SOR1 Notes – All Topics – Aboriginal Spirituality, Post 1945 & More

Resource Description

ABORIGINAL SPIRITUALITY NOTES

Discuss how Aboriginal spirituality is determined by the Dreaming Dreaming – refers to all that is known and understood by Aboriginal people. • It is a complex network of knowledge, faith and practices that dominates all spiritual and physical aspects of Aboriginal life. • The Dreaming provides Aboriginal people with this network of knowledge → therefore, it determines; beliefs, values, and relationships with other people and the environment itself • It is a metatemporal concept – meaning the past, present and future existing together. • In being metatemporal – the Dreaming explains how things were made, how they are now, and how they will be in the future • The Dreaming = provides the knowledge to live within the totality of life • Aboriginal Spirituality = regards the totality of life • The Dreaming → Aboriginal Spirituality • Expresses tangibly the complicated system of relationships, rights and obligations (traced to ancestral beings) • Embedded in all aspects of Aboriginal life • Expressed both personally and communally (dance, song, story) • Establishes rules governing people and all things • Life-long importance – passing on for generations is essential to the survival of culture • Dreaming provides the basis upon which kinship, rituals and ceremonies are built • Aboriginal worldview: one’s cultural identity has emerged from the creation stories “The Dreaming means our identity as people. The cultural teaching and everything, that’s part of our lives here… it’s the understanding of what we have around us.” – Merv Penrith • Kinship Kinship for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is the fabric of traditional Aboriginal society, defining where a person fits into their community. • Kinship system – networks of relationships governing interactions between members of Aboriginal language groups • Kinship is the system established by the Dreamings to maintain harmony and balance between people and their country • Kinship is determined by both family relationships and a person’s totem – as a totem is a connection with the ancestor spirits = Land and Dreaming • Totems – unifies the clan under the leadership and responsibilities linked to that totem and connects them to the Dreaming. • A totem is best described as a representation of an individual person as that person existed in the Dreaming • Kinship provides a framework for living which is defined by the Dreaming • Kinship influences basic social interrelationships: how one can refer to another person, who one could marry, who one can talk to and not • The Aboriginal kinship system refers to more than just immediate biological family • It is a system that allows individual naming for up to 70 relationship terms in some tribes • The children of your mother’s sister are also brothers/sisters • Children are raised by a variety of individuals, not just their biological parents • an individual has many mothers/fathers, brothers/sisters, uncles/aunties who are not necessarily blood related • Kinship = provides the knowledge and support to live within the totality of life • Aboriginal Spirituality = is about the totality of life • Kinship → Aboriginal Spirituality