he Walbiri to be part of the "Dreamtime."
"Dreamtime" or, as anthropologist Stanner translated it, "the dreaming" (Michaels, 1985, p. 508) is unique to the Australian aborigines and describes the Aborigine and Walbiri way of understanding the universe, space and time. The Walbiri universe is a process rather an object, an existence in which past and present intermingle so profoundly that anthropologist Francois Dussart suggested the term "Ancestral Present" (Michaels, 1985, p. 508). For the Walbiri, "dreamtime beings," (Michaels, 1985, p. 508) are both mythical ancestors and actual contemporaries. Though the real and dreamtime realms are distinct, they interact and, as Michaels (1985, p. 508) puts it, "At certain moments certain people are able to straddle the mundane and the dreaming realms."
The fluidity of the Walbiri view of the universe is reinforced by the exclusive orality of the culture. Quite literally, where only spoken words are used for communication, nothing is "written in stone." The "Law," which the Walbiri believe emerges from the Dreamtime, consists of those things a Walbiri must do or not do. Both the Walbiri orality and the mythical/factual nature of the "Dreaming" encourage a broad, changing and to some degree arbitrary interpretation of the Law. As Michaels (1985, p. 508) stated, "interpretation of this law may in fact vary or be reinforced by dreams, revelations, and negotiation."
The orality of the Walbiri culture allows the Walbiri theology a seeming inconsistency that Westerners might find confusing and even frustrating. But, as Michaels (1985, p. 508) said, without the written word, "No preinitiate could thrust a copy of 'Desert People' at his elder and claim he was conducting the ceremony wrongly."
Westerners might see a resemblance between Walbiri theology and the Western concept of situational ethics. As Michaels (1985, p. 508) stated, "If a reinterpretation of law were required by ci...