Besi Nikua – Contemporary Aboriginal Spiritualities
GLOSSARY TERMS
“We don’t own the land, the land owns us. The land is my mother, my mother is the land.Land is the starting point to where it all began. It’s like picking up a piece of dirt and saying this is where I started and this is where I’ll go. The land is our food, our culture, our spirit and identity.”
—S. Knight [13]
ABORIGINAL SPIRITUALITIES DETERMINED BY THE DREAMING
Aboriginal spirituality is invariably also about the land Aboriginal people live on. They experience a connection to their land that is unknown to white people. A key feature of Aboriginal spirituality is to look after the land, an obligation which has been passed down as law for thousands of years.
(1)Land/Country:
A term used by Aboriginal people to refer to the land to which they belong and their place of Dreaming. Aboriginal language usage of the word country is much broader than standard English.
(2)Aboriginal:
“Aboriginal” refers to the original indigenous or “first people” of Australia.
(3)Kinship:
An importance part of Indigenous cultures and values. It includes all relationships and being related to and belonging to the land.
(4)Rituals:
A ritual is what an aborigine perform to show respect before they do something like travelling the land. An example would be putting ochre onto your forehead, top of the plams and chests.
(5)Totem:
When an Aborigine is born he/she is linked to usually an animal, That animal is then called his/her totem.
(6)Dreamtime/Dreaming:
the Dreaming relates to a period from the origin of the universe to a time before living memory or experience – a time of creator ancestors and supernatural beings. This time is called the Dream time.
The Dreaming has different meanings for different Aboriginal groups. The Dreaming can be seen as an embodiment of Aboriginal creation which gives meaning to everything. It establishes the rules governing relationships between the people, the land and all things for Aboriginal people.
(8)Elders:
Key person and keepers of various knowledge within Aboriginal communities. The elders are like the leaders of the clan of aborigines. They are also the jury of the courtroom when ever there’s a problem. They are not elected by a group of people but by age, like a family style whereby the parents are “elders”. Except aborigines elders are leaders of a clan or group of families.
(9)Ancestral beings:
the spirits that cannot be seen but the aborigines believe look after them and so many ceremonies are celebrated to please them so that the cycle of living is not interrupted.
(10)Story Telling:
In the language of the aborigines of Australia they dont have any form of writing down into words to be perserved for generations later and so the only way they hand down their knowledge from generation to generation is through the word of mouth. Knowledge told usually in the form of a story like how Uluru was formed.
(11)Ceremonial Life:
To this day, ceremonies play an important part in Aboriginal life. Small ceremonies, or rituals, are still practised in some remote parts of Australia, such as in Arnhem Land and Central Australia, in order to ensure a supply of plant and animal foods. These take the form of chanting, singing, dancing or ritual action to invoke the Ancestral Beings to ensure a good supply of food or rain.
(12)Primary Burial:
When the corpse is layed out on an elevated wooden platform, covered in leaves and branches, and left several months for the flesh to rot away from the bones
(13)Secondary Burial:
When the bones are collected from the platform, painted with red ochre, and then dispersed in different ways.
DISPOSSESSION & LAND RIGHTS MOVEMENT
(14)Dispossession:
The eviction of someone or group of people from the possession of land by process of law.
(15)Terra Nullus:
A concept in international law meaning ‘a territory belonging to no-one’ or ‘over which no-one claims ownership’. The concept is related to the legal acceptance of occupation as an original means of peacefully acquiring territory. However, a fundamental condition of a valid occupation is that the territory should belong to no-one. The concept has been used to justify the colonisation of Australia. The High Court decision of 1992 rejected terra nullus and recognises Indigenous native title.
(16)Land Rights:
The struggle by Aboriginal people to gain acknowledgment of prior ownership of this land both legally and morally and allowing all the accompanying rights and obligations which stem from this association.
(17)Stolen Generations:
The generations of children who were taken from their families became known as the Stolen Generations.
(18)Colonialism:
The forcible takeover of the land of indigenous people and the exploitation of the land and the people, ignoring the rights of indigenous people.
(19)Assimilation:
A 19th century idea that Indigenous people should be ‘improved’ by being ‘civilised’ and becoming Christians and learning how to work as Europeans did. From the 1930s assimilation became government policy.
“Think white, act white, and be white.”
IMPORTANCE FOR LAND RIGHTS MOVEMENT
(20)Native Title:
Form of land title which recognises Aboriginal people as rightful owners of that land.
