Rainbow+Serpent



The Dreaming
The Aboriginal people made sense of the world through the stories of the Dreamtime, which were about a time referred to as the Dreaming. Each Aboriginal community had its own unique Dreamtime stories that had been nurtured and faithfully passed down to succeeding generations for thousands of years. These stories have been described as the first histories of Australia. The Dreamtime stories provide the law and custom underlying the functioning of Aboriginal society. They relate how the people of today are descended from ancestral beings that could be of human origin, but might also be part of the natural environment - koalas, emus, kangaroos or magpies - or derived from spirits such as the rainbow snake. The experiences of these beings explain the origins of the land itself. The Dreaming legends, from all parts of the continent, indicate that almost every traditional group believed in a Supreme Being. This Great Spirit was known by different names in different areas. In some cases, a number of different communities adhered to the same Great Spirit. Byamee, Wandjina and Nargacork were some of the most commonly worshipped Great Spirits. From the legends we learn that in the beginning, the mighty Creator was responsible for creating every aspect of the Earth's environment. The mighty Creator organised the seasons, created the sun and moon, constructed the wildlife, and finally, made men and women. It was believed that the Great Spirit lived eternally, watching and protecting his followers affectionately. One legend that touches on the kindness of the Great Spirit is told by the Wiradjuri people, who lived traditionally in the area now known as Brewarrina, in New South Wales. The Wiradjuri people believed that Byamee, the Great Creator, delivered them spirit helpers. These spirit helpers took the form of men and helped the Wiradjuri people to construct fish traps in the river. Whenever an abundance of fish was caught the Wiradjuri people performed a special corroboree to give thanks. The Rainbow Serpent appears in many of the Aboriginal groups dreaming stories. Almost every group throughout the land had strong ties with this great, mysterious being from the Dreaming. Many of the groups explain the creation of the land through the Rainbow Snake. It is believed that originally the land was very flat, and remained so, until the giant Rainbow Serpent slid across the landscape constructing mountains, deep gorges, rivers and valleys. Some groups credit the Rainbow Serpent with the creation of everything, stating it gave birth to men, women and animals. Even today the Rainbow Serpent is accorded much respect. The Aboriginal people believe the Rainbow Serpent is represented by a rainbow in the sky after a downpour.

**Aboriginal Australians explain their existence by telling stories about the land and animals around them long before the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids. **  In **//The Rainbow Serpent//**, Gooriala, the Rainbow Serpent, travelled the Australian continent. As he did so, he created gorges, rivers, billabongs, mountains, hills and caves. These landmarks would all be relevant features known and utilized by the people of those areas.  The Warumungu legend of the native Aboriginal people says that the Devil's Marbles are the eggs of the Rainbow Serpent laid during the Dreamtime. The Dreamtime is the central theme in Australian Aboriginal mythology. It is made up of four different parts: the beginning of all things; life and ancestors; life and death; and sources of power in life. Australia's Indigenous people are thought to have the oldest cultural history on Earth. The Rainbow Serpent, which is one of the main figures in Aboriginal mythology, is in control of life's most precious resource - water. Aboriginal people believe that the stones of the Devil's Marbles are sacred and have extraordinary powers.  The Devil's Marbles Reserve is a very important and sacred site for the Indigenous people of Australia. Over time, the ceremonies and stories about the Devil's Marbles have mostly been lost but the site is still very important and may be one of the oldest religious sites in the world. One of the marbles was removed from the collection in 1953 and taken to Alice Springs to form a permanent memorial to John Flynn, the founder of the Royal Flying Doctor Service (the air ambulance service for those living in the remote inland areas of Australia). Later, this action created great controversy (a discussion in which very different views and opinions are expressed) because the rock was removed from a sacred site without the permission of the tribal elders. In the late 1990s, a boulder swap was arranged and the missing marble was removed from the grave, cleaned and returned to its original place. The grave is now marked with a similar boulder donated by the local Arrernte people. Today, all the cultural items and wildlife in the Devil's Marbles Conservation Reserve are protected by law. The Devil's Marbles is a collection of large round, red-coloured rocks called boulders. They are located near Wauchope, which is 114 km south of Tennant Creek in Australia's Northern Territory. <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The Devil's Marbles are about 1640 million years old <span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> <span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> <span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">
 * <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">They are spiritually connected to the land and refer to the Dreamtime as ways to tell the story of the creation of this ancient place. In some Dreamtime creation stories, the hills are giant marsupials, frozen in time, the rivers are tracks of the rainbow serpent, and the Milky Way is the river of the sky where, after the rainbow serpent has swallowed the sun, people fish for stingrays and turtles with the stars as their campfires. **
 * <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">According to Aboriginal belief, the spirit ancestors of the land and its people descended from the sky, emerged from the earth or sprang from waterways. These ancestral spirits possessed supernatural powers, enabling them during the Dreamtime of the world’s creation to change into human, animal or other forms. **
 * <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Ceremonial songs and dances commemorate stories of the Dreamtime creation era, celebrating in music and movement, the deeds and journeys of heroic spirit ancestors. Participants in traditional dance ceremonies are painted with the emblems and totems of their clans and their performances are designed to evoke the spiritual power of the spirit ancestor. **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The rainbow serpent, which appears in Aboriginal rock art going back 40,000 years, is said to command the powers of creation and destruction and plays a key role in the Aboriginal Dreamtime. **
 * <span style="font-size: 11.5pt; color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Geology **

**<span style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 11pt; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Key Dreamtime facts **<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">
 * <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">• The Aboriginal people are considered to represent the world’s most ancient continuous culture. **
 * <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">• Cave paintings of animals and spirits are at least as old as the earliest examples of European cave art. Their paintings and stories tell how the great spirits made the land, animal and plants. **
 * <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">• Aboriginal Dreamtime is a belief system that takes you further back in time than any other oral history. **
 * <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">• To the Aborigines however, the Dreamtime is not simply an ancient past but a continuing present. **
 * <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">• Traditional Aboriginal law, religion and social relationships centre on the association formed with a specific stretch of country by a spirit ancestor in the creation period of Dreamtime. **
 * <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">• Descendant peoples are held to be responsible for caring for their particular country, maintaining its environmental and spiritual wellbeing. **
 * <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">• Family groups and individual Aboriginal people have their own Dreaming. **
 * <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">• Significant places where ancestral Dreamtime spirits lived or played out their destiny are marked by physical formations such as rocks, waterholes, trees, caves or sacred sites. **
 * <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">• The spiritual interconnectedness of all living things is very powerful for our Aboriginal communities. **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">• Unlike our law, Aboriginal law does not change; their laws were made by Dreaming ancestors ** so Aboriginal people cannot change it.  <span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">