Editing Songline

{{short description|Aboriginal Australian belief and practice}}
{{Other uses|Songlines (disambiguation)}}
{{Use Australian English|date=July 2018}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2018}}
A '''songline''', also called '''dreaming track''', is one of the paths across the land (or sometimes the sky) within the [[animist]] belief systems of the [[Aboriginal Australians|Aboriginal cultures]] of Australia. They mark the route followed by localised "creator-beings" in the [[Dreamtime|Dreaming]]. These routes serve as crucial connections between individuals and their ancestral lands, carrying intricate geographical, mythological, and cultural information.

At its core, a songline functions as both a navigational aid and a repository of cultural knowledge. Embedded within traditional song cycles, dance rituals, stories, and artistic expressions, these pathways enable individuals to traverse vast distances while reciting the songs that describe landmarks, water sources, and natural features. Notably, the melodic contours and rhythmic nuances of the songs transcend linguistic barriers, facilitating cross-cultural understanding as different language groups interact and share the essence of these ancient narratives.

A unique facet of songlines lies in their role as cultural passports, denoting respect and recognition for specific regions and their inhabitants when the songs are sung in the appropriate languages. This intricate network of songlines interconnects neighbouring groups, fostering social interactions based on shared beliefs and obligations. The perpetuation of songlines through generations sustains a spiritual connection to the land, underscoring the concept of "connection to country," wherein the intricate relationship between individuals and their ancestral lands forms a cornerstone of Aboriginal identity and cultural preservation.

==Description==
The Dreaming, or the Dreamtime, has been described as "a sacred narrative of Creation that is seen as a continuous process that links Aboriginal people to their origins". [[Ancestor]]s are believed to play a large role in the establishment of [[Australian Aboriginal sacred site|sacred site]]s as they traversed the continent long ago. Animals were created in the Dreaming, and also played a part in creation of the lands and heavenly bodies. Songlines connect places and Creation events, and the ceremonies associated with those places. [[oral tradition|Oral history]] about places and the journeys are carried in song cycles, and each Aboriginal person has obligations to their birthplace. The songs become the basis of the ceremonies that are enacted in those specific places along the songlines.<ref name=japingkadream>{{cite web | title=What is the Connection Between the Dreamtime and Songlines? | website=Japingka Aboriginal Art Gallery | date=26 October 2017 | url=https://japingkaaboriginalart.com/articles/connection-dreamtime-songlines/ | access-date=16 January 2020}}</ref>

A songline has been called a "dreaming track", as it marks a route across the land or sky followed by one of the creator-beings or ancestors in the Dreaming.<ref name="CairnsHarney2003">{{citation|last1=Cairns|first1=Hugh|author2=Yidumduma Bill Harney|author-link2=Bill Yidumduma Harney|title=Dark Sparklers: Yidumduma's Wardaman Aboriginal Astronomy : Night Skies Northern Australia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LTyQtAEACAAJ| year=2003|publisher=H.C. Cairns|isbn=978-0-9750908-0-0}}</ref><ref name=memory>{{cite web | title=Songlines: the Indigenous memory code|first1=Lynne |last1=Malcolm |first2=Olivia |last2=Willis | website=[[ABC Radio National]] | date=8 July 2016 | url=https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/allinthemind/songlines-indigenous-memory-code/7581788 | access-date=10 July 2021}}</ref>

A knowledgeable person is able to navigate across the land by repeating the words of the song, which describe the location of landmarks, [[billabong|waterholes]], and other natural phenomena. In some cases, the paths of the creator-beings are said to be evident from their marks, or [[petrosomatoglyph]]s, on the land, such as large depressions in the land which are said to be their footprints.{{cn|date=July 2021}}

