ABC Wednesday D for Dreamtime

Australia - Aboriginal Dreamtime: " All peoples of our world have a concept of how the world was formed. The Aboriginals believe that, in the beginning, the earth was featureless, flat and grey. There were no mountain ranges, no rivers, no billabongs, no birds or animals - in fact not one living thing. Then long, long ago came the Dreamtime. The Dreamtime was a time when giant creatures rose up out of the grey plains where they had been slumbering for countless ages. These mythical Beings looked like animals or plants or insects, but they behaved just like humans. They wandered across the vast grey wastes, digging for water and searching for food and as they searched, because of their giant size, they made huge ravines and rivers in the land. Thus the world took on the shape it has today."

In Cooktown there is a great example of Aboriginal art. It's called the Milbi Wall. This is created by the inhabitants of Cooktown and the Aboriginal compound of Hopevale, under the direction of the Hopevale artist Roy McIvor, who is an uncle of my daughter's ex- husband.Milbi is the Guugu Yimithirr (local Aboriginal language) word for story. The wall is meant to be part of the reconciliation project and a memorial to show history from an Aboriginal point of view.

The wall concists of three parts. The first part tells about the Dreamtime, the second part about the first contact with Europeans and later Asians, these contacts were disastrous for the Aborigines, then the third part shows us the present time which hopefully promises reconciliation of differences.The stories are told in beautiful ceramic tiles.The Wall is built right at the spot where, in 1770, Captain James Cook and his crew first set foot.

On top of the wall lies the Rainbow Serpent, one of the creator spirits of the indigenous people of Australia.


With thanks to Denise Nesbitt, who created ABC.For more interesting ABC posts click on the logo in the sidebar or Here. This week we are looking for words beginning with D.