Oral traditions are traditions passed down by the word of the mouth.

These
include stories, poems, and myths. My grandfather used to tell marvellous
stories according to my mum. But my mum can’t remember any of them - and
repeats the same one every time we ask for a different story. We also tend to
get together and invite our family and friends for events like birthdays,
Christmas, and Easter. The food is vastly the same at every event and we do
very cliché things every time.

The well-known aboriginal dreamtime creation story of ‘The Rainbow Serpent’

is a great example of oral tradition. Oral tradition is important to them because
if they don’t pass it down it will get lost. In this story, the rainbow serpent
creates water and in turn causes trees and vegetation to grow. He gave them
law and if they obeyed, they were turned into humans and if they disobeyed,
they were turned into mountains and plains. This story is important to
Indigenous people because it is their story on how the world was created and
this varies across different tribes but vastly remain the same. It is said if they
don’t praise and make themselves known when approaching a water hole – the
serpent will get angry and deny them rain.