Editing The Dreaming (section)

==Etymology==
The station-master, magistrate, and amateur ethnographer Francis Gillen first used the terms in an ethnographical report in 1896. Along with [[Walter Baldwin Spencer]], Gillen published a major work, ''Native Tribes of Central Australia'', in 1899.{{sfn|James|2015|p=36}} In that work, they spoke of the ''Alcheringa'' as "the name applied to the far distant past with which the earliest traditions of the tribe deal".{{sfn|Spencer|Gillen|1899|p=73 n.1, 645}}{{efn|"[T]he dim past to which the natives give the name of the 'Alcheringa'." (p.119)}} Five years later, in their ''Northern Tribes of Central Australia'', they gloss the far distant age as "the dream times", link it to the word {{lang|und|alcheri}} meaning "dream", and affirm that the term is current also among the [[Kaytetye people|Kaitish]] and [[Anmatyerre|Unmatjera]].{{sfn|Spencer|Gillen|1904|p=745}}

===Altjira===
[[File:The Rising Milky Way over Uluru.jpg|thumb|The [[Milky Way]] over [[Uluru]]. The Dreaming, according to [[Carl Strehlow]], sees the Milky Way as a river connected to the dwelling of a Creator Deity.]]
{{redirect|Altjira|the astronomial object|148780 Altjira}}
Early doubts about the precision of Spencer and Gillen's English gloss were expressed by the German [[Lutheran]] pastor and missionary [[Carl Strehlow]] in his 1908 book ''Die Aranda'' (''The [[Arrernte people|Arrernte]]''). He noted that his Arrernte contacts explained ''altjira'', whose etymology was unknown, as an eternal being who had no beginning. In the [[Upper Arrernte language]], the proper verb for "to dream" was {{lang|und|altjirerama}}, literally "to see God". Strehlow theorised that the noun is the somewhat rare word {{lang|und|altjirrinja}}, which Spencer and Gillen gave a corrupted transcription and a false etymology. "The native," Strehlow concluded, "knows nothing of 'dreamtime' as a designation of a certain period of their history."{{sfn|Hill|2003|pp=140–141}}{{efn|The Strehlows' informant, Moses (''Tjalkabota''), was a convert to Christianity, and the adoption of his interpretation suffered from a methodological error, according to [[Barry Hill (Australian writer)|Barry Hill]], since his conversion made his views on pre-contact beliefs unreliable.}}

Strehlow gives {{lang|und|Altjira}} or {{lang|und|Altjira mara}} ({{lang|und|mara}} meaning "good") as the Arrente word for the eternal [[Creator deity|creator]] of the world and humankind. Strehlow describes him as a tall strong man with red skin, long fair hair, and emu legs, with many red-skinned wives (with dog legs) and children. In Strehlow's account, ''Altjira'' lives in the sky (which is a body of land through which runs the [[Milky Way]], a river).{{sfn|Gill|1998|pp=93–103}}

However, by the time Strehlow was writing, his contacts had been converts to Christianity for decades, and critics suggested that ''Altjira'' had been used by missionaries as a word for the [[God in Christianity|Christian God]].{{sfn|Gill|1998|pp=93–103}}

In 1926, Spencer conducted a field study to challenge Strehlow's conclusion about ''Altjira'' and the implied criticism of Gillen and Spencer's original work. Spencer found attestations of {{lang|und|altjira}} from the 1890s that used the word to mean "associated with past times" or "eternal", not "god".{{sfn|Gill|1998|pp=93–103}}

Academic Sam Gill finds Strehlow's use of ''Altjira'' ambiguous, sometimes describing a supreme being, and sometimes describing a totem being but not necessarily a supreme one. He attributes the clash partly to Spencer's [[cultural evolution]]ist beliefs that Aboriginal people were at a pre-religion "stage" of development (and thus could not believe in a supreme being), while Strehlow as a Christian missionary found presence of belief in the divine a useful entry point for proselytising.{{sfn|Gill|1998|pp=93–103}}

Linguist David Campbell Moore is critical of Spencer and Gillen's "Dreamtime" translation, concluding:{{sfn|Moore|2016|pp=85–108}}

{{Quote|text="Dreamtime" was a mistranslation based on an etymological connection between "a dream" and "{{lang|und|Altjira}}", which held only over a limited geographical domain. There was some semantic relationship between "{{lang|und|Altjira}}" and "a dream", but to imagine that the latter captures the essence of "Altjira" is an illusion.}}