Ocean of Origins

Ocean of Origins: Myths, Makers, and Ancestral Worlds Across the Pacific is a sweeping exploration of how communities across Oceania and Aboriginal Australia understand the beginnings of the world and their place within it. This project brings together scholars, storytellers, and cultural interpreters to illuminate the living cosmologies that shape the Pacific, revealing a region where creation is not a single moment in the distant past but an ongoing relationship between people, ancestors, land, sea, and sky. Through richly detailed essays, the book traces the pathways of ancestral beings, the shaping of landscapes through mythic movement, and the deep intellectual traditions carried in navigation, ceremony, and story.

At its heart, the project seeks to honor the diversity of Pacific world‑making while highlighting the resonances that connect these traditions across vast distances. It presents the Pacific not as a collection of isolated islands but as a vibrant, interconnected cosmos animated by memory, movement, and meaning. By weaving together Dreaming geographies, voyaging genealogies, spirit realms, and star paths, Ocean of Origins offers readers a way to see the world as alive, relational, and responsive. It is both a scholarly contribution and a celebration of Indigenous knowledge, inviting readers to listen more closely to the stories that continue to shape the Pacific and the living world beyond it.