ANTH 100A Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Anthony Trollope, Marsupial, Barramundi
Document Summary
October 14 songlines and the dreaming anthro 100 words. When the british reached the shores of australia, they were utterly unprepared for the sophistication of the place and its inhabitants, incapable of embracing its wonder. They had no understanding of the challenges of the desert, and little sensitivity to the achievement of aboriginal people who, for over 55,000 years, had thrived as hunters and gatherers, and guardians of their world. In all that time the desire to improve upon the natural world, to tame the rhythm of the wild, had never touched them. The aborigines accepted life as it was, a cosmological whole, the unchanging creation of the first dawn, when earth and sky separated and the original ancestor, the rainbow. Serpent, brought into being all the primordial ancestors who through their thoughts, dreams, and journeys sang the world into existence. The ancestors walked as they sang, and when it was time to stop, they slept.
