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About Australian Aboriginal Art

Aboriginal art is the most important art that come out from this ancient Australian land and we Australians are proud of Aboriginal art. This ancient culture of over 60 thousands years old gave the world its most exciting form of contemporary art. It is also a living tradition, having taken its current form, in an explosion of creativity, in the second half of the Twentieth Century. But already many of those painters who started the Aboriginal art movement aging Billy Stockman (B.1927-), Long Jack Phillipus (B.1932-) or have passed away and the younger generation is learning western customs. Today Aboriginal Australians live and work around the world, from Papunya to London, from Arnhem Land to New York. THUS, it is probably the last chance that anyone on this planet can obtain important authentic paintings of the legendary artists including Ningura Napurrula,  Minnie Pwerle, Jimmy Robertson , Lindsay Bird, Lorna Fencer , Nancy Ross, Don Tjungarrayi, Barney Campbell, Ngoia Pollard, Ronnie Tjampitjinpa, Lucky Morton, Gloria Petyarre, Gracie Morton, Pansy Napangardi, William Sandy .

 

Galeria Aniela vision to promote Aboriginal art is well acknowledged and we invite you to enjoy it. We acquire the top-quality art of most important international Aboriginal artists, illustrated in significant biographical books and Art Encyclopedia. We support Aboriginal culture and cooperate with the genuine Aboriginal Galleries and Art Centers that provide their artists with quality materials as well as guidance to create the top-quality art so artists can contend the prestigious National Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Telstra Art Award. With each sale we release the authentic provenance including the  bona fide Certificate or documentation from the original source that creates the artwork. When you purchase an artwork at Galeria Aniela, whether by a famous or an established artist, you make a valuable contribution to our mission of helping artists make a living with their creations and together we make a difference.
 
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 PARIS TO SHOWCASE INDIGENOUS ART 30/05/2006  ABC National News Online.

 

The examples of dreaming stories, see the excellent site set up by the National Australian Museum at http://www.dreamtime.net.au/

An ancient tradition of 40 thousands years gave the world its most exciting form of contemporary art. Long admired by worldwide collectors, Aboriginal artists are honored by Australian National galleries and most important corporate and private collections in Australia and around the world. Aboriginal paintings have modern appeal as they tell 'living' stories going back thousands years. Galeria Aniela works together with the community-based Aboriginal Art Centers that wholesale art to commercial galleries providing their artists with quality materials. These centers coach their artists to create fine art so the artists are able to enter the important National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award. Aboriginal Centers pay their artists a fee for completed artwork, regardless of the quality. Galeria Aniela buys and sells the finest quality art by prominent artists who are often illustrated in important biographical books, the Encyclopedia of Aboriginal Artists, dictionaries and biographies.

The significance of Aboriginal paintings is storytelling, which renews the Aboriginal world and verifies the power of traditional culture. Aboriginal culture survived for centuries without a written language and their paintings reveal the visual language which developed over 40,000 years. The language derived from sacred objects including earth, sacred rocks, ritual body adornments, ceremonial designs and ground maps. This art was traditionally used in ceremonial performances with songs and dances, in order to re-enact the ‘creation stories’ known as ‘Dreamings’. The act of ceremonial performance meant to sustain the productive power which originally created the world: to be in harmony with flora and fauna and to keep the rains falling, animals produce offspring and the yam vines flowering in the shade of the trees.

Aboriginal paintings take the place of the written language revealing to the world Aboriginal philosophy, history, beliefs, travel maps, and stories of sacred ceremonies as well as the importance of living in harmony with the natural world. Painting on canvas gave Aboriginal people the tool to document their way of life and to secure the entrance to modern civilization. Aboriginal paintings connect an ancient culture to the 21st century sophisticated world.

The Aboriginal art movement started in the 70’s when the Pintupi tribe was taken from the land to Papunya settlement to learn living in one place. Geoffrey Barton, a school teacher inspired them to paint and document their stories on canvas. First it was the business of the senior men only to recount and live the sacred laws to ensure to continuation and harmony of the people and their environment. Early paintings often traditional, depicted elements of ceremonial life forbidden by women, children and non-initiated. Aboriginal women using the freedom of self expression and experimentation create the most contemporary Aboriginal art. 

