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Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, Volume 17, Issue 2, Preprint.
1
Songlines and Navigation in Wardaman and other Australian
Aboriginal Cultures
Ray P. Norris1,2 and Bill Yidumduma Harney3
1 CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science, PO Box 76, Epping, NSW, 1710, Australia
2 Warawara - Department of Indigenous Studies, Macquarie University, NSW, 2109, Australia
3 Senior Wardaman Elder, PO Box 1579, Katherine, NT, 0851, Australia
Corresponding Email: Ray.Norris@csiro.au
Abstract: We discuss the songlines and navigation of the Wardaman people, and place
them in context by comparing them with corresponding practices in other Australian
Aboriginal language groups, using previously unpublished information and also
information drawn from the literature. Songlines are effectively oral maps of the
landscape, enabling the transmission of oral navigational skills in cultures that do not
have a written language. In many cases, songlines on the earth are mirrored by songlines
in the sky, enabling the sky to be used as a navigational tool, both by using it as a
compass, and by using it as a mnemonic
Notice to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Readers: This paper contains the
names of people who have passed away.
Keywords: Ethnoastronomy, Cultural Astronomy, Aboriginal Australians, Navigation,
and Songlines.
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL ASTRONOMY
It is now well established that many traditional Aboriginal cultures incorporate significant
references to the sky and to astronomical phenomena (e.g. Stanbridge, 1857, 1861;
Mountford, 1956, 1976; Haynes, 1992; Johnson, 1998; Cairns and Harney, 2004; Norris
and Norris, 2009; Norris and Hamacher, 2009, 2011; Fuller et al., 2014a). For example,
many different Aboriginal cultures across Australia refer to the “Emu in the Sky”
(Massola, 1963; Cairns and Harney, 2004; Norris and Norris, 2009, Fuller et al., 2014b),
formed from the arrangement of dark clouds within the Milky Way. Equally important in
many Aboriginal cultures across Australia are the Orion constellation, which usually
symbolises a young man or group of young men, and the Pleiades (Seven Sisters) cluster,
which usually symbolises a group of girls pursued by Orion. Star stories can also
encapsulate ceremony, law, and culture for transmission to the next generation (Harney
and Norris, 2009).
This traditional knowledge extends well beyond mere symbolism, and many Aboriginal
cultures contain evidence of a detailed understanding of the sky. For example, within
traditional songs can be found explanations of tides, eclipses, and the motion of the
celestial bodies (Norris, 2007; Norris and Norris, 2009; Hamacher and Norris, 2012).
Practical applications of this knowledge include the ability to predict tides, as well as
Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, Volume 17, Issue 2, Preprint.
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navigation, time keeping, and the maintenance of a calendar (Cairns and Harney, 2004;
Clarke, 2009).
Evidence for these astronomical traditions are found not only in oral traditions, but also in
art and artifacts. Some groups of stone arrangements are aligned to cardinal points with
an accuracy attainable only by astronomical measurement (Hamacher et al., 2013). The
Wurdi Youang stone ring in Victoria contains alignments to the position of the setting
sun at the equinox and the solstices (Norris et al., 2013). Statistical tests show that these
alignments are unlikely to have arisen by chance, and instead the builders of this stone
arrangement appear to have deliberately aligned the site to astronomically significant
positions.
Although evidence of astronomical knowledge has been found in many Aboriginal
cultures, the best-documented example is undoubtedly that of the Wardaman people,
largely because of co-author Harney’s enthusiasm to share his traditional knowledge with
the wider world. In particular, the book Dark Sparklers (Cairns and Harney, 2004:
henceforth DS) documents in exquisite detail the astronomical lore of the Wardaman
people.
1.2 DIRECTIONALITY
The concept of cardinal directions is common amongst Aboriginal language groups in
Australia (Hamacher et al., 2013, and references therein). The Warlpiri people in central
Australia are especially prominent in this respect, as much of their culture is based on the
four cardinal directions that correspond closely to the four cardinal points (north, south,
east, west) of modern western culture (Laughren, 1978, 1992; Nash, 1980, Pawu-
Kurlpurlurnu et al., 2008). In the Warlpiri culture, north corresponds to “law”, south to
“ceremony”, west to “language”, and east to “skin”. “Country” lies at the intersection of
these directions, at the centre of the compass - i.e. “here” (Pawu-Kurlpurlurnu, 2008;
also personal communication from Pawu-Kurlpurlurnu to Norris, 2008).
