Indigenous People of Australia

“Aborigine”

The Land

Topography

• The indigenous people of Australia are from the land, honor the land and are one with the land.

• The Island of Australia is enourmouse and contains various habitats such as….

Desert

Jungle

Mountains, Forest and Sea

History of Culture

• Oldest surviving culture in the world• Stone tool technology and paintings dating back

60,000 years. • Never developed an iron age, or pottery. • Technology did not really progress along with other

parts of the world.• Did not build monuments, did not farm animals or

cultivate crops.• They were and some still are Nomads who always

carried what few belongings they had with them and this is why they know the land and the forest so well.

Longest Continuing Religion in the World!

• Rainbow Serpent mythology.

• Carved into stone over 7000 years ago in the Kakadu National Park region.

Dreamtime (The Time before Time)

• When ancestral beings moved acreoss the land and created life and significant geographical features.

• Purpose: To pass on important knowledge, cultural values and belief systems to later generations.

• Expressed through song, dance, painting and storytelling.

• Maintain the link today.

Our story is the land… it is written in those sacred places… My children will look after those places.

• The stories vary by region.

• Often linked to lessons to be learned or moral tale about creation period deities, animals, plants and other beings.

• Creation Beings

• Ancestral Beings

• Totemic Beings

Creation Beings

Many are involved in the creation of the people, the land and the aspects of the environment. Usually in red or yellow and white.

Ancestral Beings

In many examples, these dieties are regarded as the direct ancestors of the people living today. Ancestor BeingsAncestor HerosOr Dreamtime Ancestors.

Taught people how to make tools and wapons, hunt and collect food and laws of ceremony.

Totemic Beings

• A totemic Being represents the original form of an animal, plant or other object/totem as it was in Dreamtime.

• People see themselves as being derived from different totemic beings

• Each person comes from at least one Totemic Being and these help define a person’s origin and connection to the world their past present and their future.

X-Ray Style.

Ancestors

Mimi Spirits:"The Mimi are tall, thin beings that live in the rocky escarpment of northern Australia as spirits. Before the coming of Aboriginal people they had human forms. The Mimi are generally harmless but on occasions can be mischievous.

"When Aboriginal people first came to northern Australia, the Mimi taught them how to hunt and cook kangaroos and other animals. They also did the first rock paintings and taught Aboriginal people how to paint.”

Ceremonial LifeCeremonies and rituals are an important part of daily life.

• Ensure a supply of plant and animal foods

• MOST IMPORTANT: The initiation of boys and girls into adulthood. (Days or Weeks)

• Funerals

Take the form of ChantingSingingRitual action to invoke the Ancestral BeingStory TellingBody painting and decoration

Burial Practices vary throughout Australia 2 stage

1) Laid out on a elevated wooden platform and covered with leaves and branches for several months.

2) Bones are collected painted with red ochre and then dispersed in different ways.

3) Sometimes carried, wrapped in paperbark and deposited in a cave shelters or left to disintegrate over time or sometimes left a designated places in hollowed trees in the bushland

History of Separation and Oppression