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dreamtime stories

Rainbow Snake shaping rivers and valleys in an Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime scene.

The Rainbow Snake

In the time before time, when the world lay flat and dry beneath a silent sky, the earth had no rivers, no valleys, and no song of water. The land cracked beneath the sun’s heat, and the first people wandered in search of cool shade and food. Beneath that quiet
A possum and a lizard delivering different messages to humans under the moon, from the Aboriginal Dreamtime story “The Coming of Death.”

The Coming of Death

In the time before time, when the Dreaming first shaped the earth, all living beings were eternal. People, animals, and spirits walked together in a world without sorrow or age. Each sunrise was the same as the last, and no one knew the passing of seasons. The trees bore fruit
Baiame teaching the first people near a river, Dreamtime story from Australia.

Baiame and Man

After Baiame had shaped the mountains and the rivers, the plains and the forests, he looked upon the land and saw that it was alive but not yet wise. The trees stretched toward the sun, the birds called to one another in the wind, and the waters whispered over the

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Tiddalik the Thirsty Frog

In the Dreamtime, when animals still spoke the first language, the land woke to find no water anywhere. Rivers were empty, the
2 A sepia parchment-style illustration of three Fijian maidens standing on a rocky sea cliff in Kadavu, singing a sacred chant as two giant sea turtles rise from the ocean below, symbolizing the transformed spirits of Tinaicoboga and her daughter Raudalice answering the ancient Namuana call.

The Sacred Turtles of Kadavu

On the island of Kadavu, where volcanic peaks rise green and lush from the Pacific Ocean and coral reefs shimmer beneath crystalline
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