What do Aboriginal spirituality believe in?
Aboriginal spirituality is the belief that all objects are living and share the same soul or spirit that Aboriginals share. This is a very fundamental statement about Aboriginal spirituality. It implies that besides animals and plants even rocks have a soul.
Aboriginal people express and identify with their spirituality in different ways. These include ceremony (corroborees), rituals, totems, paintings, storytelling, community gathering, dance, songs, dreamings and designs.
In Australian Aboriginal mythology, Baiame (or Biame, Baayami, Baayama or Byamee) was the creator god and sky father in the Dreaming of several Aboriginal Australian peoples of south-eastern Australia, such as the Wonnarua, Kamilaroi, Guringay, Eora, Darkinjung, and Wiradjuri peoples.
The 1996 census reported that almost 72 percent of Aboriginal people practised some form of Christianity, and that 16 percent listed no religion. The 2001 census contained no comparable updated data. The Aboriginal population also includes a small number of followers of other mainstream religions.
It is by knowing and understanding both which deepens our faith in God the Creator Spirit. Aboriginal Christians around the nation believe we are all God's chosen people and we can rediscover God through our Aboriginal Spirituality, through our stories and through our history.
Christianity has influenced Aboriginal spirituality in many ways ever since missionaries (forcibly) taught Aboriginal people the Bible. Since many Aboriginal people have been in missions and subject to Christianisation it would surprise if these influences hadn't manifested in their spirituality.
There is no single founder of Aboriginal spirituality. The spiritual and cosmological views of Australian Aboriginal cultures were established and maintained through generations of storytelling and the passing of knowledge from one generation to the next. There's no telling how far back some of these ideas go.
Aboriginal Death Beliefs
When it comes to the dead, most tribes traditionally believed that the spirit needed to go to the Land of the Dead. Notions of heaven and hell though, were not a part of their beliefs. So the idea of an Aboriginal afterlife with rewards or punishment does not exist.
Aboriginal Spirituality is the foundation of our culture and our community. Our belief systems guide our morals, values, traditions and customs to ensure a healthy and balanced relationship with the world around us. Our practices are some of the oldest in the world and many are still continuing today.
Most indigenous religions believe in some sort of great spirit, a god, whether male or female, who created the world and is responsible for the way the world works. Some believe in multiple gods.
What do indigenous people call their god?
The Great Spirit is the concept of a life force, a Supreme Being or god known more specifically as Wakan Tanka in Lakota, Gitche Manitou in Algonquian, and by other, specific names in a number of Native American and First Nations cultures.
Genetic studies have revealed that Aboriginal Australians largely descended from an Eastern Eurasian population wave, and are most closely related to other Oceanians, such as Melanesians.
There are about 500 different Aboriginal peoples in Australia, each with their own language and territory and usually made up of a large number of separate clans. Archaeologists believe that the Aboriginals first came to the Australian continent around 45,000 years ago.
In Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have been on this spiritual quest for over 65,000 years.
Dreamtime is the foundation of Aboriginal religion and culture. It dates back some 65,000 years. It is the story of events that have happened, how the universe came to be, how human beings were created and how their Creator intended for humans to function within the world as they knew it.
Sacred sites are places within the landscape that have a special meaning or significance under Aboriginal tradition. Hills, rocks, waterholes, trees, plains, lakes, billabongs and other natural features can be sacred sites.
Rather than viewing Country, or land, as a physical environment, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people consider Country as a deeply symbolic and spiritual place [1]. The connection between person and Country reinforces Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' identity and sense of belonging [5].
Aboriginal peoples
The earliest anatomically modern human remains found in Australia (and outside of Africa) are those of Mungo Man; they have been dated at 42,000 years old.
Corroborees/Rituals
Ceremonies including corroborees and rituals, are held frequently and for many different reasons. These include mythological (Dreamtime) stories outside of initiation and within, secret events at sacred sites, home comings, births and deaths.
A kurdaitcha, or kurdaitcha man, also spelt gadaidja, cadiche, kadaitcha, karadji, or kaditcha, is a type of shaman amongst the Arrernte people, an Aboriginal group in Central Australia. The name featherfoot is used to denote the same figure by other Aboriginal peoples.
