"A distant land, cloud capped, with plenty of moisture and a sweet scented soil." Kupe

A Unique, Lost World: Biogeography of NZ

New Zealand became isolated abut 80 million years ago, when it separated from the ancient super continent Gondwana. This became known as the Rangitata land mass.

By 60 mya, the Tasman Sea, separating from Australia and NZ arrived at its full width.

By 26 million years ago, there were two main features which dominated the New Zealand land mass area : the Challenger Rift system off the western coast, and which had begun forming around 60 million years ago, and the plate boundary running along the line of the Alpine Fault and the Hikurangi Trench, off the lower North Island and upper South Island coastal areas.

It wasn't until about 5 mya, that the shape of the 2 main islands began to form. With mountain uplift an increase in water out of the atmosphere occurred. The relief created by new hills and mountains lead to an increase in aquatic habitats.

7000 years ago, most of New Zealand was covered in rain forest, and within the protection of surrounding seas, many flightless land birds evolved. The most famous and now extinct was the Moa.

Kiwi also adapted well to the New Zealand environment, there are 4 species- all of which are protected today.

Reflections of the Dreaming

My next few posts will be various reflections and essays that I have been working on over the past little while. Even though I've been back for a few weeks, I just now feel like my body clock is finally adjusting!

Aboriginal Dreaming was a subject of particular interest to me....

Kinship means everything to the Aboriginals. It provides the networks that determine who controls dreaming knowledge- which is the main indicator of status in Aboriginal Society. The Dreaming also dominates all aspects of spiritual and physical life in the Aboriginal culture. It is complex in nature, with origins derived from creation stories. In the Dreamtime, spiritual beings shaped the land, the first people were brought into being and set in their proper territories, and laws and rituals were established. Belief in a creative spirit in the form of a huge snake, the Rainbow Serpent, occurs over much of Aboriginal Australia, usually associated with waterholes, rain, and thunder. It is the protector of the land, its people, and the source of all life.



However, the Rainbow Serpent can also be a destructive force if it is not properly respected. Rituals are enacted each year at particular sites, in order to maintain the integrity of the land, and pay respect to spiritual ancestors. In essence, the Dreaming comes from the land. In Aboriginal society, people did not own the land- it was part of them and it was part of their duty to respect it and all creatures in it.

For Aboriginals, Dreamtime is not only used to represent the past, but all time that is and is to come. This is difficult for many Westerners to understand, as we come from a system of linear logic v. the circular logic of not only Aboriginals, but many indigenous peoples. Time, after all,is a human construct. An Aboriginal man most accurately explained this concept.

" The creator spirits are not earth-bound or materially based, and as such are not time limited. Therefore the creation of souls is/was/will be simultaneously. My soul comes from a story place of my ancestors. It will go back there. It has always been there and always will be. Dreaming stories and songs are the way we continue creation, which is still happening now... It was, and it is. The rainbow snake is still pushing up the mountains. This is a circular thing, and has no time. In this way, entropy through western linear concepts of time is thwarted, and my people and land endure."

Modes of thought and speech are approached in a circular way by Aboriginals, including kinship systems. More often than not grandson and grandfather are the same word, soon and recent are interchangeable. Western exploration into quantum physics ( Chaos theory, relativity, time-space continuum) is now becoming quite relevant, but Aboriginals have long understood these concepts.