Hi Elise
I believe the term "Dreamtime" was a mis-translation from the word
"alchuringa" from the Arnhem Land area - if I remember rightly, by the
anthropologists, Spencer and Gillen.
Some Aboriginal people I have worked with in NSW have taken offence at the
word, because, as you suggest, there seems to be an element of reducing the
beliefs of Aboriginal people and their spirituality to something of a
mythology or even less - something of a dream.
On the other hand, I have heard some local Aboriginal people recently
adopting the word as part of their own expression of their spirituality. One
Aboriginal person described it to me as the time of the past, present and
future all in one, and that it cannot simply represent the creation myths as
with, say, Greek mythology or even with the Bible (I apologise if this
offends any Christians), but that it is much more because it informs
Aboriginal people of the present and the future as well.
I don't know how helpful this will be. In the course I used to tutor in
(Australian History at Newcastle University) the following sources were
listed for core reading:
Read, Peter and Jay Read, eds. Long Time, Olden Time: Aborignal Accounts of
NOrthern Territory History, Institute for Aboriginal Development, Alice
Springs, 1991.
Wolfe, Patrick. "On Being Woken Up: The Dreamtime in Anthropology and in
Australian Settler culture", Comparative Studies in Society and History,
vol.33, 1991.
Other sources could include:
Swain, Tony, Interpreting Aboriginal Religion: An Historical Account. 1985.
Swain, Tony, "Dreaming, Whites and the Australian Landscape: some popular
misconceptions", The Journal of Religious Hisotry, vol.13, no.3, 1989,
pp.345-350.
Fesl, Even Mungwa, "Religion and Ethnic Identity: A Koorie View" in REligion
and Ethnic Identity, vol.2, ed. by AIW Ata, Sydney, 1989.
I'm sure there would be lots of other more recent stuff on this topic.
Good luck.
Carrie Jacobi
At 10:30 4/05/99 +0930, you wrote:
>Hello everybody,
>
>I have joined this list a few months ago and am thoroughly enjoying all the
discussions that are taking place on the list. (even though the issues
disscused are not always that positive) I am a Dutch student, studying at
Adelaide Uni for one year. One of the subjects I am taking is Depicting
Aboriginal Cosmology, which is a fascinating, but demanding subject. Your
discussions have been helpful for my essays so far - thanks! but the topic
for my next essay is a bit more complicated and I was wondering and hoping
you might be able to provide me with some ideas. The topic is the term
"Dreamtime", whether this term is adequate for the matter it covers or not.
>
>My idea is to relate the concept of the dreamtime to christian religion -
why isn't it called religion for example (does this have something to do
with the fact that christianity is see as superior to Aboriginal beliefs?)
and to the western concepts of dreams - to see to what extent these ideas
about dreams can be related to the term dreamtime. Other than that, I'm also
wondering when and why the Aboriginal people started to use the word
dreamtime themselves - and whether this has had an impact on their
conception of the "dreamtime".
>
>This topic might be a golden oldie for all of you, but it is new to me and
I was hoping you might be able to give me a few perspectives on it.
>
>Any comments are welcome!
>
>Thanks very much,
>Elise de Bree
>
><!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN">
><HTML>
><HEAD>
>
><META content=text/html;charset=iso-8859-1
http-equiv=Content-Type><!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD W3
HTML//EN"><!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN">
><META content='"MSHTML 4.72.3110.7"' name=GENERATOR>
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><BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
><DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2>Hello everybody,</FONT></DIV>
><DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV>
><DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2>I have joined this list a few months ago
and am
>thoroughly enjoying all the discussions that are taking place on the list.
(even
>though the issues disscused are not always that positive) I am a Dutch
student,
>studying at Adelaide Uni for one year. One of the subjects I am taking is
>Depicting Aboriginal Cosmology, which is a fascinating, but demanding subject.
>Your discussions have been helpful for my essays so far - thanks! but the
topic
>for my next essay is a bit more complicated and I was wondering and hoping you
>might be able to provide me with some ideas. The topic is the term
>"Dreamtime", whether this term is adequate for the matter it
covers or
>not. </FONT></DIV>
><DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV>
><DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2>My idea is to relate the concept of the
>dreamtime to christian religion - why isn't it called religion for example
(does
>this have something to do with the fact that christianity is see as
superior to
>Aboriginal beliefs?) and to the western concepts of dreams - to see to what
>extent these ideas about dreams can be related to the term dreamtime. Other
than
>that, I'm also wondering when and why the Aboriginal people started to use the
>word dreamtime themselves - and whether this has had an impact on their
>conception of the "dreamtime".</FONT></DIV>
><DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV>
><DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2>This topic might be a golden oldie for all of
>you, but it is new to me and I was hoping you might be able to give me a few
>perspectives on it.</FONT></DIV>
><DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV>
><DIV><FONT size=2>Any comments are welcome!</FONT></DIV>
><DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
><DIV><FONT size=2>Thanks very much,</FONT></DIV>
><DIV><FONT size=2>Elise de Bree</FONT></DIV>
><DIV> </DIV></BODY></HTML>
>
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