there was a a mutual dependence of one on the other. They
held the belief that not pillage and destroy, but co-operated and
tolerated, nurtured and cared for the whole universe with
myriads of living and breathing things." In the hierarchy of
nature the Aborigines did not place themselves above anything.
They believed everything in nature was equal and worthy of
respect. Elkin notes this by writing, "Totemism is a means of
expressing the unity of man and nature as one big tribe." Since
the Aborigines could not adequately respect every single aspect
of nature, they divided up their worship by means of their
totems. The classifications of totems were: 1) individual, 2)
sex, or gender, 3) moiety, which partitioned the tribe in half,
4) section and subsection, which dealt with groups within a
tribe, 5) clan, or immediate family, 6) local, which was based on
a specific location, 7) and multiple, in which a number of natural
things were associated to a group. With such classifications and
divisions the Aborigines could adequately respect and worship the
entire natural world. Totems allowed the Aborigines to cooperate
with their environment and provided them with confidence in
nature. "A totem was virtually anything found in nature. This
includes: plants, animals, flowers, wind, rain, storms, thunder,
lightning, the stars, the sun, the moon, clouds, tools, weapons,
food, cosmetics, fire, smoke, water, body parts, desires,
sickness, health, animal organs, and object parts" (Bernt, 226).
"Totems were the Aborigines' manifestation of their kinship with the
natural world and totems social groupings and mythologies, [it]
inspired their rituals and linked them to the past." (Elkin, 140)
Although all Aborigines shared general beliefs of nature and the
universe there was much diversity in specific beliefs, stories,
and myths about the world which was due to totemism and the
number of Aborigine tribes and clans. However, there were a few
key similarities in their belief system and mythology. They
respected medicine men and their powers, they performed rituals
to their totems and ancestral heroes, they believed in auxiliary
spirit-beings, maintained the Many, if not most, of our stories
and myths are land-centered. There was little need to record
astronomical observations in Aboriginal life so much of their
cosmology is based on mythology and general astronomical
observations. Many myths are stories of ancestral heroes,
associated with specific totems, tribes, or clans as well as
myths of creation, the sun, moon, and other celestial objects.
When discussing myths it is usually best to start with creation.
In most Aborigine creation myths the period of creation was
called it was not a creatio ex nihilo, created out of nothing, as
Eliade (1) puts it. This explains that the Aborigines were
practical in their creation myths. After all how can something be
made from nothing? In some myths the earth starts out as a
featureless plain, which highlights the Aborigine closeness to
the land. "The landscape was transformed by awakened beings such
as giant serpents that created the landscape. These serpents lived in
a rich country with a plentiful water supply." This belief must have
been prompted by the lack of water on their plane, the earth plane.
In the eyes on an Aborigine, if the sky plane was divine and the
place of the afterlife then it would be natural for it to have more water
than the earth plane. The stars represented the campfires of the beings
that lived in the sky plane. Some myths include that the sky was held
up by giant props at the corners of the earth. The Aborigines also
believed that certain shaman, or medicine men, had the ability to travel
between the earth plane and the sky plane. They did this by means
of trees between heaven and the earth. One such tree was seen in
the night sky in the Milky Way. Which such abilities the shaman
was a very influential figure in Aboriginal society. Under the
plane of the earth was the underworld plane. The underworld plane
was much like the earth plane and inhabited by people like those
from the earth plane. Another belief was that the underworld was
uninhabited and always dark. It contained two mountain ranges
with a valley and a river between them. It was through the
underworld that the sun-woman and the moon-man returned to the
east horizon from the west horizon. Some tribes believed in a sky
world further beyond the first. Here was where several star-women
and men of the Milky Way lived. Certain celestial objects were
also explained in Aboriginal mythology.
The sun for all Aborigines was female and associated with light
and goodness. This reveals that the Aborigines believed women to
be intrinsically good, for they are they ones who brought human
life into this world. In one myth the sun came out of the earth
at a certain place, which is marked by a large stone. It came out
of the earth with two other women, who were left behind while the
sun rose into the sky. Every day thereafter the sun rose into the
sky and at night it returns to the spot where it first arose.
Another myth tells how a woman left her son in a cave while she
searched for food. Since it was dark she lost her way and
wandered in to the sky region. Every day she travels through the
sky with her torch, lighting up the sky, looking for her son.
The moon in Aborigine mythology was male. One myth explained how
a member of the opossum totem had a shield with the moon on it to
hunt opossum at night. One time a member of the seed totem stole
the shield and ran away. The owner of the shield chased after him
and when he could not catch the thief he yelled to him and told
him to release the moon into the sky so that everyone could
benefit from its light. Another myth told that a man of the
opossum totem died. Shortly after, he arose from his grave and
grew into a man, grew old, and died again. At certain points he
would rise again from his grave as a young boy and grow old
again. This process explained the phases of the moon.
The Pleiades and Orion were important groups of stars to the
Aborigines and the myth concerning them was shared throughout
Australia. The Pleiades were seven sisters who traveled together
and one time they land in their favorite place and found Yayarr
men there. These men chased the sisters until all but one became
tired and stopped. This one man kept pursuing the sisters. When
one of the sisters left to get some water the Yayarr man followed
her. As she was getting the water he startled her and to keep her
quiet he swung a stick at her but keep missing. Each time he
missed he made marks on the land which can still be seen today.
When the sister ran she saw that her sisters were in the sky. She
rejoined them, which makes up the Pleiades, and the Yayarr man
followed, who is represented by Orion.
Some celestial objects had stories which related morals. For
instance the stars in Scorpio show an example of the punishment
for a newly initiated that has had sexual intercourse before he
had been purified. The story relates how a young initiate was
seduced by a woman and broke this rule. They fled into the sky
and his teachers went after them and threw boomerangs at him, but
missed. They all became stars to show that because the initiate
broke the rules he was not able to finish initiation.
The Aborigines had myths to explain other astronomical objects
and events.
An eclipse of the sun was thought of as evil or Arungquilta,
which is an "evil or malignant influence" (Spencer). They
believed the Arungquilta wanted to live in the sun and an eclipse
was when it tried to do that. When an eclipse occurred the
medicine men performed rituals to drag the evil spirit away. The
Magellanic clouds were also Arungquilta that sometimes visited
the earth and choked people in their sleep. An alternate belief
was that they were called Inja-kinja-tera and were the camping
grounds of two ancestral heroes. Mushrooms were also evil
because they were considered falling stars [brought by the
lightning].
The Aborigine relationship with nature shaped their view of the
universe. It related their place in the world by means of
classification into totems which allowed them cooperate with
nature. The totems structured their world and provided a basis
for their mythology.
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