Australian Aboriginal Beliefs

It is not easy to find what make people’s identity. The causes are sometimes visible and are sometimes invisible. People often say features of appearance can be identity such as skin colour, hair colour, eyes, and body frame. Other people, however, might say languages, lifestyles, beliefs, and families make identity. In the world, the differences of these things such as appearance and beliefs have been discriminated. Especially, Indigenous people often have been invaded their cultures and lands in the world and because of this, the number of Indigenous people have decreased. The main focus of this essay is Australian Aboriginal people’s identity. Dudgeon, Wright, Paradies, Garvey, and Walker (2010, p. 6) stated: ‘Aboriginality is about descent, culture, upbringing and life experiences. Thus there are many elements which impact on forming Indigenous identity. This essay will discuss that Indigenous Identity is influenced by various surroundings including government, family and cultures. Firstly, it will introduce the author and the book details and background. Secondly, this essay will explain family member impact on identity development. Thirdly, it will also describe the connection between identity and kinship ties. Then, it will explain the connection between identity and Cultural Interface. Finally, it will define the impact of land right on identity.

Religion is a set of beliefs towards life where it helps describe the truth, purpose, lessons and outlook on life and also beliefs toward a higher authority or creator depending on the beliefs. Aboriginal spirituality is the set of beliefs of spiritual traditions and teachings which is passed down orally through the generations and centuries of believers. Buddhism is the set of beliefs of ending personal suffering and discovering happiness in life to achieve the state of nirvana which ends the cycle of reincarnation. Through Aboriginal Spirituality and Buddhism, there are similar themes in beliefs between these religions such as beliefs upon spirits, the circle of balance and afterlife; in which these ideas demonstrate and distinguish the relation between Aboriginal Spirituality and Buddhism.

Understanding how the historical factors have influenced Indigenous Australians helps operationalise the sociological imagination. The history of Indigenous people is important as many of the disadvantages they endure today is connected to the past. A historical awareness influences individuals to understand how organisations and institutions impact the health and wellbeing of a minority (Germov, 2002).The existence of Indigenous Australians well begins before the European invasion and colonisation of Australia. Aboriginal people were the native land owners, as they have been in Australia for over 60,000 years, prior to the British settlement in 1788.3 (workingwithindigenousaustralians.info, 2017). Indigenous Australians have been living off

These philosophical ways of being and abiding by are supported by the Dreamtime. The Dreamtime can be explained as ‘how the world came to be’ for Australia’s First People, centered around ‘how people must conduct their behavior and social relations’ (Broome, 2002, p. 19). There are estimated to be 600 different Indigenous countries that exist amongst the Australian continent, all with different ways of ‘doing’ (Edwards, 1998). The Dreaming is an important way of passing on knowledge, cultural values and belief systems from generation to generation (Australian Government, 2015). The deep connection that Aboriginal people have to their land is also an important concept relation to the concept of The Dreaming. The land is where the events of the dreaming occurred, with the spirit beings of The Dreaming, forming sacred parts of the Australian landscape (Edwards, 1998, p. 81). This spiritual way of being is also linked to elaborate laws of kinship (Phillips, 2005).

Teachers in Australia have the responsibility of catering to the learning needs and abilities of the students in their classroom. Additionally they are also responsible for catering to the unique cultural backgrounds of each student, in particular the cultures of Indigenous Australians. The teacher can cater to the diverse and complex Indigenous cultures by creating a learning environment that is based on effective student engagement for Aboriginal students. Studies have shown that Aboriginal students are currently not academically achieving as well as non-Aboriginal students (What Works: Core Issue 5). Closing the academic performance gap is considered a national priority. As a result, the Aboriginal Cultural Standards Framework has been developed to ensure that schools are delivering the best possible education to all students, specifically those who identify as Aboriginal. During term 3, 2017, I completed my final practicum at Baler Primary School in a year 4 classroom. The students in my class came from a diverse range of cultural backgrounds, many of which identified as Aboriginal. Throughout this essay I will use examples from my final practicum at Baler Primary School in South Hedland to discuss how to make learning engaging, accessible and culturally responsive for Aboriginal students.

Indigenous Australian and Middle Eastern cultures have many similarities when it comes to the factors that influenced their dietary choices throughout history and today. However with these similarities also came many differences as well. Traditions, religion, certain rituals, beliefs, outside influences and historical events were all huge factors that greatly influenced the dietary choices and the future development of each of these two cultures.

