Ancestral creation stories, also known as Dreamings, are part of complex belief systems as well as methods for carrying deep knowledge. Passed down orally across generations for millennia, these stories criss-cross the land as Songlines (or Dreaming tracks), connecting people, Country and tradition. The cultural laws and knowledges embedded within them has practical applications and has been vital to the survival of First Peoples’ communities and in ecological maintenance.

In many creation narratives, ancestral beings take on animal forms as they move across Country, creating, transforming and interacting with significant and sacred sites. These shapeshifting protagonists established Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ways of being and living on Country, outlining responsibilities to people, place, plants and animals. The repetition over time of ritual, ceremony, song and story in artworks such as these ensures the intergenerational maintenance of spiritual law and continually affirms their significance.

The serpent is a key figure in creation, whose stories stretch across and unites vast areas of the continent. Each region has its own snake narrative specific to the Country and the being’s local legacy. Pitjantjatjara artist Jimmy Donegan’s Pukara 2017 imparts the Tjukurpa (Dreaming, or creation story) of the kaliny-kalinypa (honey grevillea) after a great battle between Wati Kutjara Wanampi (two male water snakes) and Wati Mututa (male black ants). Gija artist Mabel Juli’s Karrgin and Goolarbool Ngarrangkarni (Moon and snake dreaming) 2002 contains lessons on choosing the correct marriage partner. While in Wititj (Olive pythons) 1983, by Djenba/Wudamin artist Tom Djumburpur, six wititj spirits create the rain, lightning and thunder as they fiercely admonish the great Liyagalawumirr Python creation being for eating his own moiety (kin).

Feature image: Works installed for 'Great and Small', QAG, July 2025 (l–r): Kunmanara Tiger's Wanampi Tjukurpa 2010 (Purchased 2010 with funds from the Bequest of Grace Davies and Nell Davies through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation) and Mabel Juli's Karrgin and Goolarbool Ngarrangkarni (Moon and snake dreaming) 2002 / Purchased 2002.  Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Grant) / © The artists/Copyright Agency / Photograph: C Callistemon, QAGOMA