Dreamtime
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English
Alternative forms
Etymology
A false calque of Eastern Arrernte Altyerrenge (“the Dreaming”), based on the incorrect assumption that the word is related to altyerre (“a dream”) or altyerre areme (“to dream”). "-time" is an addition unrooted in Aboriginal language.
Pronunciation
Proper noun
Dreamtime
- (Australian Aboriginal mythology) The time of the creation of the world, by the ancestors out of their own essence.
- 1980, Meanjin - Volume 39, page 402:
- No, Brian Elliott's hobby-horse is not the Jindyworobaks' political links—it is his conviction that they are to be remembered and well respected for their awareness of Aboriginal myth and legend and for their understanding and symbolic poetical use of the alcheringa concept (the Dreamtime myth of the creation of geological Australia and its flora and fauna with the related religious and moral connotations of site-worship and animism) .
- 2013, Alexis Wright, The Swan Book, Constable (2016), page 101:
- The tall slender birds were performing a legendary fight in the Dreamtime story – one that the old law had marked on them forever with a wattle of flaming red skin on the back of their heads.
Usage notes
- "Dreaming" is increasingly being used in favour of "Dreamtime", as the latter term implies that the occurrences of the Dreaming are fixed in the past, which is inaccurate to traditional Australian Aboriginal beliefs, which hold that the Dreaming occurs "everywhen" and continues to hold relevance in the present and future.
Synonyms
Translations
time of creation of the world in Australian mythology
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