Australian Aboriginal Traditions

[Tamrin]

Orion & the Pleiades

Some Aboriginal Store Lore tradition bear remarkable parallels with those from other cultures. For instance:

Jun 30, 2008 21:44:48 GMT 10 Tamrin said:

This is the story of Jarn, a youth who believed he was the best hunter of his tribe. He would hunt and show off his catch to everyone. He also though he was the best man in the tribe and that he deserved the best wife. He began to play his dancing sticks and when this did not work he chased seven sisters (called Marigu) through the bush to try and catch a wife.

The Sky Figure of Marigu-Jarn is in two parts in the evening sky in January. Jarn can be seen as the figure playing his dance sticks, while the seven women appear as a group of stars huddled together to escape from him....

When the figure of Jarn appears in the evening sky during the month of January it is time for corroborees and initiation of young men for the Woorabinda-Biregaba people of northern Australia. The story of a young man looking toward the seven sisters for a bride is common to many tribes throughout Australia. In Victoria the seven sisters are known as Ngamma-Gama.

The association of the Orion constellation with initiation is emphasised by Dr. Meggitt, who tells us (p.294) that, among the Walbiri people: "At about one a.m., when Orion is overhead, the brothers rouse all the sleepers for the next stage of the ceremonies."The association of the Orion constellation with initiation is emphasised by Dr. Meggitt, who tells us (p.294) that, among the Walbiri people: "At about one a.m., when Orion is overhead, the brothers rouse all the sleepers for the next stage of the ceremonies."

Among tribes on Australia's east coast, the constellation of Orion is thought to represent the Supreme God Biame or his son Daramalan, the god of initiation, (if Aboriginals seem imprecise about the distinction between their heavenly father and his son, we should, at least, acknowledge they are in good company in this regard).

[Tamrin]

Jul 5, 2008 13:18:46 GMT 10 Tamrin said:

Before the Stolen Generation there were the "lost generations"—Families with Aboriginal blood, at a time when it was generally considered to be a matter of shame—Often, as soon as a person could "pass" as white, they did so. My interest in Aboriginal culture stems from my clearly having Aboriginal roots. My pigmentation, build and facial features all bear testimony to my heritage. As a child my hair was blond and grew darker with maturity, as is common among Aboriginals (it is now mostly grey). I have some hereditary health problems that are rare in the white community but are common among Aboriginals and, as a child, when I asked about my relatively dark skin and other features, I was told there was a "Spanish Prince" among my ancestors (a few years ago I heard this was a euphemism for sharing some Aboriginal genes). I suspected my broad nose, round nostrils and deep set eyes were not aristocratic Spanish features but knew not to ask further.

I am one of two brothers and we had two sisters (now deceased): Aboriginal features showed also in my elder sister (who topped the state first in General Nursing & later in Midwifery) but in my brother and other sister (who was dux of her school) it was not so evident. I went to a boarding school where many of the students from rural areas were more attuned to nuances of race and considered me to be coloured and gave me a hard time (which at the time I found perplexing). Over the years there were the occasional odd remarks, until the penny dropped and I decided to take a closer look in the mirror.

Aboriginals generally accept me as a brother, of sorts. However, without being able to identify my specific origins, they cannot put me in context, which is so important to them. I have started to research my family history but have come to an impasse in tracing my mother's side.

"Egypt as represented on a poster entitled 'Australians All' which uses
stylised representations of the kangaroo to evoke the diverse cultural backgrounds
of the present-day inhabitants of Australia, by David Wong.
(Courtesy of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Office of Multicultural Affairs)"
Robert S. Merrillees, 1990, Living with Egypt's Past in Australia,
Museum of Victoria, Melbourne, back cover.

[Tamrin]

ABC Radio: The Religion Report[/url], 20 August 2008

Aboriginal traditional life and kinship

(Excerpt)

Stephen Crittenden: Frances, all three of you were speaking last week at a conference entitled, 'Negotiating the Sacred', talking about kinship and ceremony and songlines. Are you comfortable describing all of this as belonging to something called indigenous religion?

Frances Morphy: Well religion is really a western term. In western culture we like to kind of compartmentalise things. So we have religion and we have law. In Yolngu society as in most Aboriginal societies, all these things are seen as aspects of a single reality, so kinship is founded in ancestral law, the creative acts of the ancestral beings. So country people and the law, which is the term Aboriginal people usually use to translate what we would think of as religion, all go together in a sort of encompassing system.

Rock paintings, Kakadu

[Tamrin]

[Tamrin]

Sorry / Stolen Generations Part I

Sorry / Stolen Generations Part II

Sorry / Stolen Generations Part III

Final part of Rudd's speech,
crowd response, motion passed

[Tamrin]

Let the Healing Proceed!

