Program note: Great Southern Spirits
- Stephen Leek
- Source: The Song Company Haunted Lullabies
Great Southern Spirit Stephen LEEK (b.1959)
The Dreaming of the Australian Aboriginal people spiritualises every facet of life,
death, survival and creation told through stories which have been handed down
aurally for many thousands of years. The women of the Wirindji were a small
group who lured nomadic men to their camps by stamping their feet into the red
dust. Creating a magical haze which drifted off in the wind, passing men would
become enticed into the women's camp by the spectacular colour of the mist. They
were then mated with the women, then killed, cooked and eaten as a feast of
celebration.
The Australian bush has long been a source of inspiration for its unique beauty and
hidden mysteries. The hushed whispers of spirit voices ripple and splinter through
the Mulga trees creating eerie stillness.
Uluru is the most sacred of all Aboriginal spiritual places. lt is here that the
creation of the Dreamtime took place and it is here for Australian aborigines, that
all life began Until only recently this magnificent site known for many years as
Ayers Rock, was the domain of the destructive, unsanctimonious tourists who
slowly etched their own 'spirituality' on the megalithic rock through a legacy of
rubbish, graffiti and disintegration.