Long admired by worldwide collectors Aboriginal artists are honour by Australian National galleries and most important corporate and private collections in Australia around the world. Aboriginal paintings have modern appeal telling 'living' stories of thousands years. Galeria Aniela cooperates with the community-based Aboriginal Art Centers which wholesale art to commercial galleries providing their artists with quality materials. The Centers coach their artists to create fine art to be able to enter the important National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award. Aboriginal Centers pay their artists fee for completed artwork regardless of the quality. Galeria Aniela buys and sales the finest quality art by prominent artists, often rare and outstanding and illustrated by important biographical books or Encyclopedia of Aboriginal Artists dictionary of biographies.

Aboriginal art is the most important contemporary art to come out of this ancient land.  Every painting tells a story as well as having an imposing decorative element to the art work. These powerful works of art look superb in modern buildings and they signify, for the people who display them a connection with the present as well as the past. You now have an opportunity to purchase the work of the mature, established artists who have had an original traditional aboriginal upbringing. Aboriginal art is part of a living tradition and as the culture goes through a transition, major changes are taking place in the aboriginal communities and people move to the towns learning western ways. The artist’s age thus it is probably the last chance that anyone on this planet can buy such authentic indigenous work of art.

   

Utopia is located 270km northeast of Alice Springs on the eastern perimeter of the Western Desert ‘bloc’ next to the traditional land of the Eastern Anmatyarre and Alyawarre people. It was named by the first white settlers in 1927 and occupies 1800 square kilometers of desert country. It has an arid climate with low rainfall and long hot summers with maximum temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius. The winter nights are cold with frost occurring from late May to early September. The change of seasons, Spring and Autumn are virtually non-existent, and are only marked by the appearance of wildflowers and fruits, amongst the spinifex and bush scrub. When ‘white man’ first settled in Utopia, the Aboriginal people were forced to move away from their clan lands and ceremonial sites, and instead lived in the vicinity of the various homesteads. Many Aboriginal men worked as stockmen and Aboriginal women as domestic help in exchange for rations of foodstuffs and second hand clothing. They provided a cheap but necessary labor. It wasn’t until 1967, that legislation was passed allowing Aborigines to be paid as much as their white counterparts. In 1979 a successful land claim hearing resulted in the community gaining permanent legal title to the leasehold, and it was the Utopia women that played a key role. Only one year before, the women had learned the art of batik, introduced by school teacher Toly Sawkeno and adult educator Jenny Green. The Batik project was to enable the women to establish a source of income in preparation for the land claim hearing. By being able to demonstrate the economic viability of the outstations through their batik, the women were justifying their legal and moral right to their land. The Utopia batiks were immediately distinct and featured a rawness and vitality that was a product from both the camp conditions and the women’s attitude to the project. They soon captured the eyes of various art dealers, and in 1981 Utopia batiks were shown at the Adelaide Art Festival in a major exhibition – “Floating Forests of Silk: Utopia Batik from the Desert”. In 1987 CAAMA (The Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association) took over the running and finances of the Utopia artists and in 1988 commissioned a number of batiks. Eighty-eight batiks were presented which then served as the opening exhibition at the new Tandanya Aboriginal Cultural Institute in Adelaide in October 1988. The exhibition later toured to Ireland, and then it was purchased by the Robert Holmes a Court Collection. In 1988-1989 the medium of canvas was introduced to the artists. An exhibition titled “Summer Project: Utopia Women’s Paintings” (“The First Works on Canvas”) was mounted. It consisted of one hundred small canvases of all the same size and using four basic colours, black white, yellow, ochre and red ochre. This exhibition was held at the S.H Ervin Gallery in Sydney and immediately caused instant attention to the inherent talent the Utopia artists possess.
The availability of acrylic paint and linen canvas enabled artist to produce works that were even more distinctive than the batik. This new medium saw the rise of the late Emily Kame Kngwarreye who paved the way in the more contemporary art form. Others followed such as Billy Stockman (B.1927-), Long Jack Phillipus (B.1932-),  Minnie Pwerle, Lindsay Bird, Lorna Fencer , Don Tjungarrayi, Ronnie Tjampitjinpa, Lucky Morton, Gloria Petyarre, Gracie Morton, Pansy Napangardi, William Sandy, Kathleen Petyarre, Barbara Weir, Nancy Petyarre, Ada Bird, and others. To this date, Utopia paintings are highly recognized and sought after and continue to grow in richness and variety. An ancient tradition of 60 thousands years gave the world its most exciting form of contemporary art. Long admired by worldwide collectors Aboriginal artists are honour by Australian National galleries and most important corporate and private collections in Australia around the world.
   

