Dreamtime

Stencil art at Carnarvon Gorge. The collective works of the Bidjara, Karingbal (or Garingbal), Ghungalu (or Gangulu), Gunggari, Gayiri (or Kairi), Nguri, Gungabula, Yiman, Wadja, Kara Kara, and Butchulla peoples (Aboriginal groups that have created the myriad of stencil art sites that exist at Carnarvon Gorge) encompass many critical aspects of early and recent Aboriginal society. They include, but are not limited to, insights on memorial practices, appeals to totemic ancestors or varying interpretative records of Dreaming stories, and provide direct documentation on the daily lives of said groups ~19,500–3,500 years ago. The Dreaming, also referred to as Dreamtime, is a term devised by early anthropologists to refer to a religio-cultural worldview attributed to Australian Aboriginal mythology.

It was originally used by Francis Gillen, quickly adopted by his colleague Walter Baldwin Spencer, and thereafter popularised by A. P. Elkin, who later revised his views.