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.
HOW MUSIC REPRESENTS CULTURE
The culture of a nation changes with the music people listen to. We explore what cultural identification is embedded in the music of artists across several decades and how this influences diverse cultural movements for the younger generations
Words: Emily Georgieva
Photography: Agnieszka Kowalczyk, Haley Powers, Made by Morro, Brian Kostiuk, Kelly Sikkema, Alasdair Elmes, Joseph Pearson, Namroud Gorguis
05 March 2020
“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.”
Bob Marley
A form of art, music is a time capsule – it catches the essence of the time it was created for, whilst representing the cultural identity of the past that it was influenced by. Listening to old albums, songs produced and released before one was even born, is a fascination – a privilege. You get to understand a time you haven’t and never will belong to. It is a way to trace back the evolution of classes and cultural movements on a much more complex level than you would through political statements and history books. With music you get to learn about life through the voice of your idols and connect directly with the culture of your ancestors.
Our generation is interested in learning how to appreciate things that are not ours to own. Even though people’s taste in music constantly evolves, we are still bound to the old-fashioned ways of creating music. A lot of my friends, people born in the 90’s, treasure vinyl because this is an authentic way to experience music and partly because it was how our parents connected to the music legends of their time before introducing them to us. In 2019, vinyl outsold CD’s – an occurrence that hasn’t happened since 1986. An article by NME outlines the information shared by the Record Industry Association of America that shares the statistics behind it. In the 1970’s vinyl was in the epicentre of music for the first time in history because it influenced the cultural awareness of the young generation at the time. Today, the demand to listen to old-school-style music urged a wave of different consumer behaviour. Contemporary artists release their music on vinyl as people want to connect their modern-day culture to the legacy of previous generations.
The best thing about listening to albums that were created throughout different decades is that you get to relive a cultural mishmash of identification. Political speeches and movements, economical situations and fights for equality are among the things that influence artists. Musicians create their craft mainly for the people to represent them and express their role in society. It is how you can tell the time that a song was written for. The use of instruments and production style are not the only things that change over time. Society’s evolution presses a need for musical growth beyond artistic creativity. Music is an interpretation of society and the culture of a country often changes based on the music people listen to.
Music and culture are always going to influence one another and evolve simultaneously over time. People in China were asked to define through a survey what culture means to them and the majority summarised it by saying that it is “The spirit of people”. There is a recent shift in Chinese society as nowadays education is valued on a much different and more sophisticated level while freedom is praised. According to Chinese students, this movement is influenced by westernisation as more people in the country listen to music from overseas than ever before.
Culture is strongly represented in music and embedded in the legacy of artists who express their cultural identity when performing. Entire music eras were defined by artists who started revolutions and defined the complexity of musical evolution. In the 70’s the Beatles broke up whilst big names such as Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd moved from night clubs to performing on massive stadiums in front of thousands of people. Artists such as David Bowie founded a change in the way audience had to be entertained by establishing the glam rock genre. Bob Marley put all eyes on the reggae whilst in New Your City Kool Herc gave birth to hip-hop by experimenting with playing the instrumental breaks on stage for much longer than ever before. Entire cultural groups were inspired by those genres of music and embedded them as part of their cultural identity.
In late 70’s the punk rock emerged both from New York and Great Britain when artists like The Clash, the Sex Pistols and the Ramones put nonconformity in the centre of their art. Later in the decade pop culture was entirely redefined by the King of Pop, Michael Jackson. Alternative music acts emerged to set a new movement of expression. Indie labels became more widely trusted after The Smiths decided to sign with an indie label rather than a major record company. This launched a new wave of cultural extravaganza as indie labels gave artists more freedom to experiment and express themselves.
Music became easily transportable especially in the 80’s when tapes gained more popularity and were popped into boom boxes and car stereos. In the 80’s MTV made its big launch and dominated the release of visual acts, making music more accessible on a wider scope. Even though the idea of festivals became ‘a thing’ in 1969, it wasn’t until the late 90’s that it took audience by storm. Today there are thousands of festivals organised yearly all around the globe. Techno emerged like a saving grace around the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Partying at nightclubs under the rhythms of the industrial futuristic dance music started the rave movement and spread it from Europe to the States. The urban dance parties were on one side of musical expression, whilst hip-hop became more realistic as some of the biggest names in the industry were people with criminal pasts.
Grunge formed in the 90’s and graced music to be a bit more down-to-earth and alternative. Nirvana and Pearl Jam defined the era and became pioneers of 90’s rock. R&B and hip-hop started a wave of cultural movements when names such as Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean became solo acts. The 2000’s changed the industry as music was perceived almost entirely digitally. This put things to a different scope and later presented the younger generations with the opportunity to listen to different genres on demand.
Music is culture. Artists express their own ideas, identity and beliefs when creating, but their art starts to shape when they combine sound and lyrics with the cultural aspect of the movements and people they are inspired by. A couple of centuries ago music would not have changed for decades in places across Europe, for example. These days are long gone by now and in modern times music evolves constantly. Without culture, music would not have been such a ginormous kaleidoscope of diversity, ideologies and freedom of expression. Without music, culture would not have reached such an impressive level of maturity and individualism. Culture is represented in music, much like music is needed to define culture. This is the amazing part of living in such times – we build upon the future of culture while respecting the legacy of the musical legends of the past.
What’s on your playlist? Let us know and our team will create a playlist based on your preferences that would be ideal for your next travel adventure and intriguing enough to show you aspects of different cultures. Get in touch with us today.
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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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