During my trip to Perth, Western Australia, I participated in a lot of Aboriginal guided tours, among which the dreaming itinerary led by Justin, a strong young man from the Wadjuk tribe, can at least be in the top three on my favorite list. First of all, I think it's important to explain the meaning of the word dreaming in Nuenga, because it's a very important word, and you'll see it many times during your visits to Western Australia, dreaming means "cold", "cold time" or "ancestral times".
The aborigines refer to it as the time of creation. This is a time long ago, when the soul rose from the earth and descended from the sky to create the earth and all living things. This is the aboriginal epic of "Pangu opening the world" and "Genesis". Dreamin creation stories vary from region to region and from tribe to tribe, but they are part of the connection between all living beings. If you see the intention of the snake, it must have something to do with dreaming.
Justin told us that there is no please, no thank you in the Aboriginal language, because their social system is based on sharing as needed and with available resources. All the people in the tribe live together, all the aunts are mothers, all the uncles are fathers, and if the mother of a baby dies, the other women will be obliged to take on the responsibility of breastfeeding, and the old people will be supported by the young. Isn't this the old and the old, the young and the young?There are really too many similarities with Chinese culture!
One of the most interesting aspects of Justin's trip was that we all had the opportunity to paint our own works in the unique way of drawing for the Aboriginal people, choosing among the animal totems that were important to them, the emu as a symbol of the galaxy in the hearts of the Aboriginal people, and the whale as the sacred creature that brought the soul into the Western Elysium after the death of the Aboriginal people. Justin will also elaborate on the meaning of the symbolic figures that appear in the drawings.
I've also said before that Australian Aborigines don't have their own written language. For more than 60,000 years, knowledge and traditions have been passed down through oral transmission and the use of universally understood symbols. Art, and the symbols used in it, have become an essential part of it. To understand these, you can see a general idea by looking at the paintings of the aborigines, such as what scenes are expressed, what geographical features are there, whether they are rivers or mountains.
For example, the curve represents the waterway, the concentric circles represent the cave or the religious site, the u represents the person, and a spindle with a thread represents love.
