The Dreaming, Human Agency and Inscriptive Practice

Abstract

The myth/history and orality/literacy oppositions are interrelated ones, through which Aboriginal culture has been stereotyped as the simple inverse of European. The Dreaming has been seen as antithetical to historical consciousness, as it assimilates contingent events to a pre-existing order which is objectified in natural features of the landscape. I argue that The Dreaming is one instance of a more general mode of orientation through which a good deal of what we call history -the purposeful acts of living persons and their known forebearsis also memorialised in the landscape. What is specific to Aboriginal sociality is not orality or a mythic mentality, but a particular economy of inscriptive and interpretive practices through which 'country' becomes 'story'.

Forgetful and memorious landscapes

“…Ingold argues that the landscape, viewed from what he calls a dwelling perspective, is 'an enduring record of -and testimony to -the lives and works of past generations who have dwelt within it, and in doing so, have left there something of themselves' (1993: 152). It often has a powerful 'mnemonic' significance (Morphy 1995: 188;Tilley 1994: 59), and plays an important role in the way people organise personal and collective memories (Bender 1993;Kockel 1995;Lovell 1998;Hirsch and O'Hanlon 1995;Rumsey 1994;Santos-Granero 1998;Horowitz 2001). It often has a powerful 'mnemonic' significance (Morphy 1995: 188;Tilley 1994: 59), and plays an important role in the way people organise personal and collective memories (Bender 1993;Kockel 1995;Lovell 1998;Hirsch and O'Hanlon 1995;Rumsey 1994;Santos-Granero 1998;Horowitz 2001).…”

Kincentric Ecology, Species Maintenance and the Relational Power of Place in Northern Australia

“…and ). Like the rest of the landmass that is Australia, Wulubulu and Liyalkangka were brought into being by the Ancestral Beings that reside in the lands and waters (see also Morphy , Poirier , Rumsey , Sansom for further articulations of Ancestral Beings and their activity). Located approximately 5 km west from the remote township of Borroloola in the southwest Gulf of Carpentaria (northern Australia), Wulubulu and Liyalkangka are found in what was once country belonging to members of the Binbingka language group.…”

Strange Relatives: Mutualities and Dependencies between Aborigines and Pastoralists in the Northern Kimberley

“…It is fair to say that Australian Aboriginal responses to colonisation have often been held up as a paradigm of conservative 'structural transformation' in comparison to the articulation or adoption models applied to Melanesian responses (Rumsey 2003). Bob Tonkinson (2002), for example, has described a strong binary opposition between Australian Aboriginal and Melanesian responses to colonization in which the latter are characterised as having a strong predisposition to flexibility, appropriation and exchange as opposed to a dominant chord in Indigenous Australians' ideological apparatus which focuses on stability and continuity.…”