By singing the songs in the appropriate sequence, Aboriginal people could navigate vast distances, often travelling through the deserts of Australia's interior. The continent of Australia contains an extensive system of songlines, some of which are of a few kilometres, whilst others traverse hundreds of kilometres through lands of [[List of Aboriginal Australian group names|many different Aboriginal peoples]] — peoples who may speak markedly different languages and have different cultural traditions.{{cn|date=July 2021}} One songline marks a {{convert|3,500|km|adj=on}} route connecting the [[Central Desert Region]] with the east coast, to the place now called [[Byron Bay]]. Desert peoples travelled to the ocean to observe fishing practices, and coastal people travelled inland to [[Aboriginal sacred site|sacred sites]] such as [[Uluru]] and [[Kata Tjuta]].<ref name=deadly>{{cite web | title=Songlines | website=Deadly Story =| url=https://www.deadlystory.com/page/culture/Life_Lore/Songlines/ | access-date=10 July 2021}}</ref>

Since a songline can span the lands of several different language groups, different parts of the song are said to be in those different languages. Languages are not a barrier because the melodic contour of the song describes the nature of the land over which the song passes. The [[rhythm]] is what is crucial to understanding the song. Listening to the song of the land is the same as walking on this songline and observing the land.{{cn|date=July 2021}} Songlines have been described as a "cultural passport" which, when sung in the language of a particular region and [[Australian Aboriginal English#Lexicon|mob]], show respect to the people of that country.<ref name=deadly/>

Neighbouring groups are connected because the song cycles criss-cross all over the continent. All Aboriginal groups traditionally share beliefs in the ancestors and related laws; people from different groups interacted with each other based on their obligations along the songlines.<ref name=Japingksongart>{{cite web | title=Why Songlines Are Important In Aboriginal Art | website=Japingka Aboriginal Art Gallery | date=24 February 2015 | url=https://japingkaaboriginalart.com/articles/songlines-important-aboriginal-art/ | access-date=16 January 2020}}</ref>  
 
In some cases, a songline has a particular direction, and walking the wrong way along a songline may be a [[Sacrilege|sacrilegious]] act (e.g. climbing up [[Uluru]] where the correct direction is down). Aboriginal people regard all land as sacred, and the songs must be continually sung to keep the land "alive".{{cn|date=July 2021}} Their "[[connection to country]]" describes a strong and complex relationship with the land of their ancestors, or "[[Australian Aboriginal English#Mob|mob]]".<ref>{{cite report| url=https://www.qcaa.qld.edu.au/downloads/approach2/indigenous_res005_0803.pdf| title=Relationships to country: Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islander people| date=March 2008|series= Res005 [Indigenous Perspectives]| publisher=Queensland Studies Authority| access-date= 9 July 2021}}</ref> [[Aboriginal Australian identity|Aboriginal identity]] often links to their [[Aboriginal Australian languages|language groups]] and [[traditional owners|traditional country of their ancestors]].<ref>{{cite web | title=Indigenous Australians: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people | website=[[AIATSIS]] | date=12 July 2020 | url=https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/indigenous-australians-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-people | access-date=9 July 2021}}</ref> Songlines not only map routes across the continent and pass on culture, but also express connectedness to country.<ref>{{cite web | title=Songlines | website=Port Adelaide Enfield | date=17 January 2020 | url=https://www.cityofpae.sa.gov.au/explore/arts-and-culture/explore-atsi-culture/m2y/more-stories/songlines | access-date=10 July 2021|quote=Song-lines are about the connectedness of Aboriginal space and our part in it and how it connects us to our country and to other song-lines... So we have connection to the land through the spirit. (Pat Waria-Read).}}</ref>

Songlines are often passed down in families, passing on important knowledge and cultural values.<ref name=memory/>

Molyneaux and [[Piers Vitebsky|Vitebsky]] note that the Dreaming Spirits "also deposited the spirits of unborn children and determined the forms of human society", thereby establishing tribal law and [[totemic]] paradigms.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Molyneaux|first1=Brian Leigh|last2=Vitebsky|first2=Piers|author-link2=Piers Vitebsky|title=Sacred Earth, Sacred Stones: Spiritual Sites And Landscapes, Ancient Alignments, Earth Energy|publisher=Duncan Baird|location=London|year=2001|page=30|isbn=1-903296-07-2}}</ref>

==Descriptions and definitions==
[[Anthropologist]] Robert Tonkinson described [[Martu people|Mardu]] songlines in his 1978 monograph ''The Mardudjara Aborigines - Living The Dream In Australia's Desert''.