Cardinal directions are also important in Wardaman culture, and were created in the
Dreaming by the Blue-tongued Lizard (DS: 60):
“Blue-tongue Lungarra now he showing all these boomerang, calling out
all the names: east, west, north, south, all these sort of type.”
Other language groups have cardinal directions that may vary from the modern western
convention, although east and west are often associated with the rising and setting
positions of the sun, and the words for east and west are often based on the word of the
sun (Hamacher et al., 2013, and references therein). However, in some cases, the cardinal
positions are loosely defined and may vary markedly from place to place (Breen, 1993).
Directionality is also important in the sleeping position, as described by Harney (DS: 61):
Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, Volume 17, Issue 2, Preprint.
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“We gotta sleep east, not downhill. We can sleep crossway, but we’re not
allowed to sleep towards the sun going down. Sleep down the bottom, its
bad luck for you because you’re against the sun. If you sleep on the
eastern way and going that away, that’s fine. Facing west, you gotta
change your bed. Head up on the east when you sleep … each person
where they die, in our Law, we always face them to their country.
Graveyard always face to their country, they can look straight to their
country.”
Burials in other traditional Aboriginal cultures were often aligned to cardinal directions.
For example, the deceased in NSW (New South Wales) were buried facing east, in a
sitting position (Dunbar, 1943; Mathews, 1904: 274).
In contrast to the east-west alignments of burials, initiation sites in NSW were often
aligned roughly north-south. In a study of Bora (initiation) sites in NSW, Fuller et al.
(2013) found that bora sites have a statistically significant preferred orientation to the
south and southwest, which is consistent with circumstantial evidence that bora grounds
are aligned with the position of the Milky Way in the night sky in August, which is
roughly vertical in the evening sky to the south-southwest. This connection between Bora
sites and the Milky Way was subsequently confirmed in ethnographic studies by Fuller et
al. (2014b), who found that the head and body of the Emu in the Sky correspond to the
small and large Bora rings respectively on the ground.
1.3 WARDAMAN ASTRONOMY
The land of the Wardaman people is about 200 km southwest of Katherine in the
Northern Territory (see Figure 1). We are fortunate that co-author Harney grew up and
was educated and initiated at a time when the Wardaman people still followed a largely
traditional lifestyle (see Figures 2 and 3). The language and culture of the Wardaman
people has a particularly strong astronomical component, and are well documented in DS.
The three major creation figures (Froglady Earthmother and her two husbands, Rainbow
and Sky Boss) are all signified by dark clouds in the Milky Way, and stars and nebulae
document other figures and other events. The Southern Cross is particularly important,
and its orientation defines the Wardaman calendar and marks the cycle of dreaming
stories throughout the year.
In the words of Harney (2009):
“In the country the landscape, the walking and dark on foot all around
the country in the long grass, spearing, hunting, gathering with our Mum
and all this but each night where we were going to travel back to the
camp otherwise you don’t get lost and all the only tell was about a star.
How to travel? Follow the star along. … While we were growing up. We
only lay on our back and talk about the stars. We talk about emus and
kangaroos, the whole and the stars, the turkeys and the willy wagtail, the
whole lot, everything up in the star we named them all with Aboriginal
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names. Anyway we talked about a lot of that … but we didn’t have a
watch in those days. We always followed the star for the watch. … Emu,
Crocodile, Cat Fish, Eagle Hawk, and all in the sky in one of the stars.
The stars and the Milky Way have been moving all around. If you lay on
your back in the middle of the night you can see the stars all blinking.
They’re all talking.”
Figure 1: Map showing some of the places and the locations of language groups
discussed in the text. Adapted from a map licensed under the Creative Commons
Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
1.4 This Paper
Aboriginal songlines and navigation are not well documented, and the primary goal of
this paper is to summarise the available information, including some previously
unpublished information. This paper is doubtless incomplete, and will hopefully be
supplemented or superseded by more detailed studies.
This paper focuses on the songlines and navigation of the Wardaman people, for which
the best documentation is available, while making comparisons with corresponding
practices in other Australian Aboriginal language groups. This paper departs from
conventional scholarly practice because one of the authors (Harney) is the senior
Wardaman elder with a great reserve of traditional knowledge, much of which has not yet
been documented. It is therefore appropriate to include quotes from Harney in his own
words. One aim of this paper is to document some of this traditional knowledge. Where
possible, we do so by using the verbatim transcripts of Harney’s verbal descriptions,
Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, Volume 17, Issue 2, Preprint.
