Australian Aboriginal Religious Art: "The Dreaming"

The Dreaming is a network of knowledge, faith and practices, dominating the spiritual and physical aspects of Aboriginal life. The Dreaming sets out the structures of society, the rules for social behaviour and the ceremonies performed in order to maintain the life of the land.

The Dreaming includes stories of creation. The Dreaming can describe the time when the earth and humans and animals were created. During the Dreaming, ancestral spirits came to earth and created the landforms, the animals and plants. The stories tell how the ancestral spirits moved through the land creating rivers, lakes and mountains. There are explanations of how people came to Australia and the links between the groups throughout Australia. The Dreaming explains how people learned languages and dance and how they came to know about fire.

The journey of the Spirit Ancestors across the land is recorded in Dreaming tracks. A Dreaming track traces the path of an Ancestral Being as it moved from site to site through the landscape, forming its features, creating its flora and fauna and laying down the Laws. One of these Spirit Ancestors is the Rainbow Serpent, whose Dreaming track is shared by many Aboriginal communities across Australia.
Source:
http://australianmuseum.net.au/Indigenous-Australia-Spirituality#sthash.4sJYSjbw.dpuf