What is the Aboriginal Dreaming?

0:00 Welcome to Philosophy is not boring by Kidopoly.com. I'm Mira. And I'm Finn. If you haven't already, tap follow wherever you're listening so you never miss an episode. We have a really mind-bending question today, don't we? We do. Finn, think about how you find your way around. If you need to go somewhere new, what do you do?

0:23 I guess my parents just use the map on their phone. Or maybe a paper map if we are hiking in the woods. Right. A map is usually something you look at. It's a picture of the world drawn on a screen or a piece of paper. But what if a map wasn't something you looked at? What if a map was a song? Wait, a song?

0:43 Like singing directions out loud? Exactly. And what if the dirt, the rocks, the rivers, and the hills around you weren't just stuff? What if they were literally your family?

0:55unknown Haha.

0:56 Like the ground is my uncle? That sounds wild. It might sound strange to us at first, but it is one of the oldest and most profound ways of looking at the world. Today, we are exploring the oldest continuous cultures on Earth and asking, what do Aboriginal Australians mean by the dreaming? Okay, when you say the oldest continuous cultures on Earth, how old are we actually talking?

1:21 Over 50,000 years, Finn. Let that number sink into your brain for a second. 50,000. That is. I can't even picture that. Like, way before the ancient pyramids in Egypt. Oh, way before. The pyramids were built about 4,500 years ago. 50,000 years ago, during the Ice Age, woolly mammoths were still walking around on Earth, and Aboriginal peoples were already living in Australia.

1:52 That means they have been passing down ideas for longer than anyone else in human history. Do they all believe the exact same thing? That is a really important question. The answer is no. Aboriginal Australia is not just one big group of people. Before Europeans arrived, there were hundreds of different Aboriginal nations across the continent.

2:12 Oh, kind of like how Europe has France and Italy and Germany, all with their own rules and languages. Exactly. They had over 250 completely different languages. But across many of these diverse nations, there is a shared deep philosophical way of understanding the universe. In English, it's often called the dreaming.

2:34 The dreaming. So is it about what happens in your brain when you go to sleep? Nope. And that is where the English translation gets really confusing. It's not a dream you have in bed, and it's definitely not a fairy tale. It's a complex, very real way of understanding how the world was made and how we are supposed to live in it.

2:55 Different nations have their own specific words for it, like Chukurpa in the Western Desert. So if it's not sleeping, what actually is the dreaming? Well, many Aboriginal traditions teach that long, long ago, the earth was formless. It was just a flat, featureless place, with no mountains or rivers. Kind of like a blank piece of paper before you draw on it.

3:20 Exactly! Then, powerful ancestor beings travelled across this blank land. Some looked like humans, some looked like huge animals, like giant kangaroos or massive snakes. And as they moved, they created everything. They pushed up the mountains and carved out the deep river beds. Yes, it sounds like an epic history story.

3:43 But here is where we have to bend our brains a little. In our culture, we usually think of time as a straight line. The past happened, it's gone, and now we are in the present. Right. Yesterday is over and it's not coming back. But in the dreaming, time isn't just a straight line where the past disappears.

4:02 It's often described as an everywhere. The creation didn't just happen once and finish. The ancestor beings didn't just pack up and leave. Wait, what do you mean? Where did they go? They stayed. When they finished shaping a hill or a waterhole, their energy and spirit actually became that part of the landscape.

4:23 Oh, so a mountain isn't just a big pile of rocks that they made. The mountain actually is them. Yes. To many Aboriginal peoples, the land is literally alive. It holds the living presence of those ancient ancestor beings right now. The past and the present are existing at the exact same time in the land.

4:45 Wow. So when you are walking on the land, you're literally walking on ancient history. I have to really think about that. It makes the world feel so much more alive. And that brings us back to the map made of songs. Have you ever heard of a song line? No, but it sounds like magic. It is brilliant, science and memory.

5:07 Because the ancestors travelled across the whole continent, their journeys are remembered in epic songs. These songs are literal maps. The lyrics describe the landscape perfectly. Wait, so if you learn the song, you can navigate across hundreds of miles of totally wild desert. Yes. The song might tell you: turn where the rock looks like a lizard, follow the dry creek bed, and you'll find fresh water under the white gun tree.

