Analysis Of Dreamtime: The Myth Of The Rainbow Serpent

One of the most important myths of the Huichols Indians is about the creation of the world. These types of myths are categorized as origin myths which “are typically the most sacred of a culture’s myths and provide the foundation upon which other myths are built” (Lindell “Professor’s Notes 4” 2). The article “Journey of Grandmother Rain” by Jack Eidt tells the story about the first humans, the creation of the land, and the creation of the sun. From a structuralist perspective, the binary opposition that shapes the worldview of the Huichol Indians is apparent in this origin myth. According to Eidt, in the Huichol origin myth the first human, named Watacame, and his black female dog, Tziku Mayuri, had to “withstand five days of monsoons, wind, waves, flooding and storming” (Eidt). After Watacame had successfully survived the storm, the Goddess Takutzi Nakawe (Grandmother Rain)

Bias of specific cultures and their religions is a critical issue to the study of religion. Islam is an example that resounds within the United States and throughout the world. Islam is a religion that

When most western people think about Native American or African religions there is a certain stigma that comes with the topic. This is in part because there is a lot of misinformation in the world about Native American and African religions. When most westerners think of African religions they think of voodoo and black magic. Likewise, the view of Native American religions is still looked at through the lens of the pilgrims who wrote about Native Americans as being savages and less than human. These stereotypes were all formed from a lack of accurate information. African and Native American religions are very similar. It is difficult to find a lot of accurate information on African and Native American indigenous religions because of the lack of written history but there is a lot of oral history that has been passed down from generation to generation. From this information, it is clear that Native American and African religions have many more similarities than they do differences. Three of these similarities will be discussed in this paper. The first topic of discussion is the similarity between African and Native American people when it comes to their perception of the spirit world. Following this topic are the similarities between Native American and African views on the afterlife and finally, the diversity of beliefs within African and Native American religions.

Serpents also play a big role in both the epic and in Genesis. It says in Genesis 3:1-5, “Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” 4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”” The serpent in

All aboriginals are linked to the Dreamtime through their totemic creation ancestors, whose stories are passed on through generations. Just as they would care for their family or tribe, they are obliged to care for their ancestral spirits existing in their land. It is important to remember that ancestral spirits are not necessarily ‘Gods’, but instead they are natural features of the land. As the Ancestor Spirits travelled the land, they taught the Law. When Aboriginals say they have a spiritual connection to the land, this relationship exists through the Law developed at the period of formation that includes a system of totemism. A totemic being represents the original form of an animal, plant or other object as it was in the Creation Period. The Kumbumerri Yugambeh people’s totem is the Eagle. ‘What is meant by totemism in Aboriginal Australia is always a mystical connection, expressed by symbolic devices and maintained by rules, between living persons, whether as individuals or as groups or as stocks, and other existents—their ‘totems’ —within an ontology of life that in Aboriginal understanding depends for order and continuity on maintaining the identities and associations which exemplify the connection.’ (5.3) Totems not only create a sense of belonging and spiritual connectedness to the land and others in the tribe, but they also offer hints to the person's

trial to a sports game undermines the seriousness of law and order in the San

Spirituality often can be classified to an ultimate or immaterial reality or inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of their being; or the deepest values and meanings by which people live. This can be true for the aboriginal people, whose concept of spirituality is derived from the concept of the Dreaming, where the roots lie in a variety of stories, ceremonies, values and structures. In the beginning many people held on to what ever they could, holding on to their idea of themselves a connection to the families that they left behind. However, in order to wipe away any thought or lingering feelings “many masks, regalia. And ritual artifacts were confiscated and burned as pagan works of the devil- or simply held and later sold for profit.”[7] This was devastating as many lost whatever connection they had to the outside world, their families and their spirituality. While in residential schools “Children were taught that the beliefs of their

Before the European invasion in the 1700’s, Indigenous Australians lived in tribes all over the country, with an estimated population of 750,000 people (Australian Museum, 2013). By 1901, less than 100,000 remained. Their deeply rooted belief and spiritual system, known as the Dreaming, was a

The Aboriginal culture believes that their land was was created by the ancestor spirit of the dreaming, and people were formed by that land and are connected and linked to it. This relationship to their land gives them their social identity and connects them within their clan. The loss of their language and mother tongue has made it extremely impossible to pass on beliefs and traditions in an authentic way.

The Aboriginal Dreaming refers to the religious and spiritual beliefs of the aboriginal people of Australia. The dreaming is what they base their traditional lives around, the dreaming determines their values and beliefs and their relationships with the animals, plants and environment around them. The Dreaming tells the stories that explain their views and beliefs on how the world came to be and its history and the totems which represent each historical factor of the dreaming. The dreaming stories explain how the Spirit Ancestors made the trees, rocks, waterholes, and rivers, mountains and stars as well as the animals and plants, and which spirits

Aboriginal spirituality has it that the spirits of unborn children (jilmas) are present in the land, usually in sacred waterholes. By dreaming, the child 's father brings its spirit into the mother 's body. Children are not born from the physical joining of the parents, but from the spiritual joining of both the parents and the land. From this, we can see that Aboriginals attribute their very existence to the land.

In summary, there are many benefits and drawback to the academic study of religion from the outsider’s point of view. Benefits can include factors such as gaining a new understanding of a religion or being able to gain an unbiased perspective. Drawbacks, however, include factors such as an ethnocentric point of view of an individual or simply missing minute details in a belief of religion. When everything has been said and done, I do believe that the outsider’s perspective on the study of religion is very important and something that should always be

Indigenous religions exist in every climate around the world and exhibit a wide range of differences in their stories, language, customs, and views of the afterlife. Within indigenous communities, religion, social behavior, art, and music are so intertwined that their religion is a significant part of their culture and virtually inseparable from it. These religions originally developed and thrived in isolation from one another and are some of the earliest examples of religious practice and belief. The modern world; however, has taken its toll on these groups and many of their stories, customs, and beliefs have been lost to, or replaced by, those brought in as a result of popular culture and the missionary work of Christians and Muslims.

It is clear from these beliefs that spirituality and religion played a major role in the Aboriginal culture. There were many myths and rituals connected to both the tribe's ancestors and the creators of the world, none of whom ever died but merged with the natural world and thus remained a part of the present. These myths and rituals, signifying communion with nature and the past, were known as the Dreaming or the Dreamtime, and reflected a belief in the continuity of existence and harmony with the world.

Animism derives from the Latin word anima which means soul, spirit, life or breath (Overseas Missionary Fellowship (OMF) International, n.d.). Animism is the belief that non-living objects have souls (life) and those natural phenomena possess supernatural or magical power. Animism encompasses the beliefs that there is no separation between the spiritual and physical or material world. Animism believes that natural physical entities which include animals, plants, and even inanimate objects such as forest, mountains, rivers or village and phenomena possess a spiritual essence. Most Animists even be certain that human beings are spiritual at their core and they will become spirits too in the spirit world upon their physical death (Davis, 2011). The power of the spirits infuses everything. Therefore, the term “animism” can be summed up by “belief in spiritual beings”. It can also be summarized as “all that exists lives” and, sometimes, “all that lives is holy” (Taylor, 2005).