What works best for me is the matter-of-fact phrasing, "this happened". "A long way back" is a perfect campfire opening. They are not heroes, there's no real happy ending, it's not a story. This to me is the essence of the Dreaming. It is unapologetic and unembellished; if it is unbelievable, then it's not for you. I remember seeing this made into a short film clip once and I did a bit of googling to see if I could find it, but no luck -- on the way, though, I ran across a site that called the sisters "goddesses" of the Australian Aboriginal "mythos", and that made me perhaps unreasonably angry. Just another example of Europeans trying to dismiss another culture by trivialising it the same way they've trivialised the history of their own continent that doesn't suit their glorious image of benevolent bringers of civilisation and majesty to the primitive savages.
I'd say that a tradition and unbroken ancestry that stretches back around 50,000 years at least is a better sign of humanity working as a force of good in the world than a few thousand years of war, plague, pollution, famine and oligarchic avarice.
*Damn. The video was on Dust Echoes (ABC) as the Wagalak Sisters, but it's expired. The study guide is still there. That's a gorgeous site, if you haven't seen it before.
I'd say that a tradition and unbroken ancestry that stretches back around 50,000 years at least is a better sign of humanity working as a force of good in the world than a few thousand years of war, plague, pollution, famine and oligarchic avarice.
*Damn. The video was on Dust Echoes (ABC) as the Wagalak Sisters, but it's expired. The study guide is still there. That's a gorgeous site, if you haven't seen it before.
It could be worse