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Page 54 & 55 Video 2: Songlines of the Aborigines

Narrator: Around 55,000 years ago, the Aborigines first arrived in Australia. Their
millennia-old culture survives today in remote pockets of the outback. And that’s where
we’re headed.
We’re heading east now into Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia. In a sense,
this is the cradle of what became one of the greatest civilizations in the history of humanity.
Sadly, when the Europeans arrived, that’s not what they saw. Adam Macfie, an Australian
anthropologist, explains.
Adam Macfie: When Europeans first came to Australia, what they saw – in their eyes – were
just these savages, living on the land and not doing anything with it. And in fact, they missed
out on one of the greatest subtle philosophies of any culture on the planet.
European attempts to ‘civilise’ the Aborigines had tragic results. By the mid-20th century,
nearly 90% of the population had perished.
We just pulled into Ramingining, which is a community that probably was established, I
don’t know, in the early 70s or so, when people started moving off the land. You know, once
people settled into places like Ramingining, suddenly people were separated from the very
thing upon which the culture depended: the incredible link, spiritually, metaphysically, to
landscape.
The Aborigines’ beliefs are founded on a deep respect for and connection to the land.
So it’s no wonder that their ancient rituals involve long walks, tracing the footsteps of their
ancestors, following the ancient pathways of the Songlines. Thousands of Songlines interlace
across the Australian continent. Some are as short as a mile or two; others span hundreds of
miles.
Narrator: Songlines have a practical purpose. They are vital for survival: they chart the
territory, indicating waterways, mountains, depressions; they are maps for finding food, and
they even mark borders between clans.
But Songlines also represent a spiritual journey. On their walks, the Aborigines sing songs
about the mythical stories of the Dreaming, a time when the world as we know it was born.
When they sing the songs and follow the Songlines, Aborigines return to that moment of
creation. And each time they sing, the world is created all over again.