{{blockquote| ''Songlines'' Singing is an essential element in most Mardudjara ritual performances because the songline follows in most cases the direction of travel of the beings concerned and highlights cryptically their notable as well as mundane activities. Most songs, then, have a geographical as well as mythical referent, so by learning the songline men become familiar with literally thousands of sites even though they have never visited them; all become part of their cognitive map of the desert world.<ref>Tonkinson 1978:104</ref>}}

In his 1987 book ''[[The Songlines]]'', British novelist and travel writer [[Bruce Chatwin]] describes the songlines as:
{{blockquote|
... the labyrinth of invisible pathways which meander all over Australia and are known to Europeans as "Dreaming-tracks" or "Songlines"; to the Aboriginals as the "Footprints of the Ancestors" or the "Way of the Lore".

Aboriginal Creation myths tell of the legendary totemic being who wandered over the continent in the Dreamtime, singing out the name of everything that crossed their path - birds, animals, plants, rocks, waterholes - and so singing the world into existence.<ref name="Chatwin2012">{{citation|last=Chatwin|first=Bruce|author-link=Bruce Chatwin|title=The Songlines|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7oy_WJFp2REC&pg=PA2|access-date=29 July 2016|year=2012|publisher=Random House|isbn=978-1-4481-1302-6|page=2}}</ref>
}}

Margo Ngawa Neale, senior Indigenous art and history curator at the [[National Museum of Australia]], says:<ref>{{cite web | last=Boltje | first=Stephanie | title=and they store knowledge that's critical to survival | website=[[ABC News (Australia)|ABC News]] | date=4 October 2023 | url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-04/significance-connection-to-country-songlines-indigenous-culture/102925228 | access-date=30 April 2024}}</ref>{{blockquote|Songlines can be visualised as corridors or pathways of knowledge that crisscross the entire continent, sky and water. Songlines, sometimes referred to as dreaming tracks, link sites and hold stories, known as story places, which are read into the natural features of the land. These sites of significance, formed by ancestral beings, are like libraries, storing critical knowledge for survival. The stories at significant sites contain knowledge that instruct on social behaviour, gender relations or where water or food can be sourced.}}

==Examples==
* The [[Yolngu]] people of [[Arnhem Land]] in the [[Northern Territory]] tell the story<ref name="NorrisNorris2009">{{citation|last1=Norris|first1=Ray|author2=Priscilla Norris|author3=Cilla Norris|title=Emu Dreaming: An Introduction to Australian Aboriginal Astronomy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7io7QQAACAAJ|year=2009|publisher=Emu Dreaming|bibcode=2009edia.book.....N|isbn=978-0-9806570-0-5}}</ref> of [[Barnumbirr]], a creator-being associated with the planet [[Venus]], who came from the island of [[Baralku]] in the East, guiding the first humans to Australia, and then flew across the land from East to West, naming and creating the animals, plants, and natural features of the land.
* The [[Yarralin]] people of the Victoria River Valley venerate the spirit Walujapi as the Dreaming Spirit of the [[black-headed python]].  Walujapi is said to have carved a snakelike track along a cliff-face and deposited an impression of her buttocks when she sat establishing camp.{{citation needed|date=October 2017}} Both signs are currently discernible.
* The Native Cat Dreaming Spirits who are said to have commenced their journey at the sea and to have moved north into the [[Simpson Desert]], traversing as they did so the lands of the [[Aranda people|Aranda]], [[Kaytetye people|Kaititja]], [[Ngalia (Northern Territory)|Ngalia]], [[Kukatja (Northern Territory)|Kukatja]] and [[Anmatyerre|Unmatjera]].{{citation needed|date=October 2017}} Each people sing the part of the Native Cat Dreaming relating to the songlines for which they are bound in a territorial relationship of reciprocity.
* In the [[Sydney]] region, because of the soft Sydney [[sandstone]], valleys often end in a canyon or cliff, and so travelling along the ridge lines was much easier than travelling in the valleys. Thus, the songlines tend to follow the ridge lines,{{citation needed|date=October 2017}} and this is also where much of the sacred art, such as the [[Sydney Rock Engravings]], is located. In contrast, in many other parts of Australia, the songlines tend to follow valleys, where water may be found more easily.
* Songlines have been linked to Aboriginal art sites in the [[Wollemi National Park]] in [[New South Wales]].<ref>{{cite web|first=James|last=Woodford|url=http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/09/26/1064083186183.html|title=Songlines across the Wollemi|publisher=[[Sydney Morning Herald]]|date=27 September 2003|access-date=29 July 2016}}</ref>

