Voices of the First Day: Awakening in the Aboriginal Dreamtime
Cultural Anthropology Collectible Non-Fiction Comparative Mythology Aboriginal Studies Australian Indigenous History Spirituality & Mysticism Sacred Art & Iconography
Voices of the First Day: Awakening in the Aboriginal Dreamtime is the lavishly illustrated 1991 classic that collectors reach for when they want the single most comprehensive window into the world’s oldest living culture. Robert Lawlor spent years living with Elders across Arnhem Land, central deserts and the Top End, and this 432-page Inner Traditions paperback distils their oral histories, sand-paintings, songs and ceremony into a narrative that is part anthropology, part sacred art book and part spiritual guide. At 255 mm tall it is oversized, so every bark painting, cave stencil and ceremonial ground diagram reproduces in fine detail—rare for a trade edition and the reason first-print copies are now snapped up by art dealers and university courses alike.
What makes this copy especially attractive is that it is the true first English-language edition, printed in Australia before any U.S. reprint, and it still carries the original 1991 ISBN 9780892813551 on the back. The book traces the Aboriginal concept of “the First Day”—the timeless moment when Ancestral Beings sang the continent into existence—and shows how every hill, waterhole and constellation is encoded in living memory. Lawlor lets the Elders speak first, then overlays comparative mythology, neuroscience and even quantum language theory to demonstrate why this 60 000-year-old story-line is more sophisticated than any written archive. Readers come away understanding why Aboriginal people say they “belong to the land” rather than own it, and how the Dreamtime is not a mythic past but a concurrent reality that can still be stepped into.
Collectors value this title because it went out of print quickly; Inner Traditions’ later reprints were perfect-bound on lighter paper and dropped several colour plates. This used copy shows the expected cover scuffing and light foxing on the closed edges—hallmarks of a book that travelled from desert stock-camp book-shelves to city libraries—yet the binding is tight and every illustration is intact. Occasional neat pencil underlining simply flags the passages most previous owners found electrifying, making the book an ideal study copy for senior high-school or first-year university Aboriginal-studies units. With demand for authentic Indigenous voices at an all-time high, finding a clean, first-issue copy under $100 is increasingly rare, and this one sits at the sweet spot of affordability and collectability.
Refer to our eBay listing for a full condition report and many more high-quality pictures of this item.
Buy Now