University Aboriginal Studies Essay: Culture, Traditions, and Beliefs

This essay provides an overview of Aboriginal Studies, focusing on the Dreamtime, a central aspect of Aboriginal spiritual beliefs and culture. It explores the Aboriginal people's creation stories, their connection to the land, and the importance of ancestral spirits. The essay discusses the impact of European colonization on Aboriginal communities, the loss of land, and the disruption of their traditional way of life. It also examines the role of art, music, and storytelling in maintaining Aboriginal culture, including ceremonies, songs, and oral traditions. The essay emphasizes the importance of preserving Aboriginal culture and history through various means, such as documenting oral histories, protecting cultural heritage sites, and promoting awareness of Aboriginal traditions. The significance of the 'Country' and its central role in Aboriginal identity is highlighted, as is the need to respect the Aboriginal people's connection to their ancestral lands.

Running head: Aboriginal Studies
Aboriginal Studies
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1ABORIGINAL STUDIES
Dreamtime refers to the spiritual beliefs of the Aborigines (Smart 2018). The Aborigines
credited the creation of the world to their ancestors. Dreamtime forms the basis of the religion of
Abrogines and their culture. While the stories of the Aborigines are interesting to read and listen,
there is no scientific basis behind their stories.
The Aborigines are more primitive than the Europeans for when the latter arrived, they
realized that the Aborigines had a very primitive way of living and lacked the knowledge of
philosophy. They also did not have a political system. In regard to their religion, the ancestors of
the Aborigines made specific sites to show the Aboriginal people the places which were sacred.
The Aboriginals conducted ritual ceremonies and sang near these sites to please the Ancestral
spirits and keep them alive.
The Aborigines were upset about being moved off the land to make way for farming.
The Aborigines were nomads and hence it should not have been a problem for them. They could
have easily migrated to another place and build their settlements there. They could have build
their settlements elsewhere and lived there and continued with their religious practices. Perhaps
the reason they did not want to move was because their ancestors had marked certain places as
sacred and therefore they did not leave these places which were perceived to be sacred for them.
The Aborigines did not create any technologies that could have made the lives of
people better because they were primitive and illiterate people who were not aware of science
and technology needed to create a modern, advanced and a scientific society. The Aborigines
worshipped their ancestors and spent their time appeasing the spirits of the ancestors. They were
uneducated people and lacked literacy which forms the basis of any scientific creation.

2ABORIGINAL STUDIES
The Aboriginals did not have any written laws and courts and hence they should not
claim to have any proper legal system (Bernard 2016). They did not follow any societal rules and
regulations and did not have any laws governing their society. They did not have a democracy, a
legislature, bureaucracy or a judiciary. All their actions were based on what had been told and
taught to them by their ancestors. According to the Aborigines, during the Dreamtime, the
creators made human beings and animals and declared the laws of the land. They also set out
rules on how people should treat one another, the various rituals that had to be followed and the
ceremonies that to be conducted, that included the rituals of initiation, the ceremonies of death
and the various laws of marriage.
Stories, art, songs, and ceremonies in Aboriginal societies played a very significant role
in their social structures. The cultural identity was based on social or kinship structures, belief
systems, language and links to land. Dreamings, which comprised mainly of stories and art
defined their belief systems. Through participation in various rituals and ceremonies, people
learnt more about their Dreaming stories and associated songs, designs and dances. Some of
these ceremonies were open or closed and were not gender specific. Individuals had mentors,
‘Uncle’ for males, ‘Aunt’ for females who were responsible for passing the cultural tradition to
the individuals (Bates 2015). Songs were an integral part of their religious ceremonies and the
ceremony of worship of their ancestors. There were a plethora of ceremonies that were
conducted by the Aboriginal people that included the ceremonies of death, the rituals of initiation
and the various ceremonies and laws of marriage. Thus music is an intrinsic part of the social,
ceremonial and cultural observances of the Aboriginal people throughout their collective
histories up until the present day and has existed for over forty thousand years. Music is thus an
integral part in the maintenance of their culture. The Aborigines created and taught to others

