In Aboriginal cultures of south-east Australia, Daramulum is a sky hero associated with Baiame, and an emu-wife. He is a shapeshifter.
In the mythology of the Aboriginal people of northern Australia, Karora is a bandicoot ancestral deity. According to one legend, during the Dreamtime Karora lay sleeping in the earth when from his head rose a tall pole called a tnatantja. It was a living creature, its bottom resting on his head and its top reaching up into the sky. From his armpits and navel emerged bandicoots, who dug their way out of the earth just as the first sun rose into the sky. Karora followed them, seized two of the animals, then cooked and ate them. His hunger sated, he lay down to sleep again and a bullroarer emerged from under his armpit. It took on human form and grew into a young man, and when Karora woke his son danced around him. It was the very first ceremony.
The orisa are spirits that play a key role in the Yoruba religion of West Africa and several religions of the African diaspora that derive from it, such as Cuban, Dominican and Puerto Rican Santería and Brazilian Candomblé. The preferred spelling varies depending on the language in question; òrìṣà is the original spelling, coming from the Yoruba language; orishá or orichá in Spanish-speaking countries, and orixá in Portuguese.
The Last Continent is a fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett, the twenty-second book in his Discworld series. First published in 1998, it mocks the aspects of time travel such as the grandfather paradox and the Ray Bradbury short story "A Sound of Thunder". It also parodies Australian people and aspects of Australian culture, such as the Crocodile Dundee, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Mad Max movies, the Australian beer XXXX, Vegemite, thongs, cork hats, the Peach Melba, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, the Henley-on-Todd Regatta, and the popular Australian songs "Waltzing Matilda", "Down Under", and "The Man From Snowy River".
The bullroarer, rhombus, or turndun, is an ancient ritual musical instrument and a device historically used for communicating over great distances. It dates to the Paleolithic period, being found in Ukraine dating from 18,000 BC. Anthropologist Michael Boyd, a bullroarer expert, documents a number found in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Australia.
Prehistoric music is a term in the history of music for all music produced in preliterate cultures (prehistory), beginning somewhere in very late geological history. Prehistoric music is followed by ancient music in different parts of the world, but still exists in isolated areas. However, it is more common to refer to the "prehistoric" music which still survives as folk, indigenous or traditional music. Prehistoric music is studied alongside other periods within music archaeology.
A folk instrument is a musical instrument that developed among common people and usually does not have a known inventor. It can be made from wood, metal or other material. Such an instrument is played in performances of folk music.
The Dionysian Mysteries were a ritual of ancient Greece and Rome which sometimes used intoxicants and other trance-inducing techniques to remove inhibitions and social constraints, liberating the individual to return to a natural state. It also provided some liberation for men and women marginalized by Greek society, among which were slaves, outlaws, and non-citizens. In their final phase the Mysteries shifted their emphasis from a chthonic, underworld orientation to a transcendental, mystical one, with Dionysus changing his nature accordingly. By its nature as a mystery religion reserved for the initiated, many aspects of the Dionysian cult remain unknown and were lost with the decline of Greco-Roman polytheism; modern knowledge is derived from descriptions, imagery and cross-cultural studies.
A Tjurunga, also spelt Churinga and Tjuringa, is an object considered to be of religious significance by Central Australian Aboriginal people of the Arrernte groups. Tjurunga often had a wide and indeterminate native significance. They may be used variously in sacred ceremonies, as bullroarers, in sacred ground paintings, in ceremonial poles, in ceremonial headgear, in sacred chants and in sacred earth mounds.
The Murrinh-Patha, or Murinbata, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Northern Territory.
A rhombus is a geometric shape often colloquially described as a diamond.
The Bidawal were an Australian Aboriginal tribe of Gippsland, Victoria. According to Alfred William Howitt, the Bidawal were composed of "refugees from tribes".
The Bundjalung people are Aboriginal Australians who are the original custodians of the northern coastal area of New South Wales (Australia), located approximately 550 kilometres (340 mi) northeast of Sydney, an area that includes the Bundjalung National Park.
Rituals is an album of contemporary classical music by American avant-garde composer John Zorn. The piece takes the form of an opera in five parts and was premiered at the Bayreuth Opera Festival in 1988.
Ted Genoways is an American journalist and author. He is a contributing writer at Mother Jones and The New Republic, and an editor-at-large at Pacific Standard. His books include This Blessed Earth and The Chain: Farm, Factory, and the Fate of Our Food.
Paul Meloy is an English born writer of what Graham Joyce referred to as Fractured Realism.
The Ngugi are an Aboriginal Australian people, one of three Quandamooka peoples, and the traditional inhabitants of Moreton Island.
The Bardi people, also spelt Baada or Baardi and other variations, are an Aboriginal Australian people, living north of Broome and inhabiting parts of the Dampier Peninsula in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. They are ethnically close to the Jawi people, and several organisations refer to the Bardi Jawi grouping, such as the Bardi Jawi Niimidiman Aboriginal Corporation Registered Native Title Body (RNTBC) and the Bardi Jawi Rangers.
The Norweilemil were an indigenous Australian people of the Northern Territory.