Contemporary Aboriginal art
 Contemporary Aboriginal art is a vital part of the world's oldest continuous cultural tradition. It is also one of the most brilliant and exciting areas of modern art. It is an ancient tradition of over 40 thousands years, which gave Australia and the rest of the world its most exciting form of contemporary art. Australian Aboriginal art is beyond doubt the one and only International art. There are estimated to be between 5000 and 7000 Aboriginal artists actively occupied in regular art or craft work in Australia. Many of these Aboriginal artists have led amazingly varied lives, often in demanding circumstances. The growth of contemporary Aboriginal art is a remarkable story. While the greatest flowering of modern Aboriginal art can be traced from the rise of the central desert art movement at Papunya, the antecedents of Aboriginal art expression using modern materials in a mixed cultural context can be identified much earlier. There are many articles reviewing the emergence of contemporary Aboriginal art; Urban Aboriginal Art and Papunya Stories. Sally Morgan is Urban Aboriginal Artist and Writer.These articles cover such topics as Aboriginal artists of the nineteenth century, the relationship of Aboriginal art in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s to other Australian artists, the emergence of Albert Namatjira and associated artists, growth in urban and political art in the 1960s and 1970s.

Art and Aboriginal Society
As with all artistic expression, Aboriginal art is shaped and determined by its social and cultural setting. It is an expression of knowledge and place in the social structure as well as a means of expressing identity. Artists express this identity and social relationship using ancestrally inherited designs and practices. Whenever an Aboriginal artist, working in a traditional social structure, produces a work then the content of that work is linked back to the Dreaming stories and responsibilities of that person. Howard Murphy has summarized this relationship as follows: The ancestral beings gave the rights to occupy the land to the people that they left behind on condition that they continued to perform the ceremonies and produce the paintings that are a record of their creative powers.  Knowledge of the form and content of paintings helps to establish the right to occupy land and the ability to maintain connections with the ancestral forces in that landscape. For this reason knowledge of paintings and the right to produce paintings is closely regulated, and paintings can only be produced by those who are acknowledged to have the right to do so. Although across Australia art is closely related to land and to the particular journeys of Dreamtime beings, the details of the way in which art is related to group identity and gender relations varies widely. In Eastern Arnhem Land and some of the more densely populated areas of central Australia, land, paintings and other manifestations of the Dreaming are the property of clans, groups of people connected primarily by descent, whereas in other regions the rights in paintings and land are more widely dispersed. Howard Murphy "Aboriginal Art" page 149.

Traditional Aboriginal society is structured by a number of systems that organize all aspects of life and help to give an individual their sense of place in society and in their country. These systems vary across the country but most include kin groups and "moieties". An individual person is placed through birth in a kin group (or "skin name" as it is often called in central Australia) while people and all the features of the natural and spiritual world belong to one or other of two moieties. These systems (kin groups and moieties) jointly help to determine many aspects of social or religious behaviour.

Inheritance
 Unlike the Western world the Aboriginal people inherit stories called “dreaming”.  Each story may include songs, ceremonial dances and rituals creating unique beliefs that the Aboriginal people live by. All stories and beliefs are related to the land and thus the land is great importance to them. The land is the keeper of the stories and must be kept safe for all time so that the stories, which are told in paintings, can be preserved. In modern dot representation is the sacred aspect of painting is not always completely revealed but the meaning, transmitted through symbols remains, and can be understood.

