The Importance Of Aboriginal Spirituality

During the Frontier period, Indigenous peoples resisted the non-Indigenous settlement of Australia, throughout 1770-1890. During approximately throughout the 1890’s to 1970’s, the non-Indigenous retaliations occurred, resulting in protection, segregation and the stolen generations. Which initiated an ongoing impact on Indigenous communities.

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.

"Aboriginal people are a steady beating heart at the centre of our Australian spiritual identity."

Aboriginal spirituality is directly linked to dreaming. The dreaming is the term which refers to the past, future and present of Aboriginal spirituality. The dreaming grasps the Aboriginal ideas of creation. It is the foundation on which the Aboriginal religion is built upon. The impacts of dispossession on Aboriginal spiritualties concerning separation from the land, the stolen generation and separation from kinship group is discussed. Departure from the land started with the European settlement. It removed the sense of belonging and sense of spiritual identity. One of the first forms of dispossession even date back to when the first fleet arrived in 1778. The removal of Aboriginal people from their land had a detrimental effect on their spirituality

The Dreaming is communicated through songs, stories and rituals, in which is explains how the “creator ancestors shaped the land and brought it to life” (Gammage, 2011, p. 1419). All of life, from religion, geography, life and more, are explained and connected to the Aboriginal people’s spirituality, land and family through this form of communication. The Dreamtime “shapes the Aboriginal people’s view of the universe and themselves” (Wierzbicka & Goddard, 2015, p. 43). The passing on of the Dreaming stories from one generation to the next was a “most important aspect of education” (Edwards, 1998, p. 83) and is seen as the fundamental reality. Edwards stated that through ritual, humans are able to “enter into a direct relationship with

"For Indigenous Australians the land is the core of all spirituality." (www.dreamtime.net.au, 2003, p.1). All land is important in some way, but some places are more sacred than others. These 'sacred

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?

At their centre, all religions have oral/and or written sacred texts, writings or other types of stories. They may be in written form or may be made into images that aid the less educated to understand the significant beliefs of their religion. Some sacred texts are regarded as particularly important, for they have been given to humans in the form of a revelation from God. Ethics can be understood as the explicit, philosophical and/or religious reflection on moral beliefs within a tradition. They are central to any religion.

RE Assignment Term 3 Aboriginal Spirituality Jacob Con Borg 9BU Due Friday the 4th of September 2015 Part 1: Introduction In this presentation, you will learn about the different ways of Aboriginal beliefs & spirituality and the Early Catholic Church in Australia. You will learn and understand about Aboriginal Spirituality both before and after evangelisation, the Early Catholic Church & Education in Australia and a perspective to the movie, Rabbit Proof Fence which indicates how the Christian way of life changed the lives of the Aboriginal people for both better and for worse.

In the world, as a result of colonisation, many Indigenous communities had been impacted intensely. Cunningham, Chris;Stanley, Fiona (2003) defines an indigenous by the experiences shared by a group of people who have inhabited a country for thousands of years, which often contrast with those of other groups of people who reside in the same country for a few hundred years. In 1788 since the European invasion of Australia, for thousands of years the aboriginal peoples have been oppressed into a world unnatural to their existence. This essay will discuss on how most Indigenous peoples have suffered as a result of colonisation. This essay will firstly focus on colonisation of indigenous peoples, when and who was involved in doing so. How the ideologies underpinning colonialism have informed interactions between non-Indigenous and Indigenous peoples will be addressed at a general level. Furthermore, this essay will also discuss a comparison of how each groups of indigenous Australians experienced colonization together with the issue of dispossession from land, cultural and sovereignty and Christianity.

Indigenous peoples possess a variety of unique languages and beliefs and hold a strong relationship with the land. These concepts are interrelated and help build a strong Indigenous community and capture a holistic view of Indigenous health. The World Health Organisation (2012) constructs health as a state of physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease.

The Aborigines had, and still have, a complex belief in creation, spirits and culture, that gives a definite distinctiveness from any other religion in the world. Thousands of years ago, Australian Aboriginal people were living in accordance with their dreamtime beliefs- today, a majority of the Aboriginal community profess allegiance to Christianity, and only 3% still adhere to traditional beliefs. These beliefs have provided the Aboriginal people with guidance and perspective on all aspects of life. There were many variants to these beliefs and practises throughout the many Aboriginal tribal areas, but all Aboriginal people have developed an intimate relationship between themselves and their environment. They see themselves as

For over 200 years Aborigines have endured a long history of suffering due to the unpropitious effects of internationalism and western colonization; in Europeans attempt for cultural assimilation and taking their land to which has caused catastrophic consequences within individuals and the community as a whole by

The early European explorers to Australia, such as William Dampier, who encountered the Aboriginal people for the first time, described the people as the As there were no other accounts to compare his observations to, his versions were widely accepted by other European settlers including Captain James Cook. However, such representation of the indigenous communities as “savages”, “barbaric”, and “underdeveloped,” living lives that were deemed as “the war of all against all,” was in reality a skewed Eurocentric perception based on ignorance of the indigenous culture.

It is arguable that the settlement of the British colonisation resulted in murder, brutality, disrespect and racism for about 200 years for the Aboriginals. Conflicts between the tribes and the settlement resulted in the reduced number of the Aboriginal population. Newly introduced diseases like measles, influenza and smallpox also reduced the population of the aborigines because they didn’t have the immunity power to cope with it. Due to malnutrition, lack of clean water and lack of food supply the Aborigines died because the land which they were driven from, had all the supply they needed. It’s acceptable to say that the settlement misunderstood the Aborigines thinking that they were uncultured, archaic and without the help