Aboriginal Spirituality

Traditional Beliefs:

Traditional Beliefs:

• All elements within the world coexist, physical and spiritual world are connected and linked together

• Aboriginal peoples identity is inextricably connected to the land and Dreaming

• Aboriginal peoples don’t own the land, the land owns them

The Dreaming

• The past, present and future

• Holds Aboriginal view of creation, is the beginning of everything, the beginning of time, creation of life, birth of humanity and ordering of all things

• Regulates kinship, ceremonial life, obligations to land, people and spirits

Dreaming example: Tiddalick the frog

• Story belongs to the Gunaikurnai people

• A water frog swallows all the water in the billabong. The animals make him laugh up the water, so that they can drink the water.

Dreaming example: Red Waratah

• Story belongs to the Djuwin people

• A pigeon gets injured by a hawk, and bleeds out while trying to fly away. She dripped blood onto the white Waratahs and her blood made them red.

Creation

• Ancestral beings = creators, so all creation is significant

• They created rock formations and plants

Creation example: The Rainbow Serpent

Creation example: Djanggawul sisters

• Story from the Yolngu people of Arnhem Land

• Journeyed across the sea and populated the land with plants, animals and people

Kinship

• Specific rules relating to marriage vary from nation to nation, but commonly revolve around clans and moieties

• Kinship is a complex system of relationships

• It enforces rules and regulations

• It is strongly linked to Aboriginal identity

• Kinship defines:

  • Tribes

  • Totemic groups

  • Clans

  • Moieties

• Different Aboriginal tribes are connected through kinship

• Share knowledge about how to care for the environment

• Kinship determines roles within the tribes, i.e.:

  • Who you could talk to

  • Who you could marry

  • What your job was

Totems

• Are animal or natural species that are related to the spirit ancestors of an individual or group of people. They express the connection between a person and creation.

• Children are given totems are ot just before birth. It could come from the mother or father through a spiritual sign linked directly to the spirit/the ancestor that the totem represents

• They can reflect a person’s kinship and which area from which they are descended

• They often symbolise stories in the Dreaming

Totem example: Burrugal

• Belongs to the Gamaragal clan

• Is a Sydney Turpine Ironbark tree

• Reflects the clans spiritual and cultural connection to the are

Sacred Sites

• Aboriginal people believe that were created and shaped into their particular forms during the Dreaming and demonstrate imprints and physical proof of the actions of ancestral ancestral beings

• Sacred sites are places for ritual and ceremony

• Aboriginal people are responsible for the land because of this belief and are obligated to care for it

• They achieve this through sharing responsibilities and obligations, through custodial maintenance of sacred sites and through ceremonies and rituals that are performed at different times of the year

Sacred Sites example: Uluru

• On Anangu land

• It ties in with Aboriginal cultural beliefs

• They believe that their ancestral beings formed the land

Sacred Site example: The Three Sisters

• On Ngurra land

• Significant because the rock formation ties in with the story in the Dreaming, the story of The Three Sisters.

Art and Symbols

• Used for communication

• Usually depicts the bond with the land and activities of ancestral beings, spiritual beliefs and sacred stories from the Dreaming

Art and Symbols example: Moon Rock, Oxford Falls

• 50 engravings depicting the different phases of the moon, tool, weapons used and animals caught and eaten in the area

• On the land of the Guringai people

Diversity of Dreaming: Common beliefs

• Ancestral beings formed the land

• Existence of the Dreaming

• Inextricable link between Dreaming, identity, and land

• Dreaming is past, present and future

• The land is mother

• Aboriginal people are obligated to care for the earth

Diversity of Dreaming: Diversity

• Approximately 900 Aboriginal Nations in Australia

• Dreaming stories differ

• Each nation has a different dialect by which they communicate

• Language differ from nation to nation

• Some groups that are close to each other geographically shared many common elements of the Dreaming stories

• Each area has a particular plant/animal that is used as a totem

• Spirit of ancestor is heavily associated with the totem

• People who share a totem have a kinship with that spirit and are the spiritual owners of that area of land

• Different ceremonies because of different Dreaming, totems and language

• Men and women participate in different ceremonies

• Initiated person is taught the cultural values of their nations

Ceremonies: examples

• Boy = physical procedure

  • circumcision

  • Scarring

  • Removal of a tooth

How everything is connected

Dreaming/Land/Identity example: Caterpillar Dreaming

• Arrernte people of Central Australia

• Explores the formation of the landscape and origins of important sites → caterpillar is the totem → symbolises transformation and renewal