Traditional Aboriginal Art
Aboriginal Australians traditionally used art as a means of communication or expression in different forms such as rock engravings, cave paintings and designs cut into trees, wooden articles such as boomerangs and on their bodies (scarification). The symbols of their artwork were expressions of their beliefs, the Dreamtime and Dreaming stories or in some cases were records of specific events. Whatever they drew, engraved or painted onto such surfaces as sand, earth, rock, trees or wood had significant meanings to them.

The term art, broadly interpreted, also includes story telling, song, music and dance. These forms of Aboriginal art were often sacred because of their connection to the Dreamtime and Aboriginal spiritual beliefs, or because they were accessible only to initiated adults. Other stories were secular (non-sacred) and included stories for children and those that recorded major events such as great battles, memorable hunting expeditions or the arrival of Europeans and others into their country.

Traditionally there were large variations in the style, symbols and materials used in the production of art in different regions of Australia. This diversity included bark paintings and wooden sculptures with intricate cross-hatched designs, delicate engravings on pearl shell in the West Kimberley, symbol-based sand and body designs of the Central and Western Desert, engraved rock in Tasmania and rock art in Cape York and central Queensland.

Dreamtime
 They believe that the Universe was created by spirits (mystical beings) setting the blueprint for all time the way human may govern their conduct. The spirits gathered their food, dug for water, performing ceremonies as the Aboriginal do it today but the landscape stay unchanged. During the Creation Time spirits shaped all the landscape; hills and water holes and given humans all the sacred laws. That time was known as “Dreamtime” and it came to the end and their ancestor changed into landscape, they turn into a rock or mountain range, an isolated hill, river or even trees arose to mark the place. They look upon these spirits creators as ancestors. Aboriginal believe in an existing connection to their ancestor spirit and to the land. They are spiritual biological beings appreciative of the fragility of the nature and making an effort to live in harmony with the environment. Since every Aboriginal descent of the mythical beings of the “Dreamtime” each person is linked by myth and tribal relationship with the landscape, the rocks and watercourses, and everything else in his tribal country.

Philosophy of life
 The Aboriginal philosophy of life, known as Dreamtime (Tjurrkurpa) is based on tradition conceived by totemic ancestors. Men and women believe to be direct descendants in spirit of “mythical architects” who created the land and different totems; kangaroo, Emu, turkey, lizards and the land in which they live. They feel special affinity with their related totem animal species. It is believed that sacred ceremonies have to be re-enacted on a regular basis to maintain the animal species and ensure survival of the humans. Each family owns a special area of land and must protect sacred sites representing their personal totems Dreamtime spirits. People travel long distances from all directions to participate in the initiation ceremonies and to educate the young. The journey could last days or several months and women hunt and collect food during the voyage.

Ceremonies
 The Dreamtime people marked the resting places and at the waterholes, they camped to perform ceremonies to express their respect for the land. To this day people travel the desert and visit the sacred sites to perform ceremonies. The well being of the community depends on women and men demonstrating their respect for the land through the ceremonies.  Initiates being taught their roles as nurturers of the land and keepers of the law by which life’s rules and regulations are set.  Women ceremonies are conducted often to heal the sick, ensure fertility of the land, and to secure social harmony as well as to ensure success in love when men ceremonies educate of their sacred laws and behavioral codes to live in harmony with the land. Ceremonies involve songs, dances and body adornment. They perform the ceremonies at different times of the year. Each ceremony has to be organized, supervised and managed and the performance of each ceremony dependents the person ownership, their knowledge as well as their status.  While many ceremonies are public, various are secret and strangers, young women, non initiated boys and girls would be limited in attending the sacred ceremonies.  They main categories of ceremonies are; education of their sacred laws and behavioral codes and to ensure continuation of totemic species to live in harmony with the land. At this stage due to sacred nature of the ceremonies no further interpretation is attainable.

