Australian
Screen

an NFSA website

Dog Dreaming (2001)

play May contain names, images or voices of deceased Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
clip Womwarr

This clip chosen to be G

Clip description

The elder walks the country following the steps of the two ancestral dogs Adjumalar and Womarr. As he walks, he tells us the story of the two dogs, and follows in the path they travelled. We learn where the male Adjumalar and the female Womarr came to a waterless hole and Adjumalar called it Womwarr. The two ancestral dogs continued across the land, naming it as they went.

Curator’s notes

This clip gives an insight into how story provides a map, and the elder, in knowing the story of the Dog Dreaming, can tell us where the dogs went and the names they gave each area. We begin to get a sense of the importance of story in Indigenous cultures, as the story is also a passageway through country. The fence line in the frame which the elder mentions cuts across the land and, as an artificial boundary, gives us a sense of different times – one ancient and one more recent.