CONVERSATION
CONVERSATION
CONVERSATION
HUMAN TRACES:
ETHIOPIA
HUMAN TRACES:
ETHIOPIA
THE BALANCE OF FACTS
THE BALANCE OF FACTS
THE BALANCE OF FACTS
THE BALANCE OF FACTS
DESTINATIONS
DESTINATIONS
The Dreamtime, or the Dreaming, portrays the Aboriginal beliefs in spiritual existence. According to the tribes that first settled down in the continent, the Dreaming's roots date all the way back to the very begging of the creation of the world. The meaning and ideology of the term is generally not so well-understood by non-indigenous people as it is referred to as part of the culture of one of the early nations, which differs from modern perceptions.
The Spirits were the creators of everything. They made the land and the seas, the rocks and the plants, the sky and the earth. They were the higher power and the Australian Aborigines spent their lifetimes honoring this power, which guided their path and shaped their way of thinking. Not only creators of everything, which could be seen as well as felt, the Spirits also gave the Aborigines the Dreaming.
The time when everything started existing according to the initial Australians, was called the Dreaming. This is the foundation of the continent's culture. The origin of the Dreaming goes way back - 65 000 years back in time to be exact. The Ancestors of the nation shaped the land, forming some parts of it as sacred. The Aborigines were very careful and overprotective of those places, strongly believing in their significance.
The Australian Aborigines are known to have believed that the world didn't have any shape and was therefore empty. Darkness dominated, and life was simply asleep, but this changed when the creation began happening. After the Dreaming and the influence of the Spirits, objects began taking shapes and came to be. They created the four elements: water, earth, air and fire, as well as all the planets, the Sun and the Moon. The Dreaming therefore is a continuous process, which never ended. It is a small cosmos on its own, unifying the past, present and the future into one.
The Australian Aborigines' home riches so many vivid areas of the continent, including Fraser Island, Tasmania, Palm Island, Groote Eylandt and Mornington Island. The Aborigines had very strong believes in relation to the powers of the land, claiming that they never owned it - it rather owned them. The only reason they were able to call it their home is because they were looking after it and the land was taking care of the people in return.
Equally important to the Dreaming was the tribes' understandings of the disappearance of the Spirits. There came a time, when the creators of everything vanished from sight. Some of them were thought to have started living in sacred places, which is why the Aborigines perceived their homeland to be so sacred. The ancestors of today's Australians used to believe that the creators started living in rocks, in water holes and some went up to the sky to guide the people from above and keep them safe. Others transformed completely, taking the forms of the rain, the lightnings and the thunderstorms so they could be part of peoples' life.
Among the hundred's different Aboriginal languages, there isn't a word to describe 'time', because to them this simply doesn't exist. Dreaming and Dreamtime are used to replace it and summarize the ideologies of the Aborigines about everything they knew, everything they could see, feel and experience. This is why the Dreaming has such a vivid, and overwhelming meaning and has survived the obstacles of time. For the past couple thousand years, the Dreaming has built a rich cultural heritage that can identify a whole nation.
Read more about the Land, its connection to people and the way it has been perceived from different generations in the very first print issue of ORIGIN. The Land Issue covers varied topics, most of which remain related to cultural aspects of the land and its importance.
A lot of people travel to explore places and learn about them which is the message that ORIGIN wants to spread. With traveling, however, comes certain responsibilities that we should all be aware of. Elephants riding has become a popular way to explore locations by land. People have been doing this as part of their trips, mostly to places such as Thailand, Nepal, Cambodia and other parts of Asia. It is a common thing to see in certain places in Africa as well. We investigated the activity to explain why it is wrong and riding elephants should be banned everywhere.
Our first print issue studies culture and traveling represented through the land. We explored various location around the globe and learned what makes the land so valuable, which nations cherish it and how it helps us establish an identity. Traveling is important to us but traveling responsibly and making an impact is what we feel proud to stand behind. This is why riding elephants as a way of amusement should be reconsidered.
Let’s talk about the details. Elephants are very caring and extremely intelligent animals. It is a well-known fact that they never forget anything. When kept in captivity instead of spending their life in the wild, elephants die younger. Unlike in other species, this is common for the gentle giants and is often a result for stress.
Many African cultures respect elephants, believing they symbolize strength, loyalty and power. However, power can be a very tender concept. Elephant used as a tourism tool suffer from great pain daily. Elephants can be hurt very severely from the weight of carrying people and a trainer on their backs. The reason for this is the design of their spines. They have sharp protrusions, extending upwards from their spine instead of having round spinal disks. The protrusions and the tissue that serves to protect them can be harmed easily from weight pressure. Once a damage to their spine has been made, there is no going back and sometimes the harm can be irreversible. While this can’t be physically seen, the harm that the chairs can do to the elephants’ skin is. It is often the case that the chairs and the weight on their back can damage the animal’s skin and cause pain to their body. The chair, called Howdah, that gets attached to their backs, rubs on their skin and can cause blisters, which can sometimes get infected.
The training that elephants are required to go through when in captivity sometimes adopts a traditional Thai ‘phajaan’ or ‘crush’ technique. Explaining the technique would compare it to the animals’ spirits constantly and continuously being broken by the means of torture and social isolation. This is done in order to tame them. Elephants are wild animals, this is their nature as they are born in such conditions. Making them safe and obedient around people requires them to go through such training. As horrible as it sounds, in some places young elephants are taken away from their mothers to be abused with nails, bull hooks and bamboo sticks to make them obey rules, given by people. The animals often lack sleep and are starved to become submissive.
