Editor Aboriginal Australians Play the Songlines

This issue of PAPERSKY is very special as it’s the first attempt for a major Japanese magazine to report on Aboriginal Australians or Indigenous Australian culture. Native Australians date back as long as 125,000 years and spoke over 300 languages, so as you can imagine, the best we can do is scratch the surface.

We began our trip in Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, the belly button of Australia, and then moved to Alice Springs. One of the reasons we know that these two areas are so special is due to the large number of paintings, natural rocks, water holes, trees, animals and land formations. These natural elements form or become what are known as songlines.

Songlines, also called dreaming tracks by Indigenous Australians, are how Aborigines pass their culture from one generation to the next. Songlines pass down ancient cultural concepts and stories through singing, storytelling, dance and painting. Songlines are an intricate series of song cycles that identify landmarks for navigation. For the Aborigines all land is sacred and alive. Their ancestors gave life through song. The songs must be continually sung to keep the land alive. In singing, Aborigines preserve the land/story/dreaming of their ancestors, and recreate it in their oneness of past, present and future.

Our guest for this issue is Goma, who ten years ago was living in Northern Australia’s Arnhem Land. Goma was fascinated by the culture and the Aboriginal instrument called a didgeridoo. We called this issue Playing the Songlines, because as we traveled to the various sacred sties and met Aboriginal Australians, Goma would always have his didgeridoo in hand, while the females on our tour would be carrying rhythm sticks. In short the PAPERSKY crew was traveling along Australia’s Songlines in stereo. It’s our hope that as you read about this ancient culture you’ll be stirred to the rhythms of their history and set off to play out your own songline in Australia. 

PAPERSKY #29: AUSTRALIA | Playing Songlines

Tags: music, nature, sacred