Dreamtime Nightmare

Invaders, seasoned tourists and indigiphiles are all experts on the "Aboriginal dreamtime". That must be why it has an English name... So where does the idea come from?

Many of us prefer to say "The Dreaming" now, because "dreamtime" is misleading, making it seem like something in the distant past (and thus relegating us to that same past). Creation is now, which is timeless. Read the article about this - Linear vs Circular Logic.

However, even "Dreaming" is obviously not one of our own language words. I don't know of an Aboriginal language word that actually describes the western abstraction of "dreamtime" or "The Dreaming". Yes, western. It was the result of a mistranslation by a well-meaning anthropologist of a central desert concept.

So how has it become a part of "our culture" now? Well, dominant culture people seek to build our identities for us as part of the colonisation process - they tell us how to be, and half the time we buy into it.

I buy into it too. I often talk about "my dreaming" - but strangely enough only to outsiders, not in my family. It's like we have to sell our identities publically according to the mainstream-friendly construct just to exist.

How are we inducted into this Anglo-built aboriginality? Well, it starts at school...

Read about how my neice was indoctrinated about "her dreamtime" by a foreign teacher at school, in my article Cultural Colonisation.