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shown in italics and accompanied by a reference with dates and other details. No attempt
has been made to reword these descriptions. This is to retain the original flavour and
avoid unintentional misinterpretation.
We recognise that the many different Aboriginal language groups have different practices
and cultures, and by describing the practices of different cultures in this paper we
recognise the risk of imposing a “one size fits all” stereotype to all these cultures. That is
not our intention. Instead, this paper should be regarded as a sample of the available
information on the navigational practices of Aboriginal Australians.
Figure 2: Previously unpublished photo of Bill Yidumduma Harney (right) in about 1940,
together with his friend and a large barramundi they had caught in a waterhole on
Willeroo Station. Photo courtesy of B.Y. Harney.
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Figure 3: Previously unpublished photo of Bill Yidumduma Harney’s family in 1929.
Photo courtesy of B.Y. Harney.
2 SONGLINES
The English word “songline” was coined by Chatwin (1987), but the concept is ancient
and embedded in traditional Aboriginal cultures. They are often referred to as “Dreaming
Tracks”, and can also be called “strings” (Clarke, 2003: 19) in the sense that they connect
different people and sacred sites. According to Harney (2009):
“Between the star and the landscape and the rock painting and all that,
they’re more or less connected together around the country.”
Mulvaney and Kamminga (1999: 95) argue that they also represent the trading routes that
criss-cross Australia. Gammage (2011: 24) says:
“A songline or storyline is the path or corridor along which a creator
ancestor moved to bring country into being. It is also the way of the
ancestor’s totem, the geographical expression of their songs, dances and
paintings animating its country, and ecological proof of the unity of
things.”
According to Wositsky and Harney (1999: 301):
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“Songlines are epic creation songs passed to present generations by a
line of singers continuous since the dreamtime. These songs, or song-
cycles, have various names according to which language group they
belong to, and tell the story of the creation of the land, provide maps for
the country, and hand down law as decreed by the creation heroes of the
dreamtime. Some songlines describe a path crossing the entire
Australian continent.”
As well as marking routes on the ground, songlines were also paths in the sky, several
examples of which are described in detail in DS. Harney (2009, personal communication
to Norris) described how the songlines on Earth were mirrored by the songlines in the
sky, so that knowledge of the sky formed a mnemonic for tracing a route on Earth. This
mirroring was created when the Creator Spirits moved to the sky (DS: 99):
“One day it was all different, when they come down and make up the
Creation line songs, because they travelling. When everything become
still. They all split up, land, become all the stars...”
For example, one songline starts at Yirrkala in Arnhem Land, where the Yolngu believe
Barnumbirr (Venus) crossed the coast as she brought the first humans to Australia from
the east (Allen, 1975; Norris and Norris, 2009). Her song, contained within the Yolngu
Morning Star ceremony, describes her path across the land, including the location of
mountains, waterholes, landmarks, and boundaries. The song therefore constitutes an oral
map, enabling the traveller to navigate across the land while finding food and water. It is
said by Yolngu elders at Yirrkala that the same song is recognisable in a number of
different languages along the path from east to west, crossing the entire “top end” of
Australia. The song changes along the route, being longer and more “sing-song” in the
east, and shorter, and broken into short sharp segments, in the west (personal
communication by elders at Yirrkala to Norris, 2007).
Many other songlines are known across Australia (e.g. Kerwin, 2010). Fuller et al.
(2014c) report several songlines known by the Euahlayi people, including the eaglehawk
songline that extends from Heavitree Gap at Alice Springs to Byron Bay on the East
Coast, connecting the Arrernte people with the Euahlayi people, and also connecting the
stars Achernar, Canopus, and Sirius. The Euahlayi people also know the Black
Snake/Bogong Moth songline connecting Normanton on the Gulf of Carpentaria with the
Snowy Mountains near Canberra, and which also follows the Milky Way.
Another example is the two songlines that are said by Darug elders to extend west from
Sydney, through Sackville, and then roughly following the paths of the Great Western
Highway and the Bells Line of Road respectively, until they join again at Little Hartley
(personal communication by Des Dyer and Gordon Workman of the Darug Tribal
Aboriginal Corporation to Norris, 2007). Supporting evidence includes the Darug rock
engravings found close to the path of the Great Western Highway through the Blue
Mountains.
