aveled, lived in particular places, had numerous adventures, broke or kept the laws, and then were transformed into animals, plants and the various human peoples. But there is no true split between the spiritual and the material in Aboriginal thought. Thus, though the Dreaming Beings and their physical incarnations--which can range from a person to a water-hole--may be distinguishable, they are also, "at a certain level, one" (Sutton, 1988, p. 16).
The entire continent of Australia is covered by a complicated network of Dreamings. Some are part of particular places and belong to those who live there. Others extend for great distances and connect those whose lands they inhabit. Dreamings--present in everything--can be "activated by ceremony and art" to provide spiritual nourishment for the generations that are descended from them (Caruana, 1993, p. 10).
The connections between each individual and the Ancestors of the Dreaming are expressed by means of the totem to which he or she belongs. Since activating these connections is the primary job of art, it is the Beings (or their totemic incarnations) and events of the Dreamtime that are the primary source of Aboriginal imagery. It is place, however, that is most important for visual artists. The landscape itself consists of the marks made by the Dreamtime Beings and "the single most common subject matter of Aboriginal art is landscape-based myth" (Sutton, 1988, p. 16). In the "seemingly abstract iconography of signs, marks, patterns and symbols" of Aboriginal art, the artist, the initiates, and, sometimes, many of the people see the Ancestral Beings acting out their experiences in particular settings (Ryan, 1997, p. 74).
Though Aboriginal art has been made for 40 to 50 thousand years many of its principal media are ephemeral. Paintings on sand and bark, beeswax applied to rock, body painting, and wood sculptures abandoned after ceremonial use, are all forms with short ...