There are many groups of aboriginals, all diverse and individual in their own way and there are around 230 aboriginal languages that have been counted. Aboriginal's have the oldest living culture in the world these people have been living in Australia for approximately 40,000 years.
Beliefs
Aboriginal people teach their beliefs orally. Their beliefs comes in a lot of forms for instance: sacred oral texts, stories, body art, ceremonial dances and through art at sacred sites. Aboriginal spiritual beliefs and traditions demonstrates the laws that allows aboriginal people to live in an isolated continent with harsh heat. A key belief in Aboriginal culture is: what comes from the land must be used and given back to the land. This is a sacred belief that shows that aboriginal people care about Australia and are linked to the land.
Kanyini
Ngura: A sense of belonging to home and land.
Walytja: Family connecting with life.
Kurunpa: Love, spirit or soul.
Tjuukurpa: The belief about creation and the right way to live.
Kanyini
Ngura: A sense of belonging to home and land.
Walytja: Family connecting with life.
Kurunpa: Love, spirit or soul.
Tjuukurpa: The belief about creation and the right way to live.
myths and other stories
Aboriginal Australian myths are expressions of beliefs of; how the world and people came into existence?, how the world has become and is currently?, and how they relate to their land? This is the law they must follow. All these myths come from the ancestral spirit beings of the Dreaming. Many of these spirits are in animal or other form, and so it furthers totemic connections with the human beings who descend from them. Sometimes myths are told as stories, sometimes they are pictures in paintings on bark or rock-faces, but more usually they are sung and danced, acted out in rituals.
Dreaming
Sometimes Aboriginal dreaming is mistaken for the European 'dreamtime', signalling the end of the dreaming period but in fact the dreaming is ongoing. Sacred stories of Aboriginal people are in a timeless world and all activities of spiritual beings are celebrated. Spirit-beings usually come in dreams and are obviously different to the average dream.
The Rainbow Serpent
This story is about an awe-inspiring dreaming spirit that could create land and waterway. Scholars also suggest that the myth has to do with the rise and falling of sea-levels before, during and after the ice-ages. This shows the religious connection and relationship between the aboriginal religious community and the environment they live in.
Dreaming
Sometimes Aboriginal dreaming is mistaken for the European 'dreamtime', signalling the end of the dreaming period but in fact the dreaming is ongoing. Sacred stories of Aboriginal people are in a timeless world and all activities of spiritual beings are celebrated. Spirit-beings usually come in dreams and are obviously different to the average dream.
The Rainbow Serpent
This story is about an awe-inspiring dreaming spirit that could create land and waterway. Scholars also suggest that the myth has to do with the rise and falling of sea-levels before, during and after the ice-ages. This shows the religious connection and relationship between the aboriginal religious community and the environment they live in.
Sacred texts and other religious writings
Aboriginal people do not have sacred text and other religious writings because their culture has come through the ages orally. Elders to young aboriginal people have told and passed on sacred stories such as the rainbow serpent, that answer the big questions.
Rituals
Rituals are organised and led by the songmen, the custodians and sometimes inventors (and more strictly, communicators from the spirit world) of the songs and dances used in rituals. No one simply makes up a sacred song or ritual, they come from the Dreaming by tradition, are borrowed from other groups dreaming. There are female ritual leaders who organise women-only rituals, or parts of common rituals. There are all kinds of Aboriginal rituals. They each follow a set pattern of celebration. Sometimes the meaning of rituals have been lost in time due to several causes such as the first settlers. Nevertheless society today tries to protect traditional aboriginal ceremonies and rituals and try to make sure it is not a lost culture.
Smoking Ceremony
This ritual in traditional aboriginal context is between people in groups. It is often done by traditional healers and elders in the community. This is a 1 on 1 process and is done to heal and cleanse the body of bad thoughts and to fend off evil spirits. Sometimes the smoking ceremony is done with non-aboriginal people which would usually be an acknowledgement of the traditional owners of the land.
Initiation
This ritual is done when children finally move into the world of adulthood. Girls coming to adulthood are initiated by doing something in relation to them caring for the land, as well as procreative and social functions. Whereas ,boys have to be made into men, but these rituals can be prolonged and painful. In some aboriginal cultures men have to go on a hunting trip which could last days and bring home a ‘roo to prove their manhood. Men who don’t bring one home will be shamed. Both rituals of initiation are kept secret from the other gender and is not to be questioned. The initiations are called women’s business for women and men’s business for men.
