The Dreamtime is a commonly used term for describing important features of Aboriginal spiritual beliefs and existence, its origins dating back 60,000 years.

First Nations Peoples believe that the Dreamtime was at the very beginning. The land and the people were created by the Spirits, their Ancestors. They made the rivers, streams, water holes, the land, hills, rocks, plants and animals. They gave them their hunting tools and each tribe its land, their totems and their Dreaming – each tribe’s spiritual connection to the land.

The Ancestors also made particular sites sacred to the Indigenous people who then performed ritual ceremonies and sang customary songs near the sacred sites to please the Ancestral spirits and to keep themselves alive.

Distinct tribes maintain different philosophies and beliefs about the Ancestors who made the world. Some believe that the Ancestors were animal-spirits, others huge snakes, still others the Wanadjina, cloud and rain spirits.

Indigenous people understand the Dreamtime as a beginning that never ends. They hold the belief that the Dreamtime is a period on a continuum of past, present and future. However, they believe that the land they now occupy is not like it once was. It was originally free from form or life, vacuous – empty.

Into this void, the Dreaming of their Ancestors brought all things into existence, an existence that continues to unfold with spiritual significance.

During the Dreamtime, the creators also declared the laws of the land, including how people were to behave to one another, the customs of food supply and distribution, the rituals of initiation, the ceremonies of death which are required to be performed so that the spirit of the dead travels peacefully to his or her spirit-place, and the laws of marriage.

It is believed that many of the creators, now hidden, continue to live on the land or in the sky, watching over the people. These supernatural enigmatic creators are often referred to as men and women who have the ability to change shape into animals and other creatures such as the Rainbow Serpent.