What happens when an Aboriginal dies?
Many Aboriginal tribal groups share the belief that this life is only part of a longer journey. When a person passes away, the spirit leaves the body. The spirit must be sent along its journey; otherwise it will stay and disturb the family.
They tend to be near water courses or in dunes surrounding old lake beds. Many burials have been found on high points, such as dune ridges, within surrounding flat plains. They are often near or within Aboriginal occupation places such as oven mounds, shell middens or artefact scatters.
Funerals and mourning are very much a communal activity in Aboriginal culture. Families, friends and members of the larger community will come together to grieve and support each other. Within some Aboriginal groups, there is a strong tradition of not speaking the name of a dead person, or depicting them in images.
The complex set of spiritual values developed by Aboriginal people and that are part of the Dreamtime include 'self-control, self-reliance, courage, kinship and friendship, empathy, a holistic sense of oneness and interdependence, reverence for land and Country and a responsibility for others.
Aboriginal people learn about their totem through ceremonies, Dreaming stories and by watching them. Today, we can read their stories and do projects about them. Aboriginal people sing songs and tell stories so that everyone knows about their totem.
The Holy Spirit is referred to as the Lord and Giver of Life in the Nicene creed. He is the Creator Spirit, present before the creation of the universe and through his power everything was made in Jesus Christ, by God the Father.
While Easter is not an Aboriginal celebration, eggs were a big part of customary life and looking at how Aboriginal people used eggs is a great perspective for all age groups.
In Aboriginal astronomy the origin of the universe goes back to a time called the Dreaming. It is a remarkable concept which Spencer and Gillen immortalized as the “dreamtime” or “alcheringa” of the Arunta or Aranda tribe of central Australia (Spencer and Gillen 1889).
Receiving Your Spirit Name
In some communities, babies are given their spirit names when they are two, three or four weeks old. An Elder who has the ability and honour to give spirit names talks to the baby in their Native language and the baby's spirit listens.
Powwow, also called Brauche or Braucherei in the Pennsylvania Dutch language, is a vernacular system of North American traditional medicine and folk magic originating in the culture of the Pennsylvania Dutch.
Do Native Americans believe in heaven?
Native American beliefs about death
As previously mentioned, each tribe has its own specific traditions regarding death rituals and funerals. One common aspect is the idea that the spirit of a person lives on after their physical death and journeys into the afterlife, although there is no concept of heaven and hell.
While there is much diversity among Indigenous Peoples and Nations overall, Indigenous ethics resonate with the values of honour, trust, honesty, and humility; they reflect commitment to the collective and embody a respectful relationship with the land.
Definition. Aboriginal group refers to whether the person is First Nations (North American Indian), Métis or Inuk (Inuit). These are the three groups defined as the Aboriginal peoples of Canada in the Constitution Act, 1982, Section 35 (2). A person may be in more than one of these three specific groups.
To make direct eye contact can be viewed as being rude, disrespectful or even aggressive.To convey polite respect, the appropriate approach would be to avert or lower your eyes in conversation. Observe the other person's body language.
Depending on a client's problems, Ngangkari healers offer three main techniques: a smoking ceremony, bush medicines or spirit realignment. They use their hands to remove pain, blockages or obstructions.
- Yellow: Spirit. The East. The morning. The spring. ...
- Red: Emotion. The South. The afternoon. The summer. ...
- Black: Physical. The West. The evening. The autumn. ...
- White: Mind. The North. The night. The winter.
Many Aboriginal tribal groups share the belief that this life is only part of a longer journey. When a person passes away, the spirit leaves the body. The spirit must be sent along its journey; otherwise it will stay and disturb the family.
Gluckman (1962) distinguishes four kinds of ritual—magic action, religious action, substantive or constitutive ritual, and factitive ritual—clearly point out that rite of passage is a typical constitutive ritual.
- A savoring ritual. "Make the good times better by having something you do to focus on the good things. ...
- A starting ritual. Turns out, rituals are also an effective way to beat procrastination. ...
- A luck ritual.