Contemporary Aboriginal Spirituality Glossary of Terms...
· Aboriginal Spirituality as determined by the Dreaming:
Dreaming: A complex concept of fundamental importance to Aboriginal culture, embracing the creative era long past of the Ancestral Beings as well as the present and the future. Hundreds of Dreaming known across Australia are part of the spiritual identities of those Aboriginal peoples who claim them as their Ancestral Beings or totems. To falsely claim the Dreaming of another group is serious infringement of Aboriginal law.
Country: a term used by Aboriginal people to refer to the land to which they belong and their place of Dreaming. Aboriginal usage of the word is much broader tan standard English.
Elders: Key persons and keepers of various knowledge within Aboriginal communities. They are chosen and accepted by their own communities:
a) Elders in respect of kinship and as overseas of many Dreaming tracks; that is, they are ‘Boss over Country’
b) Elders in respect of being leaders of large extended family networks
c) Elders in respect of knowledge acquired and services given within the community
Estate: The heartland of a local group and the centre of their attachment to territory.
Kinship: The system of relationships traditionally accepted by a particular culture and the rights and obligations they involve. Kinship systems define where a person fits into the community.
‘No matter if they are fish, birds, men, women, animals, wind or rain... All things in our country here have Law, they have ceremony and song, and they have people who are related to them.’
-M. Harvey, ‘The Dreaming’, in J. Bradley, Yanyuwa Country: The Yanyuwa People of Booroloola tell of their land, p. xi Cited in the Living Religion textbook, Third Edition (2007) page 245.
· Issues for Aboriginal spiritualities:
Assimilation: a nineteenth century idea that Aboriginal peoples should be ‘improved’ by being ‘civilised’ and Christianised. From the 1930s, assimilation was government policy and in the 1950s legislation was introduced to enforce it.
Evangelise: Literally means to ‘teach the gospel’. Bringing people to Christianity- ‘winning souls for Christ’. There was also motivation that missionaries believed that their own missionary activity, particularly the welfare aspect of it, was qualifying them for eternal life, regardless of how successful they were in ‘winning souls for Christ’. The term missionary work or activity is usually used as a synonym.
Mission: An Aboriginal settlement that may or may not once have been a religious institution. A person is described as living ‘in or off’ a mission, rather than ‘in or at’. The name derived from the original purpose of many Aboriginal settlements – as a mission of one of the various denominations of Christians. When the government and, later, communities took over the management, the name often remained, or was applied to the communities that had in fact been missions but rather government ‘reserves’.
‘The policy of assimilation seeks that all Aborigines and part-Aborigines will attain the same number of living as other Australians and live as members of a single Australian community, enjoying the same rights and privileges, accepting the same responsibilities, observing the same customs, and being influenced by the same beliefs, hopes and loyalties.’
-Third Commonwealth-State conference on ‘native welfare’, 1951. Cited in the Living Religion textbook, Third Edition (2007) page 251
· The effect of dispossession:
Dispossession: to take land away from. This is what occurred to the Aboriginal people when the European settled on the Australian land.
Integration: a form of assimilation that recognises many Aboriginal’s wish to keep a distinct identity.
Land rights: claims by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to repossession and compensation for White use of their lands and sacred sites.
Segregation: the policy or practice of separating people of different races, classes or ethnic groups, especially as a form of discrimination.
Stolen Generation: the term used to describe those children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian Federal State government agencies and church missions. Approximately between 1869-1969.
· Land Rights Movement:
Native Title: the recognition by Australian Law that some Indigenous people have rights and interests to their land that come from their traditional laws and customs.
Mabo: ‘Eddie Mabo’, a man who was Torres Strait Islander who fought a court case, attempting to assert a legal title over his tribe’s traditional lands. Brought about landmark decision of the High Court Australia that overturned the legal fiction of ‘terra nullius’ which characterized Australian law with regards to land and title.
Reconciliation: an attempt to make a mends and improve relations between Aboriginal and non-Indigenous Australians.
Self-determination: is about achieving full effective participation of Indigenous peoples in Australian society. This involves recognition of the cultural distinctiveness and diversity of Indigenous people.
Wik: legally acknowledges that native title can co exist with pastoral leases. The rights of native title holders must now be taken into consideration when leading with pastoral leases.
‘It’s my father’s land, my grandfather’s land, my grandmother’s land. I am related to it, it give me my identity. If I Don’t fight for it, then I will be moved out of it and [it] will be the loss of my identity.’
-Father Dave Passi, plaintiff, in Mabo case in ‘Land bilong Islander’, 1990. Cited in the Living Religion textbook, Third Edition (2007) page 255.
Last update: February 8, 2010
