SACRED SITES
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In the past three years of Madonna we have explored different aspects of stories about Aboriginal people. During this period I have received many letters from readers telling me of their interest. This has been very encouraging, so thank you, every one.
Where to now? I thought maybe we could go on a pilgrimage to discover something of the spirituality of the land by visiting some stories of the land through sacred sites. I consider it is imperative to continue telling the stories, because the credibility of the Dreaming as a viable spirituality is under serious threat. Not only has the purity of spiritual practices that were observed in the past all but been destroyed, but the mysteries surrounding them have been virtually drained of their spiritual content because of the insatiable love of money by powerful multi-million corporations and their continual destruction of the sacred places.
So what do Aboriginal people mean when they say a place is sacred?
Aboriginal spirituality is the belief and feeling within that you are one with the whole of creation. All of creation is filled with the spirit of the Creator of all things—earth, sky, water, air and all of the cosmos. Aboriginal people did not worship in the same context as Europeans, but they did have special places for ceremony. This was necessary for the continuation of culture and for teaching younger ones as they grew older. These places are known as sacred places.
At certain times, for example during ceremonies of initiation of young people as they moved from one period of their lives to the next, the young people are taken to these special sacred places where the spirit forces are known to be strong. These ceremonies are considered more as an introduction to the spirit of the Dreaming than as worship. Here the Spirit is called upon to come into the person to make them strong. This is done through chanting sacred songs, dance and story, all handed down from the ancestors. When rock paintings are there, it is an indication that the spirit is very strong in that place. Often the paintings will be repainted to freshen up the images.
It is hopeful to know that scientists are beginning to catch up with the first peoples of the world. Much is being written today about magnetic fields—places where there are strong powerful forces. Rupert Sheldrake, an English biologist, and Matthew Fox, lecturer on science and spirituality, are two who have dialogued on science and spirituality and both agree that in the new millennium a new vision is needed which will bring together science, spirituality and the sacred. Their separation underlies our present crisis of ecological devastation, despair and disempowerment especially for our indigenous people.
The idea that the earth is dead is losing ground, giving way to the Gaia Hypothesis. Gaia is the Greek name for Mother Earth. What modern science is rediscovering is the concept of the earth as a living organism. This is news to some in the west, but certainly not to the Indigenous people.
Sheldrake and Fox also say the sense of wonder is missing everywhere and primarily it is ritual that is going to restore it.
So when Aboriginal people come together in special places for ritual, calling on the Spirit to enter into the place and the people, we begin to recognise that the spirituality and law of the Dreaming is not only in the past but can be relevant for today.
Our pilgrimage to sacred sites will begin with a brief visit to the Carnarvon Gorge in Central Queensland, to the Valley of the Boomerangs.
Carnarvon Gorge is in an ancient remote river valley, some hours North of Roma in Central Queensland. It was formed 160 million years ago. Water trapped in hidden deposits provided moisture for the ferns, mosses and wildlife in the region. Here was a Jurassic paradise.
Nothing is known of the Karingbal Tribe who once visited the Gorge. The people seemed to have vanished without trace, their songs, rituals, dances and stories all lost, as if they had been stored away in some crevasse by the elders who grew disillusioned with their prospects for survival.
With the advent of white settlers, the tribes were soon decimated and the conversion of their hunting grounds to sheep and cattle runs soon made it impossible to return to the Gorge to conduct their land fertility ceremonies. When the sacred rituals and rites could not be observed, the people drifted away to die rootless and abandoned.
However, they left behind them a vast gallery of stencilled rock art on cave walls, depicting arms in cruciform, emu footprints, hands and hunting boomerangs. The boomerang, like no other artefact, embodies so well the image Aborigines have of themselves.
The boomerang symbolises their cyclical existence, returning each year to familiar haunts, such that in this circling movement through the landscape, they are re-creating the journey the sky heroes made to form sacred places in the Dreaming. In this way, they duplicate a metaphysical trek which not only affirms world creation as a Dreaming event, but also their need to participate in such an event at the level of their own humanity.
This is the meaning of ‘sacred’ in Aboriginal culture.
