MSS141 Summer 2003
Aboriginal Australian Dreamtime

Lambert, Intro & select tales; Tonkinson, "The Spiritual Imperative"; Lawlor, "Time and Space in the Dreaming"; "The Ontology of the Dreamtime (p. 264- 275)

Reading Questions:

1.  What is the Dreamtime? How does the notion of the Dreamtime fit into Australian Aboriginal cosmology?

2.  What is totemism?

3.  How are the Dreamtime stories relevant to the everyday lives of the Aborigines?

4.  How do the Aborigines conceive of space and time according to Lawlor?

5.  Explain "The Plant is the Dream of the Seed" (Lawlor, 38).

6.  What do the terms "yuti" and "mularrpa" mean? What is the relationship between yuti/mularrpa and the Dreamtime?

7.  What does it mean that there is no word for "fiction," "fantasy" or "personal imagination" in any of the hundreds of Aboriginal Australian languages (Lawlor 267)?  What does this indicate about the Aboriginal mindset and/or world view?

8.  What lessons are drawn from the three stories transcribed by Parker ("Sturt's Desert Pea," "Murgah, Muggui" and "Bralgah the Dancing Bird")?  What do these stories tell us about the Dreamtime?  What are your own reactions to these stories?