– the diversity of expression of Aboriginal belief systems and spirituality today
Aboriginal culture and history covers a vast amount of time and space. Aboriginal people take great pride in their personal and group identity. They recognise each other as one people. They have been in Australia for over 40 000 years and have developed their way of life in this land. Before European colonisation they had contacted with Muslims now known as Indonesia 230 years ago, they way of life was nomadic or semi-nomadic, surviving through hunting and gathering and using stone tools. Because of this, they were culturally uniform and they had no attachment to the land and made little use of it. Therefore James Cook stated that the continent is ‘terra nullius’ but when he landed he faced spears and fire.
Had several hundred distinct languages (2/3 now extinct), songs, stories, dances, ceremonies, Dreaming and painting are all different depending on their complex law. But even though they are so different, they share cultures such as highly developed, deeply religious and closely associated with nature and the land.
There are over 150 different Aboriginal languages.
ART, expression of belief and sacred representation of the creation and workings of the universe
Rock paintings thousands of years old are believed to be left by ancestor beings
Paintings connect Aboriginal artists with the dreaming
Most is a form of a map of ‘my country’, being abstract, mythological symbols (circles, lines) convey different meanings require deep inside knowledge
STORIES, there is no written literature, but a vast store of oral stories passed from generation to generation with various versions of stories: - amuse children but teach, women have their own, males grow up and told stories which are sacred and powerful.
Certain sites can only be visited by groups/women/elders for initiation.
Stores tell the travels and activities of Dreaming Ancestors, showing their actions in shaping the land and knowing the stories allow them to know the area such as waterholes.
The rainbow serpent is a major symbol for water from sky giving life.
SONG, used to trace ancestral tracks. Each song-cycle has verses recalling actions of one being at a particular site. An integral part of rituals as it accompanies dancing, those who know gains respect and status.
SACRED OBJECTS, incised stone (left by Ancestral beings), carved boards are guarded and only brought out to reinforce oral teachings.
CEREMONIES, 2 types, those occasioned by physical transitions (rites of passage)
Periodic ceremonies unconnected with the life cycle and performed at various intervals for a variety of reasons.
INITIATION, most important event for boys and girls in traditional Aboriginal life
It is a special time when groups gather and celebrate Dreaming events, where sacred rituals symbolise death of a child and birth of adult.
DEATH and BURIAL, believe that spirits of the dead return to the Dreaming Places they had come from, a part of the transition of the life force of dreaming. Often possessions of the dead are destroyed, shelters burned, whole camps moved, even names of the dead are not spoken. Dead buried in their own country and spirits sung to rest.
