A young man's portrait

The time of the creation of the world in Australian Aboriginal mythology “The stories may differ from place to place, but they have common features. For example, many genesis narratives feature Ancestral Beings, who created everything ‒ animals, plants, rocks, and land formations ‒ as they moved through the land in human form. They also created a system of relationships between the individual, the land, animals, and other people.”

“We believe we are one of the original people in the world. We remember back to the time before there was time. We believe our Ancestor Spirits were responsible for the creation of the world ‒ the animals, rivers, mountains, plants, elements, sun, moon, stars. We believe all forms are interchangeable ‒ our ancestors could be animal or human. They could come back to life at any time, just like the seed which grows into a great tree, then seed back into the ground. That seed can stay there resting for a long time; yet at anytime it can spring back to life.”

[...] “The sun, like the seed, is the universal sign of growth, death, and rebirth. The way we look at the earth is from its internal core ‒ using the red powdered iron and our bodies and our cave walls or the ground, as a free expression of our internal consciousness. We always see things from the inside out, not as modern man does, just from the outside. For example if we drew a fish, it showed its skeleton; if we drew a human, we drew the internal organs and skeleton. We also saw the earth from above, as you might in one of your modern airplanes. East west north south, we could see Mother Earth from all angles.”