Page 10 - Indiginous Australians

Mary Alp
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‘others’ territory . While active maintenance of sacred sites pay homage to
ancestral spirits, rituals are a re-enactment of the myths whose framework embodies The Dreaming 27 According to Stanner, the traditional Australian Aboriginals lived a life where there was no gap between ideal & reality & where the systems emphasis was on balance & continuity, constancy, symmetry & regularity –‘... the first principle is the preservation of balance. And, arching over it all, is the logos of the Dreaming’. This was the philosophy of assent which
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Pivotal to this balanced society were notions of kinship & reciprocity. Kinship set your place in society – it was the social cement of society – all people were interrelated. Reciprocity ensured your behaviour – for example land that was given in the Dreaming entailed a responsibility to look after that land- you
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This overview of The Dreaming may help us appreciate Indigenous Peoples vital connection to land. This is clearly expressed by an elder speaking about the effects of bulldozing & drilling for diamonds by CRA on his Dreaming Place at Argyle in 1980 -‘Disturbing sacred sites and land is agony for our people. Land & mountains & spring water – the heart of the sacred sites – is really our body. Grader, bulldozer are pressing down our body, liver, kidney bleeding. The spirit of the landowners is sickened. Graders are scraping the skin of our flesh – a sore that will not heal up: in my language, wilu, killing us.’ To take their land is to take their soul...’ 30 (my essay).
Just as Traditional Indigenous Australians were seen by most as ‘primitive’ & their use of land as wasteful, their traditional belief system – The Dreaming - was largely viewed as being irreligious - with beliefs & customs that defied logic – they
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resulted in a society that was ‘homeostasis, far reaching & stable’.
became custodians of that land. Song lines carried the stories.
were seen by many as ‘heathens’
. This stereotyping is updated today with
26 A.P.Elkin 1981, The Australian Aborigines pp 69-71
27 Ibid pp 220 -260.
28 Stanner Ibid, pp38-42.( Stanner, Berndt, Elkin – from my essay Aboriginal Religion).
29 Broome 2019 Ibid p.12.
30 J. Roberts, ‘Massacres to mining: the Colonisation of Aboriginal Australia. P 148. (My essay). 31 C. Strehlow, 1947, xvii; G.Blainey 1975 Ibid. pp198-200.
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