there is a dip in the Heavitree Range called Anthwerrke (Emily Gap). This is the sacred djang place where the caterpillar ancestors of Mparntwe originated. It was they who formed the landscape around Alice Springs. There were three species of caterpillar, Yepereny, Ntyarika and Utnerrengatyre, which can still be found, though because of the city enclosing their djang sites, the increase ceremonies to keep up their numbers have been abandoned. The caterpillar ancestors came from Anthwerrke and created the small ridge, Ntyarlkarle Tyaneme, behind the Desert Palms Motel. Unfortunately, this sacred ridge has been desecrated by the municipal authorities and the road, Barrett Drive, has been renamed Broken Promise Drive by the Arrernte people of Mparntwe to remind them of what happens when the sacred gets in the way of progress.
Ntaripe has other sacred sites, including one sacred to the Dog ancestor, here called Akngwelye, who formed most of the features of the Mt Gillen range. The Dog fought a major battle here before transforming into a boulder embedded in the ground near Akeyulerre (Billy Goat Hill). This boulder now sits outside the entrance to a fast food outlet.
Within the Olive Pink Flora Reserve, towards the south-eastern end of the hill, near Lhere Mparntwe (Todd river), is a sign indicating the location of several Arrernte sacred places. The Arrernte people are striving to protect them in the face of determined opposition. from those who wish to exploit the area for tourism. The traditional owner of the area, Thomas Stevens, has written a book about the effects of British colonization on his country called Damaging our Dreaming Land, published by the Yipirinya School Literacy Production Centre in central Australia.
See also Arrernte people.
Arrernte people The Arrernte (Aranda or Arunta) people are a large community speaking a number of dialects whose country is centred about Alice Springs in central Australia. The western Arrernte groups were concentrated in the Hermannsburg Mission, which was founded in 1877 by German missionaries. Although they fostered the use of the Arrernte language, they were against Arrernte spirituality and exorcized the main keeping-place of sacred objects (tjuringa) at Manangananga cave, two kilometres north of the mission, in 1928. They conducted a Christian ceremony at this sacred place, which until then was forbidden to all but initiated men. This resulted in the disintegration for some time of Arrernte spirituality. Tjuringa were sold to tourists and sacred songs to anthropologists at a shilling a time. In the mid-1950s, however, there occurred a tribal revitalization movement which saw the resacralization of Manangananga cave. The elders of the Arrernte considered the devastating scurvy epidemic which swept the mission in 1929 to be the result of the earlier sacrilege. By the 1970s the sale of tjuringa and songs was at an end.
See also Arrernte landscape of Alice Springs.
Arta-wararlpanha (Mount Serie) Arta-wararlpanha in the Flinders Range is a sacred place of the Adnyamathanha people. In the Dreamtime it is said that it was created by two snakes. Two rocky points are said to be their heads. Arta-wararlpanha was one of the last areas of the Adnyamathanha people to hold out against the invaders and the ritual masters who led the resistance at the turn of the nineteenth century are buried there.
Arunta people See Arrernte people.
Assimilation policy The assimilation policy was formulated by the government in the 1930s to forcibly integrate Aboriginal people into the mainstream society of Australia. In order to do this, children were taken away from their parents and placed in institutions. This policy made many Aborigines alien to their own culture and traditions and it has only been since 1967, when the policy was officially abandoned, that the persons belonging to what we call ‘the stolen generations’ have been relinking to their heritage without government interference.
See also Namatjira, Albert; Papunya.
Aurora Australis The Aurora Australis, or Southern Lights, according to the Kurnai Koori people of Victoria, is a sign of anger from the All-Father Mungan Ngour. A myth explains why. When Mungan Ngour laid down the rules for the initiation of boys into manhood, he placed his son Tundun in charge of the secret men’s ceremonies. Someone divulged them to the women and Mungan Ngour became angry and a time of great chaos ensued in which people ran amok, killing one another, and the seas rushed in, flooding much of the land. This ended the Dreaming period and after this Tundun and his wife became porpoises. The All-Father ascended into the sky, and if his laws and customs are disregarded he shows his anger by lighting up the sky at night.
Australian indigenous mythology Australian indigenous mythology serves many purposes and is land and people based. The mythology is encoded in stories which are handed down and if the stories are detached from the land and people, then the story is being changed to reflect other concerns.
The indigenous mythology gives the history of important places. The stories account for the origins of natural phenomena: they relate how natural features of the landscape were created; how species were created; the origins of stars, mountains, rocky outcrops, waterholes and minerals. Mythology accounts for things as they are. The mythological stories are also maps – it is through story, song and sacred objects (tjuringa) that the country of a people or community is mapped and the boundaries kept in mind. Mythology is also a way of passing geographical knowledge from generation to generation, thus where the thumping kangaroo first thumped there is limestone; the goanna is associated with sandy outcrops; the kingfisher with coal; the pigeon with gold; and the crested pigeon with grinding stones. It must be emphasized that often when we talk of animals, we are also referring back to the Dreaming ancestor from which they evolved and which they still symbolize. It is from such Dreaming ancestors that all the laws and the social organization of particular communities come. It is when this connection is lost that these stories become simple tales – ‘How the echidna got its spikes’ and so on. The mythology encoded in the stories is much more important that this.
Stories record the boundaries of tribal countries, and when the story or song line stops, that is the boundary. It is not that the travels of the Dreaming ancestors stopped, but that another community has custodianship of the next section of the journey and thus ownership of a particular tract of country.
Stories also contain blueprints for special rituals: for rainmaking, saving sick children from death, the customs for widowhood, initiation and so on and so forth. Without the mythological sanction of a story or a corpus of stories and song lines, customs and laws have no legality. Where Aboriginal traditional culture is upheld and the stories known by the community, they provide guidelines for living. They focus on social relationships and moral values and their preservation for social well-being: what was done in the Dreaming by the ancestors is to be done now. Mythology also embodies warnings for those who break the rules, gives courage in times of adversity and is a focus of community identity. A particular community has its own corpus of stories and these give social cohesion and identity. When these stories and songs extend beyond the particular community, such as the great myth circles like the Seven Sisters, the Two Men and the Melatji dogs, they unite all those communities having the same Dreaming ancestors or cultural heroes. This intertribal or intercommunity identification is stressed at the important ceremonies, such as the man-making ceremonies in which many separate communities participate.
Australites Australites are small stones which have fallen from the sky world and thus have magical healing properties which are utilized by shamans for curing aches and pains such as toothache. It is said that if they are thrown into running water, they will return to their homes, the place where they were found.
Auwa Auwa is the Wik Munggan people’s name for a djang or sacred place.
Aversion countries See Taboo countries.
Awabakal
