Songlines and Navigation in Wardaman and other Australian Aboriginal Cultures

TL;DR

This paper explores how Australian Aboriginal cultures, especially the Wardaman, use songlines as oral maps and celestial cues for navigation, highlighting their sophisticated non-written navigational systems.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of songline navigation practices across different Australian Aboriginal groups, including previously unpublished information.

Findings

Songlines serve as oral landscape maps.

Celestial songlines mirror terrestrial ones for navigation.

Aboriginal navigation integrates sky and land cues.

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context by comparing them with corresponding practices in other Australian Aboriginal language groups, using previously unpublished information and also information drawn from the literature.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