The Dreaming Is a Translation Argument

The English 'dream times' comes from Francis Gillen's rendering of the Arrernte word Alcheringa, first printed in the 1896 report of the Horn Expedition. The missionary Carl Strehlow disputed the translation in 1908. W. E. H. Stanner's 1953 essay 'The Dreaming' spread the English terms worldwide, and they have been debated ever since.

Christine Judith Nicholls, 'Dreamtime and The Dreaming: who dreamed up these terms?', The Conversation (28 January 2014); Report on the Work of the Horn Scientific Expedition to Central Australia (1896); Carl Strehlow, Die Aranda- und Loritja-Stämme in Zentral-Australien (1908); W. E. H. Stanner, 'The Dreaming' (1953)