(21)Mabo Case (vs Queensland):
The High court decision on the 3rd of June 1992 in which the the term “Terra nullius” which means land to belonging to no one was extinguished. this was a historic moment for the aboriginal people whose life were made miserable in the nearly 200 years existence of this word.
(22)Wik Case (vs Queensland):
The High court decision on the 23rd of December 1996 which found that statutory pastoral leases could co-exist with native title. This means that aborigines could gather food, medicine and perform ceremonies on these lands.
ACTIVITY FOR GLOSSARY TERMS
__(1)__ is a term used by the indegenous Australians when they are reffering to their land of which they belong. The first people or __(2)__ of Australia are the original owners.
___(3)____ plays an important role in Indigenous cultures and values. Aboriginals also perform dances that are __(4)__ used to show respect before they do something like travelling the land.
The ____(5)____ however relates to a period from the origin of the universe to a time before living memory or experience – a time of creator ____(9)____. This time is called the Dream time. The ____(10)___ of dreams are passed down by the ___(8)___ of each tribe.
Land Rights Movement:
The eviction of someone or group of people from the possession of land by process of law is also known as ____(14)___.
“Land belonging to noone”.. ____(15)____.
The generations of children who were taken from their families became known as the ____(16)____.
___(20)___ is the form of land title which recognises Aboriginal people as rightful owners of that land.
Two significant cases which contributed to the Indigenous land rights movement are ____(21)____ & ___(22)___.
SHORT ANSWER QUESTIONS
Q(1) Native title became very signifigant to the Indigenous Australians due to the land rights movement. Which two famous cases contributed to the Land Rights Movement, and how?
suggested Answer: In the 1990s the Mabo and Wik High Court rulings found that common law recognised the pre-existing rights of indigenous people.
Despite this, the Wik decision led to an hysterical attack from pastoralists and conservative leaders, who demanded that native title be extinguished, or wiped out, on pastoral leases. The Howard Government used the decision as an excuse to severely attack native title rights with its Native Title Amendment Bill, based on the so-called Ten Point Plan for native title.
The Wik decision was significant not only because it recognised native title rights on pastoral leases, but also because these leases cover a vast area – some 42% of the Australian land mass. The coexistence of native title provides the means whereby thousands of Aboriginal people, previously the backbone of the grazing industry, who were locked off cattle and sheep stations in the late 1960s and early 1970s, may gain some rights to their traditional lands.
Q(2) What was the effect of dispossession on Aboriginal Spiritualities in relation to the seperation from their land and kinship groups, as well as the Stolen Generation?
suggested Answer: Dispossession effected the Aboriginal Spiritualities greatly due to the seperation from their land, as the land gave them great importance and meaning. They were well and truely one as a community even with the seperate clans with the land as their beliefs and practices were soley based on what the Australian grounds had to offer. They worshiped it as a living God. Sacred places were also seen as untouched, holy grounds that were not accessable no matter what reason you had to offer. Unlike other religions, the dreamtime was based on the creation and how the earth came to be, including rivers, lakes etc. Therefore when they were deprived from this connection, kinship groups fell apart.
The Stolen generation also contributed greatly to the braekdown of the Aboriginal Spirituality as it was a period in time where children were taken from their own homes in order to somehow outgrow their kind. Numerous policies were introduced such as the Assimilation policy. This Policy, among others aimed to destroy their culture and race as a whole, eventually. Therefore dispossession affected the Aboriginal Spirituality greatly.
RELEVANT/USEFUL SITES THAT RELATE TO ‘CONTEMPORARY ABORIGINAL SPIRITUALITIES’
http://www.aboriginalartstore.com.au/aboriginal-art-culture/aboriginal-dreamtime.php
This website is relevant to Contemporary Aboriginal Spirituality as it explains the Dreaming and the dreamtime in very basic, easy to understand language.
http://reconciliaction.org.au/nsw/education-kit/stolen-generations/
This website is relevant to Contemporary Aboriginal Spirituality as it has facts on the Previous Australian Policies, including the era of the Stolen Generations which all evidently contributes to this topic and how it enriched the spirituality movement for the Aboriginal people.
This website is relevant to Contemporary Aboriginal Spirituality as it has further glossary terms on this topic and uses more detail on these different concepts and traditions.
VISUALS
(Photo: Aboriginal Ceremony Site, © 2011 Central Art)
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