Talk:Songlines
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[edit] Songline vs. leylines
While I respect your views which you have expressed in the article on songlines, and I'm sure you put them in in good faith, I don't think they are a NPOV. For example, while songlines are obviously a part of Indigenous Australian culture, linking them to the British leylines implies a certain view of the world associated with a New-Age holistic view. Right? So I don't think this is a NPOV. See what you think of my changes, and let's discuss them here. Cheers, Ray RayNorris 10:58, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Some remarks
I'd heard of songlines and read this article hoping to learn about them, and I think I learned very little. A few thoughts and reactions, some stylistic, some on content:
- There ought to be an introduction before the first section heading. The bolded Songlines occurs rather far down the page instead of in the first sentence as it usually is.
- Songlines are also called Dreaming tracks by Indigenous Australians. A reference would be nice -- I assume in the original languages the term "dreaming tracks" was not used. Has this English term become the norm, even for Indigenous Australians?
- Other bits that really need references include: To indigenous peoples, songlines also confer a title and deed to the holder or the keeper of the particular song (or Dreaming) and entails an inherent obligation and reciprocity with the land. And, A number of anthropologists and scientists have found that the Aborigines possess an acute sensitivity to magnetic and vital force flows emanating form the earth, which they refer to as songlines. Scientists have found this? Acute sensitivity to "the vital force flows emanating from the earth"? It's referenced (Lawlor), but really.... sounds like pseudoscience to me, and makes references to Lawlor questionable.
- There seems to be too many Big Words (Technobabble? Buzzwords?). Examples: Simulacrum may have once meant that is seems to mean here, but it doesn't anymore, meaning just "a copy". This sentence: The continent of Australia is a system-reticulum of songlines, well, even reading the pages system and reticulum is it not clear what is meant. Looks like technobabble.
- The buzzwordism and "pseudoanthropology" gets worse when New Age theories come up. Songlines may be understood as the Earth's subtle energy current. ....the what? Do we have to understand songlines that way? Do Indigenous Australians understand them that way?
- Certainly there is a place for New Age speculation, but it would be nice to learn more about the topic without so much unreferenced and clearly biased, esoteric, Eurocentric speculation.
- Not that it isn't cool that some people find the dreaming stuff meaningful in ways far beyond what, I imagine, the Indigenous Australians did/do -- unknowingly tapping into the very patterns of the planet's vital force flows! -- but really, isn't this a variation on the Noble savage stereotype? (ie, "You savages have hit upon something cool and don't even realize it -- let us explain your ways to you")
- Pyne's theories on the use of broadcast burning and fire in general in the creation of travel routes seems a lot more realistic than "geomagnetic wayfinding" (basically, the common practice of burning the land as one traveled created corridors and cleared paths marked by fire; no geomagnetic magical powers needed). To make up for all this complaining, I'll try to add some of his ideas.
Sorry for the negativity, I'll try to be constructive next time! Pfly 07:08, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Magnetism - is this relevant?
At the risk of incurring someone's wrath, I've deleted the section which discusses the evidence for animal and human susceptibility to magnetic fields. While the material itself may well be correct, I don't think it belongs here, but in a different article on biomagnetism. As far as I'm aware, there is no evidence cited here or elsewhere that song lines are connected to magnetism. Indeed, as many song-lines traverse the country east-west while the magnetic field goes predominantly north-south, it's hard to see how they can be connected. But even if there was a connection, the material discussing evidence for biomagnetism should be in an article on biomagnetism and not in an article on songlines. RayNorris (talk) 05:50, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
