which can last from two years to a generation. This custom also applies to other representations of the dead person, such as verses of songs or places connected with his or her totemic spirit that have to be avoided, and has been extended to photos and films. The Lajamanu community would only use the CD-ROM in school if the images of the dead could be hidden when required. So we had to develop a tool that allows photos of persons who have passed away to be hidden. The users now have the option of hiding photos (replacing them with an icon: the Aboriginal flag) or disclosing them if they wish. The hide photo option can be modified at any time from the screen and stays in place on the hard disk when the computer is switched off and back on. A network of stories The CD-ROM opens with a schematic map representing a selection of 47 Warlpiri sites connected by a network of lines and the following oral explanation: The Central Australian desert is criss-crossed by hundreds of trails connecting springs or rocks. Each trail has stories about the making of the landscape by animal, plant, fire or rain Ancestral Beings. Aboriginal people, Yapa people, call them Jukurrpa, Dreaming Ancestors, the trails of their spiritual Law and Culture. Choose a trail to discover these stories and their rituals. The word Jukurrpa 3 is written in red on the top of the screen as it is a hyperlink. When a mouse is dragged over it, a red card appears with the following text: Dream and Dreaming in Warlpiri language. Also used in other Desert languages (Pitjantjatjara, Pintupi, etc.) to designate the Ancestral Beings, their totemic names, the trails of their travels, the stories about their adventures, and the space-time in which these events are registered for ever and in which they travel in their dreams. Jukurrpa is also the spiritual component that every man and woman shares with a totem (animal, plant or other) one embodies. It designates some of the women’s or men’s sacred objects which are imbued with the Dreaming life-force, Kuruwarri, or spirit-children, Kurruwalpa. The words Dreaming, Kuruwarri and Kurruwalpa are also hyperlinks with red cards showing their definitions. This tool, which directly connects with a Warlpiri language glossary, applies to all Warlpiri words and concepts mentioned in the CD-ROM. When the mouse is dragged over any part of the map, an icon appears on the right- hand side representing the connected totem with its Warlpiri and English name. The fourteen main totemic names of the Lajamanu groups are listed and when the mouse is dragged over one of them, the corresponding lines on the map are highlighted in red to show which places are linked by a trail with this totemic name. The main totemic names refer to Ancestral Beings who are conceptualised as part-animal or plant, or as elements such as fire or wind, or as persons named by cultural objects such as digging sticks or poles. Everything that is named in nature and culture has its Jukurrpa or Dreaming. This principle is eternally present in the Jukurrpa space-time, the virtual memory of the cosmos and the people; all such principles are inscribed on the land as sites created or shaped through imprints left by the eternal Beings. 3 Jukurrpa in Warlpiri is Tjukurrpa in Kukatja and Pintupi.
