IN-PERSON: Prague – Section A

Abstract

This paper explores the possibility of recontextualising and reviving intangible European heritage through lessons learned from understanding the intangible heritage of Australian Aboriginal peoples. Australian Aboriginal people are famous for the concept of the Dreaming, a complex religious system that permeates the land with spiritual significance. In the Dreaming, ancestors shaped the landscape through their actions. These events both happened in a distant past and continue ongoingly, causing Stanner to describe the Dreaming as “everywhen”. To this day, Aboriginal people commemorate the creation of and their relationship with hills, rivers, trees, and sand dunes through stories, songs and ceremonies. Over the past 22 years, Aboriginal elders have encouraged me repeatedly to connect with my own European heritage, including our “Dreaming stories”. From the Aboriginal perspective there is no doubt that the kind of creation stories that animate Australia also exist in the rest of the world, even if many other peoples have forgotten them. This paper examines whether treating European legends and fairy tales as remnants of our “Dreaming stories” may give us new insights into our ancestral relationship to the land. It asks if we could gain any contemporary social or environmental benefits from renewing our relationship to those ancient stories and thus our ancestral environment. In exploring these topics, the paper must inevitably consider the ethical and theoretical risks of transposing ideas across cultures and time, and assess to what extent any conclusions can be taken beyond mere speculation.