[Tamrin]

The Burnum Burnum Declaration

Dover U.K., 26 January 1988

I, Burnum Burnum, being an aristocratic nobleman of ancient Australia, do hereby take possession of England on behalf of the Aboriginal Crown.

In doing so we wish no harm to you natives, but assure you that we are here to bring you good manners, refinement and an opportunity to make a Koompartoo – a fresh start.

Henceforth, my face shall appear on your coins and stamps to signify our sovereignty over this domain.

At the end of two hundred years, we Will make a Treaty to validate occupation by peaceful means and not by conquest.

For the more advanced, we bring the complex language of the Pitjantjatjara, we will teach you how to have a spiritual relationship with the Earth and show you how to get food from the bush.

We do not intend to souvenir, pickle and preserve the heads of 2000 of your people, nor to publicly display the skeletal remains of your Royal Highness, as was done to our Queen Truganinni for eighty years.

Neither do we intend to poison your water holes, lace your bread with strychnine or introduce you to highly toxic drugs.

We acknowledge the need to preserve the Caucasian race as of interest to antiquity, although we may be inclined to conduct experiments by measuring the size of your skulls for levels of intelligence.

We pledge not to sterilise your young women.

We solemnly promise not to make a quarry of England and export your valuable minerals back to the old country Australia, but to encourage Earth Repair Action to unite people, communities and religions in a common, productive, peaceful purpose.

Finally, we give an absolute undertaking that you shall not be placed into the mentality of government handouts for the next five generations but you will enjoy the full benefits of Aboriginal equality.

[Tamrin]

Burnum Burnum

of the Wurundjeri People
STATEMENT ON THE ENVIRONMENT
25 January 1990
- based on Chief Seattle's speech of 1854

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This land of the Dreamtime was given to us and we love it very dearly.
The idea of it being taken is strange to us.
If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water,
how can you buy them? Every part of this land is sacred to my people.
Every shining gum leaf, every sandy shore, every mist in the eucalypt forest,
every clearing and insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people.
The sap which courses through the trees carries the memories of the black man.
The shining water that lives in the billabongs and rivers
is not just water, but the blood of our ancestors.

If you take our land, you must remember that it is sacred,
and you must teach your children that it is sacred,
and that each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes
tells of events and memories in the life of my people.

Our dead never forget this beautiful land, for it is the Mother of the black man.
We are part of the land and the land is part of us.
The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the koala, the kangaroo, and great eagle,
these are our brothers. The rock crests, the juices of the forest,
the body heat of the dingo, and man - all belong to the same family.

There is no quiet place in the cities.
No place to hear the crackling of leaves or the rustle of an insect's wings.
What is there to life if we cannot hear the lonely cry of the curlew or the mopoke,
of the archetypal arguments of the frogs around the billabong at night.

The air is precious to us for all things share the same breath -
the animal, the tree, the man; we all share the same breath.

Since you have already taken our land, you must remember that the air
is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.
The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath, also receives his last sign,
and the wind must also give our children the spirit of life.

Teach your children as we have taught our children, that the Earth is our Mother.
Whatever befalls the Earth, befalls the sons and daughters of the Earth.
If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves.

This we know; the Earth does not belong to us, we belong to the Earth.
This we know; all things are connected.
Whatever befalls the Earth befalls the people of the Earth.

Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it.
Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.
Men come and go, like the waves of the sea.

Love your land as we have loved it; care for it as we have cared for it.
Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it was when you took it.

And with all your strength, with all your mind,
with all your heart, preserve it for your children - and love it. [/center]

[Tamrin]

Aboriginal Village

[ABC Catalyst Program - Excerpt - Linked Above]

We’re told that aborigines were nomads. Yet the local Gunditjmara in Western Victoria claim their ancestors lived in a village. They had eel farms, and even an eel industry, which exported produce across the country. If this is true, it would challenge our current understanding of aboriginal history.

Archaeologist, Dr Heather Builth, set out to investigate the Gunditjmara’s claims. And remarkably she found a great deal of evidence to support them…the remains of 100s of huts, more than 75 square kilometres of artificial channels and ponds for farming eels, and smoking trees for preserving the eels for export to other parts of Australia.

[Tamrin]

Willandra Footprints

[ABC Catalyst Program - Excerpt - Linked Above]

One of the most amazing and unexpected archaeological finds ever made in Australia has turned up among the wind-blown sand dunes of Willandra Lakes in western New South Wales. Over 450 footprints of men, women and children depict life in the area 20,000 years ago. It’s the biggest find of its’ type in the world, bigger than all the other known human footprints sites combined. And the archaeology, interpretation and preservation of this spectacular find is a collaboration between the archaeologists and the local indigenous people.