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Essay On Aboriginal Religion

885 Words4 Pages

Religion is a means for people to find answers to life’s big questions. Within Aboriginal spirituality, the natural and supernatural are closely linked. Their spirituality is lived in their daily lives and their supernatural deities are active in their activities. The sacred stories of the Aboriginal peoples take place in a timeless world. They are given various names across the numerous regions of Indigenous Australia. Some of these names include ‘aldjeringa’ in Arrernte of Central Australia and ‘wongar’ in Arnhem Land. These terms are translated in English as the “Dreaming”, or the “Dreamtime.” This refers to the time when ancestral beings formed the land, the animals and plants, and the laws that keep everything in existence. It is an integral and important aspect in the life of Aboriginal people - it is a construction of how they view the world. Even though the stories of the Dreaming happened a long time ago to create our world, the Dreaming is believed by the Indigenous to exist in a parallel spiritual dimension to our own, called ‘everywhen’. This parallel dimension can be connected to our world through rituals that celebrate the activities of the Spirit-beings. It is through their Dreamings that Aboriginal peoples …show more content…

The totem influences everything in a person 's life: their land, the rituals that they participate in, who they may marry and who they must avoid. Totems are ways of belonging to a specific subgroup within society. They may come from the mother or the father, depending on the area. But they may come from other variables such as the place of conception or the birth, the gender of the child, or an announcement by a spirit. When an Aboriginal person says "I am a kangaroo" they are not so much identifying with all kangaroos but rather are claiming descent from a kangaroo spirit. This spirit is responsible for them coming into being as the specific individual they

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