World Mythology - Monday, March 31st - 2nd Period

[atreideslioness]

Ghanima appeared rather cheerful this morning, one might almost say the Princess Royal was giddy.

Almost.  This was, however, Ghanima, and she effortlessly slipped into her role as teacher once the class was assembled.

"Welcome back, I hope you all had an enjoyable weekend," she teased, blue-on-blue eyes flaring with amusement.  "I was called out of town for the majority of the weekend, and didn't get to experience the joy of witnessing your second childhoods.  If anyone has pictures of the event, I would love to see them."

"Today, however, you are all back to your proper ages, and therefore class shall go forward as normal.  Firstly, last week you were given an assignment; to explore the library and report back today about the items you found therein.  I am going to assume that many of you planned to do the work this weekend, and were unavoidably detoured from your project.  I would, however, like to hear from those of you that did to the assignment.  You," she said, pointing at a random student, "What did you learn?" 

After listening to those that had completed the work, she nodded.  "Congratulations on a job well done.  Those of you who had the foresight not to procrastinate on the assignment, I will bring treats from JGoB next week.  For the rest of you, you ought to know by now that 'Fandom Weird' strikes without warning, and with alarming frequency.  Consider this a lesson in proper preparation for emergencies." 

"Now that we have pondered the difficult relationship between religion and mythology, we turn our eyes southward, to the world 'Down Under', or Australia."  Hopping off her desk, Ghanima began distributing the handouts to the class.

"Australian Aboriginal myths, also known as Dreamtime stories, Songlines or Aboriginal oral literature, are the stories traditionally performed by Aboriginal peoples within each of the language groups across Australia."

"All such myths variously tell of significant truths within each Aboriginal groups' local landscape affectively layering the whole of the Australian continent's topography with cultural nuance and deeper meaning, effectively empowering selected audiences with the accumulated wisdom and knowledge of Australian Aboriginal ancestors back to time immemorial."

"Australian Aboriginal mythologies have been characterised as "at one and the same time fragments of a catechism, a liturgical manual, a history of civilisation, a geography textbook, and to a much smaller extent a manual of cosmography".  "

"Now, there are over 400 distinct Aboriginal groups from across Australia, each distinguished from each other by unique names most often identifying the particular languages, dialects, or distinctive speech mannerisms.  There are so many distinct Aboriginal groups, languages, beliefs and practices that it would not seem proper to attempt to characterise, under a single heading, the full range and diversity of all myths being variously and continuously told, developed, elaborated, performed, and experienced by members of each and every one to the groups across the whole of the continent," she said, continuing to pace the room.  "Despite the daunting task of trying to catalog such an evolving mythology, The Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia never-the-less observes: "One intriguing feature [of Aboriginal Australian mythology] is the mixture of diversity and similarity in myths across the entire continent.""

The traditions and lore of Australia's indigenous peoples belongs to what may be one of the oldest continuous culture on Earth, to my understanding, circa 50,000 years.  Indigenous Australian peoples conceive of all things beginning with The Dreaming or Altjeringa, also called the Dreamtime, a sacred 'once upon a time', time out of time in which ancestral Totemic Spirit Beings formed The Creation."  Ghanima smiled as she returned to the front of the class to sit on her desk.  "Some of this may sound familiar by now, and while we could dedicate an entire semester to the power of the collective human unconscious, we unfortunately do not have the time."

"On your desks, you should now have four handouts regarding The Dreamtime, Songlines, and the Rainbow Serpent.  Please read them over, and then we will discuss as a class."

[OOC:  Please wait for the OCD to go up.]