Mortuary Rites: Death rituals are not matters of a single event. They are often over months and even years, until the person's passage into the next life is complete and the living have had time to adjust. The community of the person who died will often refer to the person’s name as Kumin and anyone else with the same name as the person who died with also be called Kumin until the passing of the dead person from this life into the next is complete. The community will also sweep where the person has been in their life and what they have touched to clear their spirit from earth and so that nothing is keeping them from moving on to the next life.
Cultic Rituals: Many aboriginal rituals relate to spirit beings but are not associated with a life crisis. They might celebrate the actions of the creator spirits of a clan or group of clans.
Rituals of Reconciliation: These are designed to reduce inter- and intra-group tensions and conflicts
Magico-religious rituals: These rituals emphasise techniques, of an incarnation or ritual action to produce a predictable effect. These include healing rituals, harming rituals or sorcery, love-magic rituals and rain-making rituals
Smoking Ceremony
This ritual in traditional aboriginal context is between people in groups. It is often done by traditional healers and elders in the community. This is a 1 on 1 process and is done to heal and cleanse the body of bad thoughts and to fend off evil spirits. Sometimes the smoking ceremony is done with non-aboriginal people which would usually be an acknowledgement of the traditional owners of the land.
Initiation
This ritual is done when children finally move into the world of adulthood. Girls coming to adulthood are initiated by doing something in relation to them caring for the land, as well as procreative and social functions. Whereas ,boys have to be made into men, but these rituals can be prolonged and painful. In some aboriginal cultures men have to go on a hunting trip which could last days and bring home a ‘roo to prove their manhood. Men who don’t bring one home will be shamed. Both rituals of initiation are kept secret from the other gender and is not to be questioned. The initiations are called women’s business for women and men’s business for men.
Mortuary Rites: Death rituals are not matters of a single event. They are often over months and even years, until the person's passage into the next life is complete and the living have had time to adjust. The community of the person who died will often refer to the person’s name as Kumin and anyone else with the same name as the person who died with also be called Kumin until the passing of the dead person from this life into the next is complete. The community will also sweep where the person has been in their life and what they have touched to clear their spirit from earth and so that nothing is keeping them from moving on to the next life.
Cultic Rituals: Many aboriginal rituals relate to spirit beings but are not associated with a life crisis. They might celebrate the actions of the creator spirits of a clan or group of clans.
Rituals of Reconciliation: These are designed to reduce inter- and intra-group tensions and conflicts
Magico-religious rituals: These rituals emphasise techniques, of an incarnation or ritual action to produce a predictable effect. These include healing rituals, harming rituals or sorcery, love-magic rituals and rain-making rituals
Symbols
Symbols refer to something beyond their surface meaning.
A painting of a kangaroo may not just be a kangaroo, but an ancestral creator spirit. An arrangement of circles, dots and lines may be a map of the "Dreaming tracks" followed by spirit beings. An abstract design may be the mark of a particular clan or totemic group. Some symbols have different meanings. The background colour might represent a particular moiety. A series of a concentric circles may indicate a tree, a waterhole, a sexual organ, a campfire or a footprint or more than one of these at once, since there are often different levels of meanings. These symbols and many more are used in caves, on objects during rituals and even on people during rituals. |
Social Structure
Every aspect of Aboriginal Australian society is infused with religious meaning that went unquestioned for thousands of years. Traditionally, Aboriginal Australian society is governed by a system of Elders. There are male Elders for men's business and female elders for women's business. The Elders play a role in disputing resolutions to offenses concerning sacred things, such as people accidentally witnessing a ritual they shouldn't. They also have a role in initiating people into aspects of religion and spirituality.
ethical Principles and Oral/Written codes of Behaviour
The basis of Aboriginal spirituality is the land. Giving back to the land what the land gives us. To look after the land because the land gives everything, “the earth is our mother, we are born from her, provides for us” Kanynini Video. Therefore Aboriginal people believe that all land is sacred and anyone can share the land it is open for everyone, this is why Aboriginal people were confused when the White Settlers came and "took" their land. It is 'law that we are all equal, belong to it, part of it, can’t take it away from us' says Vickie Clark.
Religious Experience
For some like Vickie Walker going back to the country that her ancestors call home is a religious experience. It is one that non-aboriginals cannot fully understand and comprehend. A religious experience for a lot aboriginals is dreaming and the presence of spirits, it gives them wholeness and puts holiness into their life. To know ones life purpose one must go through initiation rituals which can also be a religious experience. Sometimes an aboriginal person will have personal dreams that will let them know whether they have the power to heal illness or protect their group from harm. Before one (aboriginal person) becomes a healer they must have come from a generation of healers and have had a sign (from a dream). One woman in Santa Teresa, NT called Mia told of her religious experience through a dream when she was a young girl and how she became a healer in her community.