Bruce Chatwin - The Songlines

A great, thoughtful read, stimulating, observing, searching for many answers..... A mixture of philosophical thinking and suggestion, formed from insightful discoveries, and a real-life voyage of personal encounters into Australia. Fascinating revelations about the Aboriginees and their 'Songlines' - connected to mapping and navigating the country and territories. Also, their sacred mysteries, ancestors of the 'Dreamtime'. The book holds Chatwin's passive, entertaining observations of characters + incidents, and revelatory thoughts about the nature of nomadism in mankind, across the world and back through the Ages. It finds much weight ...  Read the complete review

Last year I spotted a great item at a collectors fair; hidden underneath a table in a box containing all kinds of unusual items I found a beautifully framed work of art which, to the untrained eye, might just look like a pretty abstract arrangement of coloured dots. In actual fact it is a visual interpetation of a "songline" - a common theme in "aboriginal art" (for want of a better expression, as I believe correctness of the term is again under discussion) WHAT IS A "SONGLINE"? Songlines are inextricably linked to the aboriginal concept of "The Dreaming"; the Aboriginals believe that the world is created from ...  Read the complete review