The Dreaming can be described as Aboriginal creative epoch and each language group have their own values and beliefs, and what associates with it. (Edwards, 1998, p.79). For example, Kamilaroi of Northern NSWs nation explores the spiritual connections through a name called Baiame, known as ‘All Father” who they believe is the supernatural ancestor and creator of earth. Baiame’s stories of creation are shared from generation to generation of

Throughout Australian history, Aboriginal people have been displaced and mistreated through the course of time, through the separation from their from kinship groups, land and the stolen generation. This has resulted in the connection to their dreaming lost, misconnection and loss of their sacred sites and traditional food from their land. As a consequence of the stolen generation, many aboriginal children were deprived of their parents, families, spirituality, language from their land and their cultural identity. All of these aspects contribute to the continuing effect of dispossession on Aboriginal spiritualities.

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

For Aboriginal Australians, the land has a special significance that is rarely understood by those of European descent. The land, or country, does not only sustain Aborigines in material ways, such as providing food and shelter, it also plays a major role in their spiritual lives. As Rose put it, "Land provides for my physical needs and spiritual needs." (1992, p.106). To use Rose 's own term, to Aboriginals the land is a 'nourishing terrain '. (1996, p.7).

In the last 60,000 years Australian indigenous knowledge has advanced through generations. Unlike western culture where knowledge becomes known through written text 's,Indigenous knowledge is developed by images, words, patterns, sounds, smells and tastes on different canvases such as sand, soil, the body and rocks (Blair 2008). Furthermore, Since British colonisation in 1788 threats to traditional indigenous knowledge existed then and more now in modern society. Main threats include agricultural and industrial developments, territorial pressures including deforestation, social and economic pressures including assimilation, poverty, education, loss of languages,political pressures,the recognition and standing of indigenous traditional knowledge including involvement in policy and legislative development, cultural integrity and globalisation. It is important that these threats are resolved and Indigenous knowledge is contexulizised into our education systems as it can bring a better understanding to Australian indigenous history.It is important that teachers incorporate indiginoues knowledge into classroom as It can also give students the ability to think comprehensively when exploring social problems in the environment and the awareness of the relationship that people share with their environment and also increase understanding and respect of other cultures (Rahman,2013)

Christianity is the major religious tradition today and has been since around 1945. Many of the British who first came to Australia, either as convicts or free settlers were Christians. They formed the huge base for Christianity to rise to the top religion in Australia before they began to let more immigrants enter. In the 1947 census, 88% of the population (not including Aboriginals because they were not considered in the census) stated they were Christian. The remaining 12% was mostly people who didn’t respond to the question. Today not much has changed the percentage of Christians has slightly decreased because of a rise in new religions. In the census of 2011 it is seen that out of 21.5 million people just under half, 42% classed themselves as Christian and around 8% said they were of a different religion. The number of people who said they had no religion was hugely increased at around 25%per cent. Today, even with the growing amount of Islam Buddhism and Hinduism, Christianity still remains the major religious tradition.

To better understand Aboriginals as a Dream Culture I want to give more insight into Aboriginal Australians general culture and their conceptions of “Dream Time.” In his discussion of religion, Mircea Eliade describes a concept of Cosmos vs Chaos (Eliade 1957). In this notion an unordered world is chaotic only until is it transposed during a sacred time: “By occupying it and, above all, by settling in it, man symbolically transforms it into a cosmos though a ritual repetition of the cosmogony” (Eliade 1957:31). In other words until a land is tamed or created it is considered unordered. This can be applied to Aboriginal’s understanding of the world prior to their current presence. Aboriginals believe that in a time before the Dreamings, the land and world was a featureless earth. It was not until the dreamtime, or time of creation: “where there is contact with appearances from both realms of inside the earth itself as from ill-defined upper region” that the earth began to have its composed landscapes (Cowan 1992:26). The Dream Time is not only a period but more of a dimension where ancestral beings moved across the earth and created not only land, but every aspect of the earth including animals, plants, and man. It is important to realize that the ancestors created the natural earth and that is why Aboriginals live a particular lifestyle. Most Aboriginals living in this cosmogony are hunter-gatherer tribes. This aspect of their life can be traced to stem from the idea of

Aboriginals or indigenous Australians are the native people of Australia. Aboriginals were nomadic people who came to Australia about 40,000 – 60,000 years ago from Southeast Asia. Religion is a great part of Aboriginal culture. The essay answers these questions: What do Aboriginals belief? What is a Kinship system? What is Dreaming and Dreamtime? What rituals does Aboriginals have?

Aboriginal people have different approaches to healing one is by using a medicine wheel, another way is using herbs and plants to help heal such as sap and moss for burns or irritation. Another distinct world view is Aboriginals use sweat lodges to pray call on anseters to help heal. I think another distinct world view can be the native tongue, speaking the language wither it be Cree, Deni, Blackfoot, Inuit etc.