Body Paint
 In preparation for a particular ceremony people paint their bodies with special markings and ornate them with feathers. Body painting carries often deep spiritual significance. The use of a particular designs and motifs denotes social position and the relationship of the individuals to their family and to ancestors, totemic animals and tracts of land. In some situations individuals are completely transform into the ancestor spirit they portray in their dance. Patterns must conform to the ceremony being performed. Elaborate sand paintings are also made and their body painting depicts similar designs.  Often Ochre clay and Spinifex ashes are mixed with kangaroo or Emu fat to make the body paint. Body painting ranges from simply smearing clay across the face to intrinsic full body paint. Participants often form patters with headdresses, armbands and girdles, painted weapons and tools. They parade mock battles and often painted poles are exhibited on the ceremonial sites. Sacred objects, places and positions are mostly kept secret from young women and men.

Secret language
 A concentric circle represents a waterhole and a meeting place.
An oval shape symbolize a coolamon which is a wooden bowl used to carry food, water and even babies.
Music sticks comprise of a pair wooden sticks and used in ceremonies as a common drumming instrument to keep the rhythm of the song and dance and to accompany the didgeridoo.
Didgeridoo originated from a northern part of Australia and it is a musical instrument producing profound and remarkable rhythmic sound. It is made from a hollow small tree or a branch of a tree eaten out by termites.
Boomerang are made of mulga wood and often used by men as a music drumming instrument for ceremonies, there are some variation in length and thickness. Returning boomerangs are mainly found in lake and swamp areas used traditionally by men to scare birds from water ways into pre-nests.
Digging sticks are simple hardwood sticks with sharpen and fired harden point mainly used by women for digging water, lizards, rabbits, witchetty grubs and edible roots.

Rock Art
Most artworks in the distant past were made with materials that have not survived the passing of time. Rock art however has left rich and enduring evidence of human presence in Australia for at least 30 000 years. Aboriginal Australians believe they have been here since the Dreamtime.

Artistic expression
The artistic expression is spiritual and concern with myths and totemic beliefs of the ancestor spirits.  Aboriginal paintings are based on the myths of the Dreamtime of their Ancestral people, the formation of the Stars and the Universe, flora and fauna. For over 40 thousands of years the Aboriginal people lived a nomadic lifestyle traveling long distances living of the land and lived in a harmony with nature, collecting bush food and hunting. They participated in the ceremonies at different times of the year. The well being of the community depends on women and men demonstrating their respect for the land through the ceremonies.  It is believed that sacred ceremonies have to be re-enacted on a regular basis to maintain the animal species and ensure survival of the humans. This culture has no written language and relies on storytelling as the basis of a “formal” education. These stories which include songs and dances are represented in their paintings. The ceremonies are performed to teach young the sacred laws and behavioral codes as well as to honor the prosperity of bush food, continuation of water and people survival. They recognize the creative nature of the ceremony activity; they use the human body itself as a living canvas for artistic expression.

It was only in 70’s when the Pintupi tribe was taken from the land to Papunya settlement to learn living in one place, Geoffrey Barton, a school teacher inspired them to paint and document their stories on canvas. Painting gave Aboriginal people the written language able them to document their way of life and secure entrance to a modern society. First it was the business of the senior men to recount and live the sacred laws to ensure to continuation and harmony of the people and their environment. Early paintings depicted elements of ceremonial life forbidden by women, children and non-initiated. Now Aboriginal women using the freedom of self expression and experimentation create the most contemporary Aboriginal art.

Moieties divide society into two classes which may then be perpetuated by patrilineal descent, matrilineal descent or alternating generational descent. In many parts of Australia all three moieties are important. In art, moiety can play an important role in determining the subjects which an artist may paint.

Across most of Arnhem Land there is a patrilineal moiety of two classes, the Dhuwa and the Yirritja. Artists whose work is represented on this Web site come from both moieties. For example Charlie Matjuwi Burarrwanga is the clan leader and elder for the Gumatj (Burarrwanga) clan - with Yirritja moiety. Moiety affiliation determines many important matters such as marriage - a person of the Yirritja moiety must marry a person of the Dhuwa moiety.

