The Songlines Cover
Podcast Mentions

The Songlines

Bruce Chatwin

This writing asks the question and tries to answer, "Why is man the most restless, dissatisfied of animals? Why do wandering people conceive the workd as perfect whereas sedentary ones always try to change it?"

Podcasts 1
Quotes 1
On Being with Krista Tippett

This book by Bruce Chatwin, was mentioned in relation to the power of naming in aboriginal creation myths, where the act of naming brings things into existence.

"

there is a labyrinth of invisible pathways which mayander all over Australia and are known to Europeans as dreaming tracks or songlines to the aboriginals as the footprints of the ancestors or the way...

— Episode: James Prosek — Fishing with Mystery

Episode: James Prosek — Fishing with Mystery

This book by Bruce Chatwin, was mentioned in relation to the power of naming in aboriginal creation myths, where the act of naming brings things into existence.

"

there is a labyrinth of invisible pathways which mayander all over Australia and are known to Europeans as dreaming tracks or songlines to the aboriginals as the footprints of the ancestors or the way of the law. The aboriginal creation myths tell of the legendary totemic beings who had wandered over the continent in the dream time, singing out the name of everything that crossed their path, birds, animals, plants, rocks, water holes and so singing the world into existence. And, theory at least, the whole of Australia could be read as a musical score. One should perhaps visualize the songlines as a spaghetti of Iliads and Autoses, writing this way and that, in which every episode was readable in terms of geology.

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