Questions created from the syllabus dotpoints.
The land plays a significant role in Aboriginal culture. Discuss how Aboriginal people collaboratively share the responsibility to care and nurture for the land, and outline the significance of sacred sites to Aboriginals.
Traditional land and sea ownership, within Aboriginal culture, is based on customary laws passed down from generation to generation. Ownership of the land means that Aborigines have a responsibility to care and nurture for the land, a sacred trust that has been preserved and passed down through generations. The land is not only an economic resource that provides food and water for the Aborigines, but also a spiritual association that connects Aborigines with ancestors and their spirituality. Aborigines continue to be reliant on the land that provides social, spiritual and economic well being.
Individual Aboriginal clans are possessive of a ‘ritual estate’, for which the people of specific clans are ritually responsible for the sacred sites and ritual associations that exist on their estate. Ownership of land, for Aborigines, is based on ritual estate. That is, the land is divided accordingly so that specific clans have responsibility for specific sacred sites and ritual features. Whilst Aborigines travel over ritual estates that are not specific to their clan, for food and water, it is important that they observe the laws of other clans. On most occasions, it is expected that Aborigines who enter a ritual estate other than their own, are not to approach any sacred sites or to speak publicly of their experience. Punishments for these crimes are particularly severe.
Sacred sites, which vary in intricacy, are said to be where spirits await the summoning of their human guardians. On these sites, sacred traditions and customs are performed that are significant to the Aboriginal populace. For instance, each year, specific Aboriginal elders (dependant on the kinship system of a clan), perform relevant rights to ensure that the spirits that exist within sacred sites emerge and ensure the supply of food. If there was a depreciation of a particular species, or an inadequate supply, then it was thought that the elder who performed the relevant rights had done so inadequately. Through this, it can be seen how significant sacred sites are to the Aboriginal populace. The land, these sacred sites, are considered to be central to the Aboriginal existence. Therefore, the Aboriginals believe that it is there responsibility to care for the land.
As expressed by Patrick Dodson, at the annual conference of the Queensland and Islander Catholic Council, in 1976, ‘Land is a notion that is difficult to categorise in English law. The limitations of my land are clear to me. The area for which I derive my existence is clear to me and to those people who belong in my group. The land provides for my spiritual needs and provides for my physical needs. It is a living entity. It belongs to me. I belong to the land. I rest in it. I come from here.’
- Daniel Taha
A song by Nadine Dixon expressing the importance of the land to the Aboriginal community.
Outline the significant changes of the Mabo, native title, and Wik on the Land Rights movement.
The Land Rights movement is both a religious and political movement, aiming to maintain and secure the inherent rights of Aboriginal peoples to their land. The Mabo, Native Title, and Wik legislations had a very significant role in the Land Rights movement, changing the rights and enhancing the equality of the Aboriginal people.
The Mabo case was one of the most important gains to the Aboriginal community. In 1982, Eddie Mabo presented a declaration of his tribe’s land rights to the High Court of Australia. After a long battle, the High Court made a decision in 1992, finally recognising that native title did exist in Australia thus allowing the Indigenous people the right to claim their traditional lands. Essentially, this decision overturned the myth that Australia was ‘terra nullius’. The Indigenous property rights recognised by the court are found in the Native Title Act, created subsequent to the Mabo decision.
The case, however, caused tension and fear amongst the Australians as they begun to question and consider what the case meant in relations to the land/s they possessed. In 1996, the Mabo case was further tested by the Wik people of Cape York and the Thayorre people of Queensland. The court decided that native title could ‘co-exist’ simultaneously with the rights of pastoralists on cattle or sheep stations. It also stated that when pastoralists and Aboriginal rights were in conflict, pastoralists’ rights would prevail, judged individually as conditions of pastoral leases vary. Whilst the restrictions of the Native Title Act towards the Aboriginal peoples remain present today, with claims taking up to ten years to negotiate, it still goes without say that such claims and Acts have allowed the Indigenous Australian community to advance towards reconciliation. It demonstrates a principal change in the perception of the Australian law towards the relationship of Aboriginal people to their land. Managing and improving these restrictions remains a key factor of the Reconciliation movement today.
- Gabriela Sanchez
Last update: February 8, 2010
