We saw the movie, Australia, a 2:55 hour epic-style movie that focuses on the period 1939 til the outbreak of World War II. The first part had some attempts at being comic, which was flat, but fortunately the movie picked up and was engaging all the way to the end.
The movie got me thinking about Aboriginal Dreamtime. We were in Australia earlier this year and I'd read Mutant Message Down Under by Marlo Morgan who went on a walkabout with the Aborigines, and she talked about Dreamtime. In Sydney we also saw an exhibit of Aborignal art with many references to Dreamtime.
Initially I thought Dreamtime had something to do with a separate reality, one that runs parallel to the actual reality; this is not correct. After a bit of research I think I finally got it. The Aborigines believe in spirits or Ancestor Beings. These being were supposed to have surfaced from beneath the earth and they took on the forms of humans, animals, rocks, plants, etc. The journey of these Ancestral Beings who created the natural world is called Dreaming or Dreamtime.
I am sure it is more complicated than that, but at least my mind has caught the gist of this fascinating term.
I still have to understand what the walkabout is. It seems to be a rite of passage, a spiritual journey, but I haven't found details about this. The walkabout book I read by Morgan was fantastic, talking about caves with thousand-year old pictographs depicting the history of the world. I recall that an Aborigine we met in Sydney said Morgan's book is offensive. Likewise the book is not treated seriously by scholars. I wish I could find a good book on the walkabout.
About Me
- Cecilia Manguerra Brainard
- Profile Views figure is stuck. There are over a million pageviews., United States
- Cecilia Manguerra Brainard's official website is ceciliabrainarddotcom. She is the award-winning author and editor of 22 books, including When the Rainbow Goddess Wept, The Newspaper Widow, Magdalena, Selected Stories, Vigan and Other Stories, and more. She edited Growing Up Filipino 1, 2, & 3, Fiction by Filipinos in America, Contemporary Fiction by Filipinos in America, and other books.. Her work has been translated into Finnish and Turkish; and many of her stories and articles have been widely anthologized. Cecilia has received many awards, including a California Arts Council Fellowship in Fiction, a Brody Arts Fund Award, a Special Recognition Award for her work dealing with Asian American youths, as well as a Certificate of Recognition from the California State Senate, 21st District, and the Outstanding Individual Award from her birth city, Cebu, Philippines. She has lectured and performed at UCLA, USC, University of Connecticut, University of the Philippines, PEN, Shakespeare & Company in Paris, and many others. She has served in the Board of literary arts groups such as PEN, PAWWA (Pacific Asian American Writers West), among others.
Hi, Cecilia! Kumusta naman? You should read THE SONGLINES by Bruce Chatwin. This book will connect together for you the walkabout and poetry and actually many Aboriginal and other nomadic themes. Hope you're well!
ReplyDeleteVince, nice to hear from you and thanks for your comments. I'll look up Songlines. I carry on, as usual, a tad busier because of additional responsibilities in the Philippines, not to mention the grandkids. I trust you are well.
ReplyDelete