#flathal #flatstanleyproject #maori #aboriginal
While we were in New Zealand the Flat Friends heard a little about the Māori. The Māori are the indigenous Polynesian people of mainland New Zealand (Aotearoa). When we got to Australia we began hearing about the Aboriginal people. They are the diverse indigenous peoples of mainland Australia and its islands, possessing immensely ancient (65,000 years!) continuous cultures and profound spiritual connections to their traditional lands.
Two of the most famous pieces of Aboriginal culture, or so it feels to the Flat Friends, are “going on walkabout” and Dreamtime, though it would be honest to say we misunderstood both from movies and stories in books. Walkabout is something done as a “rite of passage” showing you are no longer a kid, but are now an adult, able to survive on your own in the Outback. (Singing the right songs helps the traveler find water and food—it’s like a GPS made of music!) Dreamtime is the past, present, and future all at once—a combination of mythology of their people and living law.
