Afterlife Before Genesis: An Introduction: Accessing the Eternal through Australian Aboriginal Music (Toronto Studies in Religion)

Afterlife Before Genesis is the final volume in a trilogy that began with Life Before Genesis and was followed by Return to Eden. Here David H. Turner focusses on what the Aborigines of the Groote Eylandt area of northern Australia take to be the foundations of their way of life, namely musical Forms. Their music, like their way of life, incarnates from «Nothing» as differences (songLines) which are «renounced» from «owners» to «non-owners» to connect rather than divide. This music is a complex polyphonic interplay of didjereedoo (their hollow log instrument) and voice which not only transcends but also heals. This the author documents by recounting how he learned to play the didjereedoo.