Over two thousand generations of men and women have lived and died since the first Aborigine walked on Australian land, to go back as far as the first Aborigine you would need to go back 40,000 years.
Aborigines speak in many different languages, it is said that the number is roughly 230 with an enormous amount of dialects to each language, the reason for this being, in spite of the size of Australia the number of Aborigine has been few, there was about 300,000 Aborigine people when the first European landed on the shores of Australia in 1781, when you think about it 300,000 is just the size of a small town today, However the Aboriginal people were vastly scattered in tribes all over Australia and these tribes lived so far apart that they didn’t need a common language, so each tribe developed their own.
I was amazed to find out that the Aborigines have never used a written language, they talked and communicated but never wrote anything in books or letters,this is the reason that there is no common language between them, there have been many theories about how the world was first formed, Aborigines believe that in the beginning the earth was flat and grey, with no mountains, no rivers, no birds or animals, in actual fact not one living being.
They say that long, long ago came Dreamtime, this was a time when giant creatures rose up out of the grey earth where they had been sleeping for countless ages. These mythical beings looked like plants or animals or insects, nut they behaved like humans.
They then wandered across the vast grey land, digging for water and searching for food, as they searched and because of their giant size, they made huge ravines, mountains and rivers in the land and the world took on the shape it is today. Now when they see a rock or a tree, they are reminded of the mythical beings that had a part in their creation.
Aborigines believe that they are direct descendants from the mythical beings, and that when Dreamtime ended, the people were left with a cultural heritage, all of their rites and ceremonies are always aimed at preserving that heritage, their ancestors from Dreamtime also gave them the possession of tribal lands and hence, tribal land and all forms of life on it are regarded as sacred trust.
Cooma el ngruwar, ngruwar of cooma, illa booka mer ley urrie urrie.'
'One is all, all is one, and the soul will not die.'
