The culture of the Australian Aborigine reaches back across thousands of years to a mythic era the call the `dreamtime.' The myths of the dreamtime wove an imaginatively rich world into being, filling a landscape of vast spaces with ritual and magic. With the telling of these marvellous tales, the barren world of the outback was transformed into a land in which all the elements - from animals and plants to the immensity of the night sky - realised a symbolic relation to one another. In passing on stories and legends of this wilderness, successive generations learned the skills needed for survival in this harsh world. The fabulous myths of the Aborigines, the rich lore of their origins and of the natural world of the Australian outback are gathered together in this volume, first published in 1930. This book places these legends in the context of the religion, kinship and societal ties of this ancient people...