Bob Tonkinson is an Australian with considerable experience in working with aboriginal peoples from the Western region of Australia. This book is an updated account of the Mardu people, an indigenous Australian people who Tonkinson did fieldwork with both during the early contact phase, and later, when contact with Australian culture had begun to fracture their own culture.
That culture had its roots in the Dreamtime, that specifically Australian cosmological system that incorporates myth, ritual, and prescriptions for daily living in its framework. Living the Dream, which is one of the chapters in Tonkinson's book, is essentially what the Mardus' life is all about. The focus of that life, the centering and grounding principle, is the relationship of the human being to the Dreamtime.
The books began with an account of the migration of people to Australia, although Tonkinson noted that scientists do not know definitively the story of that migration. However, the most recent data indicate that the aboriginal people of Australia originate outside the continent, probably from southeast Asia. Scientists base this assumption on the fact that no remains have ever been found in Australia of precursor people, or non-human primates, for that matter. As a consequence, it is assumed that the aboriginal people arose outside of Australia and migrated across a land-bridge to that continent. The time of that migration is generally placed around 38,000 B.C.E.
There is disagreement about some of the history of aboriginal people - what areas of the continent were inhabited at exactly what point, for example - but, in general, researchers agree that the people were hunters and gatherers who maintained that lifestyle up until the modern era, with little technological innovation. Indeed, there is little indication that they would have changed significantly yet without contact with European culture in Australia.
Despite Tonkinson's claim...