5:35 If you sing it right, you walk the right path. That is so much cooler than GPS. Can anyone just learn these songs? That's a great question. The answer is no. A lot of these stories and songs are very private. It's like having a deep family secret. Only certain people who have earned the right are allowed to hear them or sing them.

6:00 We have to be really respectful of that. That makes total sense. It's sacred to their families. Exactly. And this philosophy completely changes how you see the land. Finn, if you have a house with a backyard, you might say your family owns that land, right? Yeah, people buy land and put fences around it.

6:21 But in Aboriginal philosophy, the idea of a human owning the land is totally backwards. You don't own the land. You belong to the land. Because if the land holds the ancestor spirits, it's alive. It's actually your family. Spot on! You wouldn't say you own your grandmother, would you? No, you can't own a person.

6:47 That would be awful. Right. You love your grandmother, and she looks after you. For Aboriginal peoples, the land is a living relative that you have a duty to care for, not a thing you can just buy and sell. And Finn, this is why this ancient philosophy matters so much for everyone today. Right now. How do you mean?

7:10 Well, think about how modern societies treat the environment. If you look at a forest or a river as just stuff that you own, it's really easy to chop it all down or pollute it to make money. Because it's just a thing. When you own a toy, you might just throw it away if it breaks. But you don't throw away your family.

7:30 Beautifully said, Finn. You heal them. Next time you're outside looking at a tree or a hill, try looking at it differently. Imagine it has a story. Imagine it's something you belong to and have a responsibility to care for. It completely changes how you walk through the world. I really love that. It makes me want to go outside right now and just say hi to a tree.

7:57 You totally should! Okay, time for some fun facts. Did you know that Aboriginal Australians are widely considered to be the world's first astronomers? Wait, really? Like studying the stars? Yes! But here is the mind-bending part. When we look at the night sky, we connect the bright stars to make pictures.

8:20 But many Aboriginal nations also look at the dark spaces between the stars. The dark spaces? Like the black sky? Yeah! There is a famous Aboriginal constellation called the Emu in the sky. It's not made of stars, it's made of the massive dark clouds of dust stretching right across the middle of the Milky Way.

8:42 That is incredible! It's like looking at the negative space in a drawing. And it wasn't just a pretty picture. By watching when the dark emu appeared or changed position in the sky, different nations knew exactly when it was the right time to hunt for real emu eggs on the ground. Alright, Finn, time for the quiz.

9:01 Are you ready? Okay, I'm ready. Let's see how much I remembered. Okay, first question. About how many years have Aboriginal cultures been living in Australia? Next one, this is tricky. True or false? Aboriginal Australia is just one single nation with one language. Question three. What English word is often used to describe the continuous time of creation and ancestor spirits?

9:38 Alright, here's number four. What do we call the songs that work as literal maps across the continent? Last question. In this philosophy, do people own the land or do they belong to the land? Great job! Let's go through the answers. The answer to question one is more than 50,000 years. They are the oldest continuous cultures on Earth.

10:09 For question two, false. There are hundreds of different nations and over 250 languages. Number three, the answer is the dreaming. Question four, they are called song lines. And the final answer is people belong to the land, just like they belong to their family. You know, I really am going to look at the hills and rivers completely differently now.

10:34 I love the idea of belonging to a place instead of owning it. Me too, Finn. Thinking about the land as a living relative is such a beautiful and important way to see our world. And it's a lesson we really need today. If you liked thinking about this with us today, please leave us a five-star review. Yes!

10:54 If you loved learning about songlines and the dreaming, just scroll down and tap the stars. It really helps other curious kids find our show. And make sure to hit follow wherever you're listening. Oh, and we have sister shows too. History and science is not boring, and maths is not boring. Go give those a listen and a follow as well.

11:15 Want your name on the show? Send us an email at hello at kidopoly.com. See you next time on Philosophy Is Not Boring. Bye.