Kinship structures are also very important to many Aboriginal societies. In his book "Papunya Tula", Geoffrey Bardon describes how all male Aborigines in the western desert region, after full tribal initiation, own a Dreaming and are the custodians of its associated stories and songs. Each man can paint or otherwise discuss his personal Dreaming as he inherits it, or as he is permitted by custom. While the ownership of the story is strictly demarcated by tribal skin groups, each one can be part of a much greater story and might overlap with other stories from other tribes. The skin system is complex, but it is essential to a proper appreciation of the way that custody of dreaming stories is established - and the factors which influence the work of an artist.

In the western desert, the custody of a particular dreaming story and painting of it is determined by tribal skin relationships ("skin names"). There are eight male skin groups (starting with T) and eight female skin groups (starting with N) as shown in the following diagram:
 Arrows point from marriage partners to their children and joined (paired) boxes show allowed combinations of skin names for marriage partners. This summary can only give a very limited insight into the relationship of art and social structure in traditional Aboriginal societies. However, it does allow an impression of the complexities behind ownership of stories and designs in aboriginal art - and an appreciation that these are still strong today.

There are number of other sources of information about Aboriginal artists and their work. This is available through books of Aboriginal art centres. The most comprehensive printed sources are:

"Aboriginal Artists of the Western Desert - A Biographical Dictionary" by Vivien Johnson, published by Craftsman House 1994 (out of print)

"The Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture" edited by Sylvia Kleinert and Margo Neale published by OUP 2000.

“Australian Aboriginal Artist Encyclopedia” – dictionary of biographies” by J. Kreczmarski & M. Stanislavski-Birnberg published 2004.
 

Dreaming and the Dream-time

The Dreaming is a term used by Aborigines to describe the relations and balance between the spiritual, natural and moral elements of the world. It is an English word but its meaning goes beyond any suggestion of a spiritual or dream-related state. Rather, the Dreaming relates to a period from the origin of the universe to a time before living memory or experience - a time of creator ancestors and supernatural beings.

This time is also called the Dreamtime, when the "Rainbow Serpent" moved across the land and the "Wandjina" land were active in the clouds and skies. For a more information go to Dreamtime detailed information below.

These creator ancestors formed the features of the land and all living things and also set down the laws for social and moral order. The Dreaming, as well as answering questions about origins, provides a harmonious framework for human experience in the universe - and the place of all living things within it.

Each Aboriginal person's totem and Dreaming is determined by the place in the landscape where the mother feels her first signs of being pregnant. At this place, the unborn person receives the spirit of a totemic ancestor - for example honey ant, possum, goanna or water - and the Dreaming connected with the place.

This harmony between human existence and other natural things was expressed by Silas Roberts, first Chairman of the Northern Land Council, in this way:

Features of the landscape are the most visible signs of the past activities of ancestral beings. The ancestral beings led lives much as Aboriginal people have for generations, but on a grander scale - and with grander consequences (see Howard Morphy's book). Waterholes or the entrances to caves resulted where they emerged from the earth. Where they held great battles, hills resulted from their bodies and lakes formed from pools of their blood.

The ancestral beings also left a record of themselves and their actions in the form of a rich variety of art. During their epic journeys, the ancestral beings sang and performed ceremonies, made engravings or paintings on rock and in caves and left sacred objects. In northern Australia, these songs are handed from generation to generation, together with the body designs that were first painted on the chests of the ancestral beings.

Aboriginal peoples living in different parts of Australia trace their origins directly from these great ancestral beings. When present-day Aboriginal people walk through their country, they are continually reminded of the presence of the creator beings. This happens not only through the features of the landscape but also through songs, paintings and ceremonies.

The Dreaming system of beliefs and philosophy has different names depending on the language of the speaker. The Pitjantjatjara and related desert peoples call it Tjukurrpa, the Kimberley peoples call it Ngarrankrni and the Anmatyerre and related peoples call it the Altyerre.

'Dreaming' is often used to refer to an individual's or group's set of beliefs or spirituality. For instance, an Aboriginal Australian might say that they have Kangaroo Dreaming or Honey Ant Dreaming, or any combination of Dreamings pertinent to their 'country'. Many artworks are visual representations of the symbols associated with the artist's dreaming.