Actions from such nature are cruel and harmful as the technique is used to crash the animals’ spirit. Once wild and free, elephants become a source of tourism and entertainment. Nobody, who cared about sustainable tourism should ever ride an elephant.
In a sense, elephants have a human soul. They socialise and feel everything – pain, happiness, grief, sadness etc. They spend their life building families and finding friends. The largest land animals are a gift from nature and it is our responsibility to take special care of them and make sure they live according to their nature. Many animals, who are kept in captivity, are forced to live in isolation and carry heavy loads all day long, which is a wrong way to treat them. Their strength and power shouldn’t be abused but treated gently and celebrated by people. Elephants require minimal care to stay happy and healthy, which comes from giving them freedom to behave naturally and socialise. It is our responsibility to be culturally aware while traveling and make sure to spread awareness about the problem.
You can read the rest of the article as published in the LAND issue.
CUBAN ROOTS
The heart of Cuba - the people
Words: Emily Georgieva
Photography: Isaac Ibbott
20 January 2019
It was an early evening when I met Emilio at a Cuban party in the South of England. He was making an impression because of the way he looked. He wasn't eccentric, nor did he try to attract attention to himself. Later, when I thought about it, I thought he had the looks of somebody who had Cuban blood running through his veins. He was from a mixed descendant. His mother was a Cuban lady, his father - Irish. Emilio seemed to have more features typical for the northern Caribbean country. His skin had the smooth colour resembling olives, his hair was black and curly. He was tall, polite and curious about other people.
When Emilio started talking to us, he wanted to know as much about my friends and I as he was willing to share about himself. The more he talked, the more we wanted to listen. The party was at its peak and there was Caribbean music that was so powerful in its purity, it was making everybody happy. People were dancing around us, moving their feet fast -the kind of thing one will see happen only in a few places outside the Republic of Cuba. I could hear Emilio’s voice loud and clear above the music. He was raised in places like this where people knew how to have fun and there was no wrong time to start playing music on the streets just so you can make others want to forget the rest of the world for a while. Emilio, subconsciously or not, knew how to charm everyone around him. He felt comfortable in a place like this. It was only natural for him to know how to capture our attention despite the whole party going on at the back.
His father was an artist, a painter, who was selling his canvases on the streets. ‘The way you will see people do in the movies’ Emilio described, laughing a little and I could tell that he was proud of his father. After some years of doing this, his father decided to start making furniture, combining art with practicality. He was using old Japanese furniture, spending the time to find the vintage, original designs and recreate them, adding a hint of his originality in the process.
He illustrated his childhood by vivid impression of Cyprus, which lived in his memories. His mother took him there when he was around 11 years old. ‘She travelled with her music’ he shared with us, smiling to the memory. ‘She took me with her, we got on a boat that took us to an island and I remember it as if it happened yesterday.'
A few years ago, Emilio went back to Cyprus once again. This time he travelled with his friends to Nicosia. They stayed there for a few days, didn’t sleep much as they were craving to explore the wonders of the island. When they found themselves close to Limassol, Emilio and his friends stopped by the Kourion to watch a show there. The amphitheater with its centuries-long existence left the sense of respect in him. They saw as much as they could, travelled long distances, met some local people and tasted traditional Souvlaki for the first time on their last day there.
When I asked about his passion, he stopped for a second to think about how to phrase it. ‘It’s going to sound stupid, but my passion are people. I am very interested in them and how they express themselves and approach others. Most of them have kind hearts.’
When in Greece, he remembers locals’ generosity. They have spent hours walking and wondering around, ended up getting lost. Some locals, people, who knew nothing about Emilio and his companions, took them in their house for the night, fed them some nice, home-cooked food and didn’t want anything in return.
This is something, typical for the Cubans as well. Emilio described them as warm and giving people, always ready to help anyone and make them feel at home. Emilio had seen this happen in Cuba multiple times. It was the land of generosity where locals take nothing, and they turn it into something special. Music is loud and sounds like flames burning with desire. People dance on the streets, igniting happiness in the souls of those, who pass by. Cubans feel the music with their whole bodies, and this is easy to see when looking at them dancing, having fun, without thinking of who is watching. They just want to invite everybody in the fun, share their culture, their land’s traditions with whoever wants to learn.
The night went on. The musicians kept strumming their 12 string guitars, the singer’s Latino voice, made everyone listen to the Caribbean sounds. Orders for the rum-based drinks kept being delivered at the bar.
For a night, it felt like we were at the heart of Cuba. We hadn’t travelled kilometres of distance to get there, Cuba had come to us instead. And I was being reminded of an important life aspect that night - the vital human need for sharing, connecting and learning from one another. We all carry our roots within ourselves wherever we go and inspiring others through it is a commonality for Cubans. It is what makes the nation so special, beautiful and heart-warming.
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NOMADSofORIGIN is an independent annual publication with a focus on sustainable travelling and global cultural values. Each issue features interviews, engaging articles and photo guides, which take our nomadic readers through different destinations and introduce them to local people's perspectives.
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