SOURCE: Berndt, Catherine and Ronald Berndt. “Aboriginal Australia: Literature in an Oral Tradition.” In Review of National Literatures: Australia, edited by L. A. C. Dobrez, pp. 39-63. New York: Griffin House Publications, 1982.

In the following essay, Berndt and Berndt identify and analyze a number of myth-narratives and songs from the Aboriginal oral tradition.

For the great majority of Australians, the most authentically Australian literature is virtually a closed book. One reason is that it is an oral literature. To some people this expression is still a contradiction in terms. However, since the Chadwicks' work on Oral Literature justified and legitimized it, in the absence of any satisfactory alternative it is now respectably established and generally accepted.

The Australian Aborigines had no tradition of writing, or keeping written documents. They depended on an oral (and aural) tradition: on word-of-mouth (and word-of-ear) transmission. This was a mode of communication suited...