Product Description

Australian aboriginal people have lived in harmony with the earth for perhaps as long as 100,000 years; in their words, since the First Day. In this absorbing work, Lawlor explores the essence of their culture as a source of and guide to transforming our own world view. While not romanticizing the past or suggesting a return to the life of the hunter/gatherer, VOICES OF THE FIRST DAY enables us to enter into the mentality of the oldest continuous culture on earth and gain insight into our own relationship with the earth and to each other. This book offers an opportunity to suspend our values, prejudices, and Eurocentrism and step into the Dreaming to discover: A people who rejected agriculture, architecture, writing, clothing, and the subjugation of animals A lifestyle of hunting and gathering that provided abundant food of unsurpassed nutritional value Initiatic and ritual practices that hold the origins of all esoteric, yogic, magical, and shamanistic traditions A sexual and emotional life that afforded diversity and fluidity as well as marital and social stability A people who valued kinship, community, and the law of the Dreamtime as their greatest "possessions." Language whose richness of structure and vocabulary reveals new worlds of perception and comprehension. A people balanced between the Dreaming and the perceivable world, in harmony with all species and living each day as the First Day. VOICES OF THE FIRST DAY is illustrated throughout with more than 100 extraordinary photographs, bark paintings, line drawings and engravings. Many of these photographs are among the earliest ever made of the Aboriginal people and are shown here for the first time.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #158999 in Books
• Published on: 1992-10-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Pat Monaghan, Booklist
This is a compelling work. Lawlor writes clearly, his research is impeccable, and his dedication to the Australian peoples is made clear by the donation of the book's profits to aboriginal organizations.

Whole Earth Review
The best of what the Aboriginals have let outsiders know about their ecological and shamanic practices, origin myths and kinship rituals, social and spiritual practices. The illustrations are spectacular, more than 150 color and duotone illustrations include some of the earliest photographs of Aboriginal people, shown here for the first time.

The Planet
Voices of the First Day is a comprehensive and fascinating account of the aboriginal culture-its mysticism, its spirituality and initiation, and its family/community orientated lifestyle.

Customer Reviews

Compelling, authoritative, insightful; a must to read.
I read Voices when it first came out. I contacted Lawlor, and subsequently took him to the remote Kimberley region of Western Australia to meet with eminent Ngarinyin Lawman the late David Mowaljarlai and his countrymen. Robert Lawlor has written the most comprehensive, authoritative book on Aboriginal spirituality in life. It is masterful. He encouraged me to write a book on my own knowledge and experience with the Ngarinyin people. This I did. Men's Business Women's Business: The Spiritual Role of Gender in the World's Oldest Culture published by Inner Traditions International (US)was inspired by Voices of the First Day. Unlike many who write about Aboriginal culture and philosophy Robert's diligent attention to authenticity is unsurpassed. This book has my unequivocal recommendation. A modern masterpiece.

A Treasure
Robert Lawlor has an incredible ability to bridge between cultures. His descriptions of Aboriginal perceptual reality made exquisitely good sense to my rational mind and at the same time relaxed its rigidity and stretched it. Voices of the First Day had the effect of evoking what I felt like I already knew and always had known but had merely forgotten. For me it was the book of a decade, one of my half-dozen of most treasured volumes.

One of the best books on the Australian Aborigines.
Lawlor weaves together three strands:beliefs and customs of the Australian Aborigines, an indictment of Western civilization, and aspects of the new physics.He has penetrated Aboriginal consciousness to explain their world view from the inside.He explains why the land is sacred to them, and how keeping in contact with the Dreamtime maintained their way of life for over 100,000 years.The deeper and symbolic meanings of Aboriginal social organization and life cycle rituals are discussed.This is a book that can expand the boundaries of the mind.