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The creation of the songlines is described by Harney and Lee (2010: 11):
“They put all them together, then with that, they made all the Songlines,
right across the country. And that Creation Song now, we still got it
today. Nothing been changed, we still got that old one. Original one.
Because we gotta have that for all this rock painting, all the different
sites, and rock.”
Such long distance paths were important because of the important trading routes (e.g.
Gammage, 2011; Kerwin, 2010, and references therein) traversing Australia for the
trading and exchange of goods, such as the export of ochre from Wardaman country. Lee
and Harney (2009) explain that:
“Red and yellow from this area are considered very powerful and were
traded for long distances for use in ceremonies.”
A journey, sometimes taking months, would have several functions, including attending
ceremonies, as well as trading. The trading itself might include the trading of intellectual
property, such as songs and dances, as well as material objects.
Later, many of these ancient trade routes, many based on songlines, laid the basis for
some of the current network of highways across Australia (Wositsky and Harney, 1999:
14):
“They showed him the way right through from Willeroo to Victoria River
Downs Station. My grandfather used to go in the lead, and blaze the
trees all the way, following the old Aboriginal walking pad, and old Bill
would come along behind him making the road. They call it the Victoria
Highway now, but it was never the Victoria Highway at all – it was just
the original Aboriginal walking trail right through Arnhem Land and
Katherine Gorge and past Willeroo, right down to Western Australia.
They used that walking trail to trade their boomerangs and spears and
many different ochres and when they did the trade they had ceremonial
meetings. That had been a walking trail for a hell of a long time… all the
way from Cape York right through Borroloola and straight across the
country. They hit Roper River and followed the Roper River all the way
past Mataranka and they came right past Willeroo.”
3 NAVIGATION
Tindale (1974: 75) was aware of ancient Aboriginal tracks across large parts of Australia,
but considered that their use was mainly for travelling short distances. However he noted
of the trading routes (ibid: 81) that:
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“the great distances covered and also the difficulties encountered,
considering the precarious line of communication across formidable dry
areas, are striking.”
It is curious that there is almost no discussion of the navigational practices of Aboriginal
people by those who studied their culture extensively in the last century, such as Elkin,
the Berndts, and Mountford. With hindsight, many of the songs and stories that they
describe involve a route on earth, or in the sky, followed by creator-spirits, but were not
discussed at the time in terms of navigation. For example, Elkin (1938: 304) appears to
have heard at least one songline without noting its significance:
“each… sings all night its cycle of the hero’s experiences as he
journeyed from the north coast south and then back again north… a
headman sitting nearby commented that the Ngurlmak, according to the
text, was now in that country, then in another place, and so on, ever
coming nearer until at last it was just where we were making the
recording.”
Mountford (1976: 50) discussed the extensive trading networks without asking how
people navigated these vast distances, and discussed Aboriginal astronomy without
asking if the stars were used for navigation. He apparently encountered song-line
descriptions, but didn’t remark on their navigational significance. For example, he
recounts (ibid: 462):
“The series of twelve drawings… indicate that the route of Orion and the
Pleiades extends from the Warburton range in Western Australia through
the Rawlison, Petermann, Mann, and Musgrave ranges, reaching Glen
Helen, in the country of the Western Aranda. At some point between the
Petermann and Mann mythical route, the name of the man of Orion was
changed from Jula to Nirunja […].”
It is unclear whether this lack of discussion reflects the assumptions and interests of the
anthropologists at the time, or because this knowledge was regarded by the Aboriginal
participants as secret. Nevertheless, the available evidence (e.g. Kerwin, 2010) shows
unambiguously that the ability to navigate long distances was widespread.
Amongst the Wardaman people in northern Australia, most travelling was done at night,
when the air was cool and the stars visible as guides. Furthermore, there was a belief that
distances were smaller at night (DS: 65):
“The old people, the old man walking during the day saying the distance
get far away from you. Walk in the night in the darkness, the distance
shrinking up. Somehow it’s shrinking up! The earth’s pulling away from
you pretty fast! Shrinking up, that’s what they told us. But … during the
daytime, the earth’s still standing still. Aborigine call it in a word, the
Shame – he shamed to move.”
Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, Volume 17, Issue 2, Preprint.
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Elsewhere in Australia, nighttime travel was less common. Maegraith (1932) and Lewis
(1976) found that Central Desert people did not use the stars for navigation, and did not
travel at night, and Fuller et al. (2014c) found that Euahlayi people did not travel at night.
