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Here we may turn to the “Dreaming-tracks” mentioned earlier and state, with Micha
1970:290, McCarthy 1939-40:104, Petri 1950252, Bemdt 194l:6,19 and others, that
these tracks may well be following trade routes, and are, therefore, also the likely paths
involved in culture contact and diffusion. For Ooldea and the Victoria Desert, Bemdt 1941 :6
explains that “a study of the myths of the Western Desert aborigines will throw light on
these [pre-contact] migrations as well as on culture diffusion in the area”. The reasons why
Dreaming tracks are likely to overlap with trade routes and routes of cultural diffusion are
evident. Ritual activities take place at specified locations along these Dreaming tracks, and, as
Myers 1986: l 73 writes: “If anything, the ritual life is even more devoted to formal exchange
than is daily life. The exchange of sacred objects between men makes the principle into a goal
itself’. Religious exchange, explains Kolig 1981:l09fl for the Kimberleys, has impressive
traditional precedents, although modem means of communication and transportation have
significantly increased the speed and extent of these social networks. Moreover, ritual
knowledge itself is a “traded” good, as groups exchange this knowledge with neighbouring
and distant communities to such an extent that the notion of “nomadic rituals” has been used
Poirier 1992. Additionally, many of the significant sites of Dreaming tracks are located in
the proximity of rock holes or other sources of water that were land marks and allowed for
stopovers during people’s movements:

The more important water supplies usually have some totemic significance and
play a very important part in aboriginal ceremonial and social life, also fixing
routes and trading centres Johnston 1941.

In the case of Dreaming tracks, however, it is not the lack of geographically located data
that constitutes the problem, but, quite the opposite, the phenomenal number of such tracks
that criss—cross the most remote areas of the desert and beyond. The richness of Dreaming
tracks and myths renders the task difiicult. The Dreaming is a means of signifying, naming
and breaking up the spatial continuum into recognisable points of reference and routes, and
it is therefore not surprising that the assumed overlap of trading-routes with Aboriginal
cartography is tautological.

Despite this complexity, I have chosen to represent some of the better-known and far-
reaching Dreaming routes as a means of illustrating the more than probable congruency
between religious exchanges and material trading. Among these is the well-lcnown Tingarri
cycle that criss-crosses extensive parts of the northern part of the Western Desert, which I
mentioned earlier in relation to Petri’s report on how Yulparitja people brought the Tingarri
cycle to the Nyangumarta in the Pilbara. The Tingarri cycle is an extensive network of tracks
itself For the northern part of the Western Desert, Graham 2002 summarises some of the
references available for these routes:

In overview, we can identify three great trails of travelling Tingari ancestors
that lead inland from the coast and culminate in a network of tracks that traverse