THE STORY BEHIND THE DESIGN
The Aboriginal art symbol for the moon includes any image of its form from a slender crescent moon to a circular full moon.
- Aboriginal people have an intuitive relationship with the cosmos and with that comes a perennial wisdom that is passed down the generations through stories and songs.
- In many Aboriginal groups, the moon is male and the sun is female. There are several ‘dreaming stories’ where the sun pursues the moon across the sky until they meet in an embrace as husband and wife. Such stories present a poetic analogy of astronomical phenomena as eclipses of the moon and sun are caused by the overlapping of their bodies when they move on intersecting paths.
- The wisdom of Aboriginal groups familiar with the coastline is revealed in their understanding of the gravitational pull of the moon on the tide. Spring tides, which only occur every full moon and new moon, are immensely strong and impossible to row against. Their inherent awareness of this astronomical phenomena protects them from the hidden dangers of the sea.
