The Plurivocality of ’the Dreaming’

Michael Audas – Speech Pathology

Considering the richness of Indigenous Australian language and tradition for reconciliation week

’Plurivocal’ is a seldom-used word in the English language meaning “many voiced.” Despite it being seldom used, it is nevertheless a useful concept for capturing terms which find their expression through a multitude of inter- related words—as distinct from a word that has many different meanings. The Dreaming, or Dreamtime, is referred to by different words in different Indigenous languages. In East Arnhem Land, for instance, it is referred to as Wongar; Altjeringa, by the Arrernte people; and Bugari in Broome. None of these words are strictly synonymous, as they each foreground certain con- stituent elements of the Dreaming, whilst in no way excluding those elements which are less strongly emphasised.

Let us touch on just a few of these elements by way of illustration. The first element is perhaps the one that the broader Australian culture is per- haps more familiar with: the mythological1 narratives about the foundation of the created order by the ancestors. The second element concerns the con- centration and crystallisation of spiritual power in certain geographical sites, and in certain plants and animals. The third element governs social, moral, ritual, and sacramental life. A fourth element appertains to the individual; specifically, their vocation or calling, as determined by clan membership, spiritual virtues, or connection to particular sites (Charlesworth et al., 1984) . With some luck, it is perhaps already apparent how each of the preceding elements is, at one in the same time, distinct as well as interconnected: the

1’Mythology’ here is not used in the pejorative sense of something which belongs to the order of fiction or mere imagination. Cf. Ananda Coomaraswamy:
The myth is the penultimate truth of which all experience is the temporal reflection. The mythical narrative is of timeless and placeless validity, true nowhereandeverywhere… Mythembodiesthenearestapproachtoabsolute truth that can be stated in words. (Coomaraswamy, 2011)

role of the ancestors in shaping the cosmos is causally connected to the spir- itual power of certain sites, while the configuration of the society is vital to the discovery and flourishing of the individual’s vocation which in turn allows him or her to commune through the sacred sites and with the ancestors.

The above outline is, of course, grossly oversimplified for the sake of brevity and schematisation of what is, in reality, a system of rites, codes, art, and myth vast enough to encompass both created and uncreated realities. The Dreaming in fact connects these realities, inasmuch as establishes that the created order is a reflection, or manifestation of the uncreated order, while also functioning as a bridge from the former to the latter. One of the ways in which it does this is to by imparting a kind of lexicon of the land, wherein the symbolic correspondence of natural places, objects, flora, and fauna with the spiritual realm of the Dreaming can be understood. In the same way that, in order for us to be able to read a book, we require knowledge of the symbol system (language) being employed, in order to understand what objects, occurrences, and so forth are being referred to by the symbols contained in the book, being able to read the land also requires knowledge its symbol system. On this view, the land itself is a holy scripture.