Aboriginal History, questions.?

Question

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analyse the function of storytelling in aboriginal culture

Answer 1

ABORIGINAL CULTURE-



Australian Aboriginals are still one of the least understood people in the world. Since the nineteenth century they have been singled out as the planet's most primitive culture, the living representation of man kind's ancestors. In reality Aboriginal culture is complex, forming a subtle yet dynamic and rich way of life.



Small local groups form the basis of Aboriginal society. By sharing economic and ceremonial dealings with other groups they keep a close kinship and marriage ties with a vast network of others. With these relationships comes rights, obligations and appropriate ways of behaving.



Inheritance is central in the granting of ceremonial and territorial rights and responsibilities. A daughter and a son inherit one type of rights through their father, which in Warlpiri and other Central Australian languages classify them as 'Kirda'. Inheritance from the mothers line makes them 'Kurdungurlu'. Thus for any given Dreaming site there is a set of Kirda and a set of Kurdungurlu. If a woman is Kirda for her father's country, for example, the children of her mothers brother will be Kurdungurlu for that same area.



Kirda, 'own' given countries have primary economic and spiritual rights in them. Kurdungurlu are guardians for the countries owned by Kirda. They ensure that the Kirda fulfil their social and ritual obligations with respect to their Dreaming Sites and that access to economic recourse's is maintained. During ceremony Kirda and Kurdungurlu interact closely through complementary roles.



The attainment of religious knowledge begins with initiation during adolescence and becomes a lifelong quest. Both men and women have specific religious ceremonies and hold particular segments of mythical information. Through participation in rituals people learn more about their Dreaming Stories and associated designs, songs and dances. Some of these ceremonies are secret (closed) and some are public (open).



When Europeans arrived in Australia they took control of the land and collected Aboriginal people on to communities. Being removed from their traditional lands, diverted the focus of Aboriginal Spirituality.



It is only since 1972 with land rights legislation and more recently the Mabo Legislation, that certain land has been returned to Aboriginal owners and policies of self management introduced. Many Aboriginals have moved away from the large settlements to establish smaller more homogenous communities on land to which they have traditional ties. Despite enormous pressure exerted on it, Aboriginal culture has retained it uniqueness and much of its strength

Answer 2

Dreamtime

The traditions and lore of Australia's indigenous peoples belongs to what may be the oldest continuous culture on Earth (circa 50,000 years). Indigenous Australian peoples conceive of all things beginning with The Dreaming or Altjeringa (also called the Dreamtime), a sacred 'once upon a time' time out of time in which ancestral Totemic Spirit Beings formed The Creation.

Fred Alan Wolf opens chapter nine of The Dreaming Universe (1994) entitled The Dreamtime with a quote from The Last Wave, a film by Peter Weir:

Aboriginals believe in two forms of time. Two parallel streams of activity. One is the daily objective activity ... The other is an infinite spiritual cycle called the "dreamtime," more real than reality itself. Whatever happens in the dreamtime establishes the values, symbols, and laws of Aboriginal society. Some people of unusual spiritual powers have contact with the dreamtime.



Dreamtime and The Dreaming

"Dreaming" is also often used to refer to an individual's or group's set of beliefs or spirituality. For instance, an Indigenous Australian might say that they have Kangaroo Dreaming, or Shark Dreaming, or Honey Ant Dreaming, or any combination of Dreamings pertinent to their "country". However, many Indigenous Australians also refer to the creation time as "The Dreaming". The Dreamtime laid down the patterns of life for the Aboriginal people. "The Dreaming" was the time of creation.

Dreaming stories vary throughout Australia, and there are different versions on the same theme. For example, the story of how the birds got their colours is different in New South Wales and in Western Australia. Stories cover many themes and topics, as there are stories about creation of sacred places, land, people, animals and plants, law and custom. It is a complex network of knowledge, faith, and practices that derive from stories of creation, and which pervades and informs all spiritual and physical aspects of an indigenous Australian's life.

They believe that every person in an essential way exists eternally in the Dreaming. This eternal part existed before the life of the individual begins, and continues to exist when the life of the individual ends. Both before and after life, it is believed that this spirit-child exists in the Dreaming and is only initiated into life by being born through a mother. The spirit of the child is culturally understood to enter the developing foetus during the 5th month of pregnancy. When the mother felt the child move in the womb for the first time, it was thought that this was the work of the spirit of the land in which the mother then stood. Upon birth, the child was considered to be a special custodian of that part of their country and taught of the stories and songlines of that place. As Wolf (1994: p.14) states: "A black 'fella' may regard his totem or the place from which his spirit came as his Dreaming. He may also regard tribal law as his Dreaming."

Traditional Australian indigenous peoples embrace all phenomena and life as part of a vast and complex system-reticulum of relationships which can be traced directly back to the ancestral Totemic Spirit Beings of The Dreaming. This structure of relations, including food taboos, was important to the maintenance of the biological diversity of the indigenous environment and may have contributed to the prevention of overhunting of particular species.



http://dl.screenaustralia.gov.au/tag/The+Dreaming/

http://www.dreamhawk.com/oz.htm

Answer 3

this might count on the definition of stability and nature. Aboriginees did substitute nature via burning u . s . a . to inspire grazing via kangaroos on the hot develop. additionally via burning to herd animals to help searching. there have been no longer many aboriginees so as they had much less effect on nature than if their numbers have been the comparable by means of fact the present inhabitants of Australia.