3ABORIGINAL STUDIES
many songs, recounting the history of their lives, songs for healing the sick and the wounded,
songs in order to injure the enemy, songs to bring about rain, cause the wind to turn back and to
arrest the flood. The Abrogines believed that songs had the healing power to treat people and
also influence and control nature. Speaking or talking is the main source of communication in the
culture of the Aborigines. The oral traditions of instruction include song, art and craft making
and storytelling. Although there are different types of stories, they fall into four broad categories,
spiritual narratives, collective history, life histories and cultural practices. Fictional stories are
yet another type of storytelling that does not fit into the above mentioned categories. Since
diversity is an essential trait of aboriginal groups, Aboriginal art cannot be classified into one
particular style. Aboriginal people use all arts to communicate and use it as a teaching tool in
their daily lives and also for ceremonial practices. Aboriginal artists develop art for a plethora of
purpose. While some tries to express knowledge and relationships, other Aboriginal tend to
express a wide range of positions and purposes associated with politics, society, beliefs,
historical events among other things. Thus Aboriginal art encompasses a plethora of art forms.
The present day Aboriginal social and cultural traditions can be maintained and
strengthened if efforts are made to preserve the Aboriginal culture not just by the Aborigines but
also by other people such as scholars and historians. The traditions of the Aborigines can be
maintained and strengthened if their Dreamtime stories, cultures, traditions, songs etc are written
and preserved in books so that the future generation of people can read the books and learn about
their rich cultural history and traditions (Bates 2015). Songs can also be composed and the lyrics
of the songs can encapsulate and reflect the rich cultural history and traditional customs of the
Aborigines. The history and culture of the Aborigines can also be preserved through beautiful
works of art like paintings and sculptures. Dances can also help to maintain and strengthen their

4ABORIGINAL STUDIES
cultural history and traditions apart for forming a close bond between the Aboriginal people. The
oral history of the Aboriginal people can be documented and recorded the cultural heritage sites
of the Aborigines should be carefully preserved. A collation of oral histories should be recorded
and on a whole, efforts should be made to preserve the Aboriginal history and culture. Thus, it is
integral that people should let the aborigines live in their original settlements thereby preserving
and strengthening their natural history and promoting their race. The Aborigines refer to
traditional lands as ‘Country’, it is central to their identity and therefore one should not force
them to leave their lands because the Aborigines were born and raised in their original
settlements (Nair 2017). Aborigines relate family to ‘Country’ and acceptance of others often
depends on being able to identify ancestral lands. The Aborigines perceives themselves as part of
the landscape and hence are not comfortable in leaving their original settlement. Their identity is
related to the ‘country’, the land, which his ancestors had previously occupied. Since Aboriginals
perceived ‘country’ as their identity, the invasion, occupation and colonization of their land did
not simply mean a loss of physical territory (Nair 2017). It meant disruption and loss of language
beliefs etc which formed the basis of their culture and hence they were reluctant to leave their
land when the British claimed possession of the Australian continent. Thus the present day
Aboriginal social and cultural traditions can be maintained and further strengthened if everybody
comes together and makes a collective effort to preserve their culture and traditions. People
should be made aware of the rich cultural history of the aborigines and about their Dreamtime
that is so intrinsic to their culture and tradition and efforts should be made to preserve and
strengthen their culture history and tradition which is rooted in story-telling and steeped in oral
history.

5ABORIGINAL STUDIES
REFERENCES:
Bates, D., 2015. Series 16: Aborigines of the West Coast of South Australia: Vocabularies and
ethnographical notes.
Bernard, V., 2016. Displacement, replacement and relocation: The Noongar aborigines' land
claim in Western Australia. Commonwealth Essays and Studies, 38(2), p.53.
Bird, M.I., O’Grady, D. and Ulm, S., 2016. Humans, water, and the colonization of
Australia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(41), pp.11477-11482.
Cahir, F., McMaster, S., Clark, I., Kerin, R. and Wright, W., 2016. Winda Lingo Parugoneit or
Why Set the Bush [On] Fire? Fire and Victorian Aboriginal People on the Colonial
Frontier. Australian Historical Studies, 47(2), pp.225-240.
Mills, K.A., Davis-Warra, J., Sewell, M. and Anderson, M., 2016. Indigenous ways with
literacies: transgenerational, multimodal, placed, and collective. Language and Education, 30(1),
pp.1-21.
Nair, A.R., 2017. Penning the Protest: Petitions by the Aborigines of
Australia. POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURES, 17, p.164.
Payne, H.E., 2018. The integration of music and belief in Australian Aboriginal
culture. Religious Traditions: A New Journal in the Study of Religion, 1(1).
Smart, C., 2018. ‘Excused only through the Exigencies of Narrative,’Irish-Aboriginal Relations
in Colonial Australia and beyond.