Australia: The Land Where Time Began

A biography of the Australian continent 

Rituals are not only a re-enactment of rites practised by the supernatural beings of the Dreamtime, including events that are associated with Dreamtime beings. The participants of the rituals take the part of the mythical beings, repeating their actions as told by the relevant myths, though they are not separated out as performances of ritual in the myths associated with the beings. According to the Berndts, the best examples are found in Spencer & Gillen (1938), Spencer (1914, 1928), Elkin (1954), Warner (1937/1958), Strehlow (1947) and Berndt.

The Ingkura Festival, in Strehlow (1947: 108), takes several months to complete: "ceremony follows upon ceremony, all the sacred Tjurunga of the ingkura must be exhibited both to the members of the resident totemic clan and to visitors from other groups. At Ilbalintja, for instance, the gurra (Bandicoot) ceremonies take precedence over all others. They take months to perform. Each one of the numerous bandicoot ancestors had a separate traditional ceremony connected with his person. The more important gurra men usually possessed a large number of tjurunga; they figured in several different ceremonies and often carried a number of tnatantja-poles. Each one of these poles must be exhibited in a separate performance."

The Dalwaba (wallaby) cult rituals from the Western Desert are also described in Berndt & Berndt (1964).

Sources & Further reading

1. R. M & C. H. Berndt, 1964 The World of the First Australians, Ure Smith Pty Ltd.
2. Spencer, B. and F.J. Gillen, 1938, The native Tribes of Central Australia, Macmillan, London
3. Spencer, B., 1914, Native Tribes of the Northern Territory of Australia, Macmillan, London
4. Spencer, B., 1928, Wanderings in Wild Australia, 2 vols., Macmillan, London
5. Elkin, A. P., 1954 (1st ed. 1938), The Australian Aboriginal People: How to understand them, Angus and Robertson, Sydney
6. Warner, W. L., (1937/58), A Black Civilisation, Harper, New York
7. Strehlow, T. G. H., 1947, Aranda traditions, Melbourne University Press