Where possible, and for long-distance navigation, a songline would be followed (DS: 63):
“Not just songline trail, walking trail, trade routes. You sing a song, then
you follow your song, in that track you go along singing the song, like a
blazed mark.”
Traditional Aboriginal elders (such as Harney) have an intimate knowledge of the night
sky, far better than that of most modern-day western astronomers (such as Norris), and
can name many stars in any given patch of sky, and explain their role in the Dreaming
stories. Mountford (1976: 449) considered that:
“many Aborigines of the desert are aware of every star in their
firmament, down to at least the fourth magnitude, and most, if not all, of
those stars would have myths associated with them.”
These Aboriginal elders also understood how the whole pattern rotated over their heads
from east to west during the night, and how it shifted over the course of a year (DS: 61):
“Each time you look at the stars it’s in a different inch by half an inch, or
quarter of an inch by quarter of an inch, or whatever. That’s where the
old Aborigines, all the elders, see that travelling. Then later on it’s over
there earlier in the year.”
For shorter journeys, or when a songline was not available, the direction of the Moon or
patterns of the stars were used for navigation (DS: 63):
“You judge how far it is to Willeroo, you say about 3km, you aim for that
3 km in your mind. That’s all! You’ve got to go cross ways? That’s Emu
Foot tells you, he’s south. If you want to go southwest, you go on the
right hand side of the emu […]”
Navigating by the stars is still considered by Harney (2009) to be preferable to following
the modern road:
“You know road might be going to the water a bit, road might be going
out of the waterhole and you like to get perished too that’s what he’s
about. But the star the mainly the one really guide you straight to the
waterhole and all this.”
The path of the planets in the sky, the ecliptic, had special significance (DS: 65):
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“The Dreaming Track in the sky! Planets making the pathway!
Travelling routes, a pathway you could call it, like a highway! Travelling
pathway joins to all different areas, to base place, to camping place, to
ceremony place, where the trade routes come in; all this sort of things.
The Dreaming Track in the sky, the planets come straight across…
walking trail becomes a pad, then becomes a wagon road, two wheel
tracks, then become a highway. That’s how they started off, four of
them.”
While star maps do exist in Aboriginal paintings and possibly in rock engravings, no
Aboriginal star maps intended for navigation have been recorded. Instead, all the
knowledge is committed to memory in the form of songlines, which may therefore be
regarded as “oral maps”. In a culture with no written language, but with a strong tradition
of memorising oral knowledge, this is probably the optimum way of recording and
transmitting navigational information.
4 CONCLUDING REMARKS
We have presented new information, and also material drawn from the literature, to show
that:
1. Songlines are effectively oral maps of the landscape, enabling the transmission of
oral navigational skills in cultures that do not have a written language,
2. Songlines extend for large distances across Australia, and are often identical to the
trading routes, and were presumably used for navigating these trading routes,
3. Some modern Australian highways follow the path of Aboriginal songlines,
4. In many cases, songlines on the earth are mirrored by songlines in the sky,
5. The sky is used as a navigational tool, both by using it as a compass, and by using
it as a mnemonic to remember the songlines on the ground.
5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We acknowledge and pay our respects to the traditional owners and elders, both past and
present, of the Wardaman people and of all the other language groups mentioned in this
paper. We also thank Hugh Cairns for permission to reproduce selected passages from
Dark Sparklers.
6 REFERENCES
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Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, Volume 17, Issue 2, Preprint.
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Professor Ray Norris is an astrophysicist with CSIRO Astronomy &
Space Science and an Adjunct Professor at Warawara - Department of
Indigenous Studies at Macquarie University, both in Sydney,
Australia. He has published about 300 peer-reviewed papers, including
15 on Aboriginal Astronomy, and wrote the book Emu Dreaming: an
Introduction to Australian Aboriginal Astronomy.
Bill Yidumduma Harney is an Elder and the last fully initiated Senior
Custodian of the Wardaman people near Katherine, NT, Australia. He
is an esteemed artist, master storyteller, and musician. Well known as
an advocate and ambassador for Aboriginal Australians, Yidumduma
was raised and educated in the traditional ceremonies by Jumorji, a
senior Wardaman lawman and his Aboriginal stepfather. He is of the
Yubulyawan clan, speaks seven languages, and co-authored the book
Dark Sparklers (2004) about Wardaman astronomy with Hugh Cairns.
