Dreaming, The | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

Dreaming, The

DREAMING, THE. If one asks: Why do you call out before approaching a sacred site? Why do you sweep the paths clean the first time you visit the camping site of a deceased relative? Why do you click your fingers to move rain clouds? Why does the hunter not get the best part of the catch? Why do you never look directly at or speak to your mother-in-law? Why do you marry a classificatory matrilateral cross-cousin? Why do you kill an iguana by hitting it behind the ear? Why is the baby carrier rubbed with red ochre? Why do you always ask a particular relative if you can go to a certain place to hunt or gather? The first answer will most likely be, "because that's the Law," or "that's the Dreaming."

Although Aboriginal beliefs and practices are not consistent across the Australian continent, at the core is the concept of the Dreaming, a moral code that informs and unites all life. The dogma of Dreaming states that all the world is known and can be classified within the taxonomy created by the ancestral heroes whose pioneering travels gave form, shape, and meaning to the land, seas, and skies in a long-ago creative era that W.

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