A songline, also called dreaming track, is one of the paths across the land or sometimes the sky within the animist conviction system of the First Nations People of Australia, which line the route followed by localised "creator-beings" in the Dreaming. The paths of the songlines are recorded in traditional song cycles, stories, dance, in addition to art, as alive as are often the basis of ceremonies. They are a vital factor of Aboriginal culture, connecting people to their land.
The Dreaming, or the Dreamtime, has been planned as "a sacred narrative of introducing that is seen as a non-stop process that links traditional Aboriginal people to their origins". Ancestors are believed to play a large role in the setting of sacred sites as they traversed the continent long ago. Animals were created in the Dreaming, together with also played a element in creation of the lands and heavenly bodies. Songlines connect places and Creation events, and the ceremonies associated with those places. Oral history about places and the journeys are carried in song cycles, and regarded and listed separately. Aboriginal grown-up has obligations to their birthplace. The songs become the basis of the ceremonies that are enacted in those specific places along the songlines.
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.
A knowledgeable grownup is fine to navigate across the land by repeating the words of the song, which describe the location of landmarks, ]
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 ] One songline marks a 3,500-kilometre 2,200 mi 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 sacred sites such(a) as Uluru and Kata Tjuta.
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 non 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 apprehension the song. Listening to the song of the land is the same as walking on this songline and observing the land.[] Songlines develope been subject as a "cultural passport" which, when sung in the language of a specific region and mob, show respect to the people of that country.
Neighbouring groups are connected because the song cycles criss-cross any over the continent. any 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.
In some cases, a songline has a particular direction, and walking the wrong way along a songline may be a sacrilegious act e.g. climbing up ] Their "mob". Aboriginal identity often links to their language groups and traditional country of their ancestors. Songlines non only map routes across the continent and pass on culture, but also express connectedness to country.
Songlines are often passed down in families, passing on important knowledge and cultural values.
Molyneaux and 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.
Anthropologist Robert Tonkinson described Mardu songlines in his 1978 monograph The Mardudjara Aborigines - living The Dream In Australia's Desert.
Songlines Singing is an necessary element in near Mardudjara ritual performances because the songline follows in near cases the command of travel of the beings concerned and highlights cryptically their notable as living as mundane activities. Most songs, then, do 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.
In his 1987 book The Songlines, British novelist and travel writer Bruce Chatwin describes the songlines as:
... the labyrinth of invisible pathways which meander all over Australia and are invited 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.