Talk:Songline

message: 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)
thread_title: Songline vs. leylines

message: 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.
::Yes agree it sounds like pseudo science. I think it's probably to do with the section in the Dreamtime article which says that traditionally "the geographic spot where the foetus is first felt moving by the mother is said hold special significance to the child". It also says/suggests that the child is then taught all the songs/songlines associated with that spot, which I could then understand might mean the person would be the keeper of those songs for later generations and effectively custodian of that bit of land. EdwardLane (talk) 19:27, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  I just stuck a wiktionary link in for Reticulum for the same reason - it appears to mean a 'network' EdwardLane (talk) 19:27, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: agree - lets cut the new age stuff or at least move it to a subsection titled newage interpretation :) EdwardLane (talk) 19:27, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

text: That's interesting, I'd not heard that - the songlines describing the local terrain (in terms of the dreamtime) and being the 'song of the journey from place A to place B' made enouh sense to me - but adding the 'oh look someone camped here' does make navigating long distances across the outback (if you know the right songs, or can ask someone to teach you the song) seem less tricky. EdwardLane (talk) 19:27, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Some remarks

message: 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)
thread_title: Magnetism - is this relevant?

message: I added an  tag. Really what I wanted to add was a  tag — in a few places the article discusses the spirits in the songs as though they were real, rather than as fictional characters — but since these seem to be religious beliefs (?), it seemed mean to just label them "fiction". —RuakhTALK 18:49, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There are really only a couple sentences that have this issue, and it appears to be mostly a stylistic problem.  Changed to a {tone|section}} and limited to the appropriate section. 68.73.84.231 (talk) 04:53, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV 

message: the headline for this article says "Songlines that criss-cross Australia televised as a series for the first time"  - that's been broadcast, so that might well prove one of the most useful resources for this article. The article above contains some implications already that change my perceptions of songlines - artifacts required for some dances for example. EdwardLane (talk) 08:37, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd imagine it will be screened on NINTV (and, perhaps, ABC). When you find out when it's going to be on, I'd appreciate a ping so's I don't miss it. I did as much reading on the subject as I could find at that time (years ago), but recent documentaries ("First Footsteps", et al) have provided a far better insight into fuller meaning of the concept. Cheers for the heads up! --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:26, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Documentary on Songlines