== See also ==
* [[Aboriginal passport]]
* [[Australian Aboriginal culture]]
* [[Australian Aboriginal religion and mythology]]
* [[Ethnogeology]]
* [[Ley lines]]
* [[Method of loci]]
* [[Oral tradition]]
* [[Story arc]]
* ''[[Songlines (Alphaville video)]]'', inspired in part by the aboriginal Songlines
* "[[The Dreaming (song)]]", inspired in part by the aboriginal Songlines

== References ==
{{reflist}}

=== Bibliography ===
{{Refbegin}}

* {{citation|last1=Bradley|first1=John|author2=Yanyuwa Families|title=Singing Saltwater Country: Journey to the Songlines of Carpentaria|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JjaAmAEACAAJ|year=2010|publisher=Allen & Unwin|isbn=978-1-74237-241-9|ref=none}}
* {{citation|last=Chatwin|first=Bruce|author-link=Bruce Chatwin|title=The Songlines|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T6_RDAAAQBAJ |year=1987|publisher=The Viking Press|isbn=978-0-67080-605-8|ref=none}}
* {{citation|last=Lawlor|first=Robert|author-link=Robert Lawlor|title=Voices of the First Day: Awakening in the Aboriginal Dreamtime|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6Qp0QgAACAAJ|year=1991|publisher=Inner Traditions/Bear|isbn=978-0-89281-355-1 |ref=none}}
* {{citation|last1=Popp|first1=Tom|author2=N. Popp|author3=Bill Walker|title=Footprints on Rock: Aboriginal Art of the Sydney Region |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6rcXAgAACAAJ|year=1997|publisher=Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council|isbn=978-0-7313-1002-9 |ref=none}}
* {{citation|format=PDF|last=Taçon|first=Paul|url=http://www3.griffith.edu.au/01/griffithreview/get_content_file.php?id=623 |title=Chains of Connection|journal=Griffith Review|date=Spring 2005|issue=9|pages=70–76|issn=1448-2924|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090930053316/http://www3.griffith.edu.au/01/griffithreview/get_file.php?id=623&t=1254288777|archive-date=30 September 2009 |ref=none}}
* {{citation|last=Tonkinson|first=Robert|title=The Mardudjara Aborigines: Living The Dream In Australia's Desert|year=1978|publisher=Holt, Rinehart and Wilson|isbn=0-03-039821-5|ref=none}}
* {{citation|last1=Watson|first1=Helen|author2=David Wade Chambers|title=Singing the Land, Signing the Land: A Portfolio of Exhibits |url=http://singing.indigenousknowledge.org/|year=1989|publisher=Deakin University Press|isbn=978-0-7300-0696-1|ref=none}}
{{Refend}}

==Further reading==
*{{cite web | title=Why Songlines Are Important In Aboriginal Art | website=Japingka Aboriginal Art Gallery | date=18 February 2020 | url=https://japingkaaboriginalart.com/articles/songlines-important-aboriginal-art/ }}

{{Indigenous music of Australia}}

[[Category:Australian Aboriginal mythology]]
[[Category:Australian Aboriginal music]]
[[Category:Australian styles of music]]
[[Category:Australian Aboriginal culture]]
[[Category:Oral history]]
[[Category:Walking in Australia]]
[[Category:Australian Aboriginal cultural history]]