The Ancient Aboriginal Lore of Universe First

The original Lore was laid down by the Fertility Sisters and subsequently by the Sky father and his Kinship to maintain good health and wellness for the entire universe (not just humans and not just this island).? If you do not keep the Lore living – The ancestors were clear - everything becomes unwell and eventually goes silent and cold.

The language, ceremonies and songs were strategically created for each family to be able to orally express old Lore within a small area of land, cleverly allowing them to play their part within their universal responsibility and obligation to know and honour the inner purpose of all living things.? Thus maintaining the Ancient Universal Lore.

The word for “Lore” in my mother’s people (the Wiradyuri- weir rad you rhee Language speaking country) is called Buyaa (boy yah – it is the creation Lore that comes from Gudyiin (creation) time). The complete system of Wiradyuri Customary Lore (how Buyaa Lores are enforced by each living thing in the here and now) is known as Muraymin (moo ray min).?

Buyaa ( boy yah – comprised of five Buyaa ) is the body of lore that imparts that knowledge from Gudyiin time, the original time of Lore Creation – known by the Western systems as The Dreaming. Being the core of Wiradyuri tradition, Buyaa expresses the larger spiritual and social dimension of the life of Aboriginal people. As it is the dominant traditional concept, touching all parts of existence, imbuing it with strong motivation and meaning.

In essence Buyaa is an entire oral system - part religion, part history and science and part moral and social charter. 'It is, in many respects, the conceptual vehicle through which people fulfill themselves - it defines their relatedness, explains their inner purpose and reveals their responsibility to all things'

Wiradyuri believe that living out their life according to Muraymin is right and civilised.

The Muraymin creates a state of Gulbalanha, which is a state of peace, freedom from hostilities and an understanding of each other.

The Muraymin provides the Wiradyuri with links to their ancestral past and land, as well as to their ancestors and to each other, reaffirming contemporary social relations and articulating omnipresent connections at the core of Wiradyuri sense of identity. ?A thorough grounding in the deep translations of Muraymin in all its iterations and contexts is necessary to understand the richness of Wiradyuri ritual life.

Each permanent home of every family group contained over 30 different roles or employment relating to maintaining this Lore System.

Our Muraymin laws defined our connection to everything in the patterns that sit silently in Yindyamarra (yin ja mara – means patience or in the right time) amongst our ancient language and oral stories.? Muraymin ensures each Aboriginal persons connection to place that the old people designed has many layers of relationship confirmation.

Muraymin has often been translated in English as "Dreaming," "Dreamtime," or "Ancestral Times" (Mulvaney, Morphy, and Petch, 1997), but these translations obscure rather than explain the richness of a universal Oral Wiradyuri cosmology. Muraymin, as explained by contemporary Wiradyuri, has five related distinct and interrelated usages.

Translating and following in the Creators oral activities and footsteps is how Aboriginal people have always known and understood how to express their place to live by the Lore.

Nola Turner-Jensen (Wiradyuri Oral Systems researcher)

Aboriginal Language Historian

Indigenous Diversity Research Fellow

Indigenous Knowledge Institute

University of Melbourne (Faculty of Science)

0413281980

[email protected] /[email protected]