Seven Sisters, a dreaming story.

Seven Sisters is a group of stars we call Pleiades visible in the night sky in both the Southern and Northern Hemispheres but to the Australian Aboriginal people they are part of their dreaming.

I have been given many versions of the story but all have common elements to them.

The sisters were out gathering food with their coolamons and digging sticks when two hunters came upon them.

The men were invited to have some food and drink and as they enjoyed the food they could not help but notice the beauty of the sisters and immediately fell in love.

The sisters realised that the men wanted more than the food and drink and began to run away toward the bush from the clearing of their camp.

The spirits of the dreamtime also realised this and lifted the sisters into the sky to prevent them from being caught because the skin groups were wrong for mating. This shows the importance of the right and wrong skin group relationships and that the spirits are always watching.

The men pursued them anyway and you can see the two men at the ends of the group of seven stars, still chasing them through the night sky.

Seven Sisters Aboriginal Dreamtime Home Page