Dreamtime Origins

"The Aborigines learned about the origins of the tribe through their Dreamtime creation myths, that told of the significant actions of the creators. The myths were the basis of Aboriginal society and were responsible for providing certainty about existence. They contributed to their survival and it is beyond dispute that they survived for thousands of years. The Australian aborigines believed that the land they occupied was once vacuous - empty. This belief was a source of great mystery to them. It was also a great truth that was known with absolute certainty, because the ancestors had said this was the way things once were. Then, during what has become known as the Dreamtime, the land, the sky above and all they contained were formed by the actions of supernatural and mysterious beings.

"The concept of the Dreamtime was first researched by Spencer and Gillen in their study of the "Arunta" (Arrernte) tribe of Central Australia. They came to understand the words "Alchera" and "Aldjeringa" identifying as a 'creative period'. Other tribes had words in their language for the same concept. As communication between the "Arunt" people and the non-Aboriginal scientists improved, it became apparent to them, that the aborigines understood the Dreamtime as a beginning. Here it is pointed out that there is a significant difference between Aboriginal thinking and that of others. In particular the belief that the Dreamtime is a period on a continuum of past, present and future.

"Aboriginal people understood the Dreamtime as a beginning that never ended. In one sense it was the past, the sacred past. But as Spencer and Gillen found, the word "Tjurjunga" was also associated with the Dreamtime. "Tjurjunga" identified a category of belief and action. A concept that will become more obvious as we proceed through this book. For the moment, it is sufficient to say that "Tjurjunga" identified the belief that the Dreamtime never ended.

"The Dreamtime itself has been explained in a number of ways. Various explanations refer to creators who were mysterious and supernatural beings. They include references to men and women 'just like us' who had the ability to shape-change into animals and other fauna; creators such as the "Rainbow Serpent" and also All-father and All-mother figures. There have also been references to the creators as heroes and heroines. The essential point is that each tribe had a collection of Dreamtime creation stories. In other words there were desert, mountain, alluvial plains and seacoast Dreamtime stories.

"Land itself was an icon because of the spiritual basis on which it was created and the fact that some of the creators continued to live in the land, or in the sky above watching over them. Broadly speaking they told of creative actions that resulted in the formation of the earth, the sky above and all they contain. Every hill, water hole and tree, every animals, bird and marine life along with every other living creature and natural phenomenon was believed to have come into existence in the Dreamtime.

"It was during the Dreamtime that the creators made men and women, decreed the laws which all must obey - their behavior to one another, the customs of food distribution, the rules of marriage, the rituals of initiation and the ceremonies of death which must be performed so that the spirit of the dead would travel peacefully to his or her spirit-place.

"Although the Aborigines believed that the Dreamtime was a beginning that never ended, some of their stories told them that the mythical creators disappeared. Here it is tempting to say that they believed that at an inexplicable point of time the Dreamtime ended, but this is not what they aborigines believed. They believed that the creators disappeared from the sight of mere mortals, but continued to live in secret places. Some lived in the tribe's territory in rock crevices, trees and water holes. Others went up into the sky above as heavenly bodies. Others changed into (or perhaps became) natural forces such as wind, rain, thunder and lightning."

The examples of dreaming stories, see the excellent Web site set up by the Australian Museum at http://www.dreamtime.net.au/
Disclaimer:
Nothing in this document should be taken as a recommendation to acquire art. Forecasts, projections, current and historical art prices, and statements of opinion contained in this document and our site are only statements of presently held beliefs. They may prove inaccurate. Past performance is not always indicative of future performance and neither art galleries nor Galeria Aniela; Sotheby’s and other auction houses its subsidiaries nor do its associated companies either directly or indirectly guarantee a return. You ought to satisfy yourself with its accuracy and completeness through inspections, surveys, inquiries, searches, tests, and seek your own independent knowledge. Seek consultants and representatives, financial and legal advice. You must not rely solely on the information provided. You ought to build up your own independent knowledge, follow your heart and keep your own independent thinking.

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