Sublime
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My most meaningful experiment is creating a songline as close as I can to my understanding of Australian Aboriginal singing tracks. I am using a walking track in the bush near my home. I have named many locations along the track. I find that by singing the names I have given these ‘sacred places’ I can imagine every step of the walk in a way I woul
... See moreLynne Kelly • The Memory Code: The traditional Aboriginal memory technique that unlocks the secrets of Stonehenge, Easter Island and ancient monuments the world over
Kelly Menzel is an Aboriginal woman from the Adelaide Hills and a keeper of ancestral Indigenous Knowledge. She is a nurse by trade and a healer by vocation who is currently completing her PhD and working as a university lecturer.
Tyson Yunkaporta • Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World
It is not necessary for the Anangu knowledge specialists to be walking the rock to recall the stories. The sequence of sites is so well known after years of learning that they can travel any part of the perimeter in their memories whenever they want.
Lynne Kelly • The Memory Code: The traditional Aboriginal memory technique that unlocks the secrets of Stonehenge, Easter Island and ancient monuments the world over
Encoding practical information in vibrant stories is the ideal way to ensure the information is recalled. Indigenous people are perfectly able to extract the practical knowledge they need for any specific occasion from the mythology.
Lynne Kelly • The Memory Code: The traditional Aboriginal memory technique that unlocks the secrets of Stonehenge, Easter Island and ancient monuments the world over
At that moment I asked myself, what would a mobile culture do about maintaining their songlines, their memory trails, their set of sacred memory locations across the landscape when they settled down? They could not afford to lose the knowledge but they were no longer travelling the wider landscape. It seemed immediately obvious that a circle of sto
... See moreLynne Kelly • The Memory Code: The traditional Aboriginal memory technique that unlocks the secrets of Stonehenge, Easter Island and ancient monuments the world over
created songlines through my local landscape, stories in the skyscape, a totem pole and an array of handheld decorated objects. I experimented with them all. I am now totally and utterly convinced of the power of the memory spaces, both large and small. What astonishes me is that these memory skills were allowed to fade from the Western education s
... See moreLynne Kelly • The Memory Code: The traditional Aboriginal memory technique that unlocks the secrets of Stonehenge, Easter Island and ancient monuments the world over
Indigenous cultures memorised everything on which their survival—physically and culturally—depended.
Lynne Kelly • The Memory Code: The traditional Aboriginal memory technique that unlocks the secrets of Stonehenge, Easter Island and ancient monuments the world over
Orality, I soon discovered, was about making knowledge memorable. It was about using song, story, dance and mythology to help retain vast stores of factual information when the culture had no recourse to writing.
Lynne Kelly • The Memory Code: The traditional Aboriginal memory technique that unlocks the secrets of Stonehenge, Easter Island and ancient monuments the world over
Many rituals among non-literate cultures were an essential repetition of critical knowledge at times when the knowledge was specifically required.