We have been told,
as our fathers were before us, that there was land, but it was a
bare, flat, barren plain. No animals ran there. No birds sang overhead. No trees or
bushes grew No sound of water could be heard. Nor was there any man or woman.
Baiame, or the Maker
of Many Things as some call him, brought the Dreamtime
ancestors from under the ground and over the seas. With them, life came to the
barren, flat plain. Some of the Dreamtime ancestors looked like men or women.
Others looked like the animals or creatures which descended from them. But often
the Dreamtime ancestors could change their shape. So the Swordfish ancestor
could look like a swordfish, or a man or woman.
As the Dreamtime ancestors
wandered over the land, many adventures befell them.
They met with other ancestors. Arguments often arose and the ancestors would set
out on their travels again. They met strange creatures and fought battles. Each time
something happened, the very shape of the land changed. Hills arose, plants grew.
Where the Barramundi-fish ancestor swam, rivers appeared. When people,
ancestors or animals did what they should not, the Rainbow Snake would rush down
upon them. He would either drown them, making bays and rivers, or swallow them.
Then he would spit out their bones to form rocks and hills. But the Rainbow Snake is
not just vengeful. To some peoples the Rainbow Snake is Old Woman, who in the
Dreamtime taught her children -humans - to talk and understand, to dig for food, and
what to eat.
And the sun, moon and
stars? These also came to be in the Dreamtime. For one day
Emu ancestor and Eagle ancestor were fighting. Eagle took one of Emu's eggs and
threw it into the air Soaring up, it burst into flames. Baiame fed the flame with wood.
So the sun was made, and is made anew each day with fresh wood.
The Dreamtime ancestors
taught their groups how to perform secret ceremonies.
Then the ancestors sank back into the earth or rose into the sky but remain ever
present.
But Dreamtime is not
over For when ceremonies are performed, Dreamtime comes
to those who celebrate, and they learn to see this land as the Dreaming sees it - alive.
Native Australian
