aborigines

"Pukulpa Tjunguringkunytja

We walk together on sacred ground,
Black feet, white feet,
Foot prints soft upon the land,
The Tjukurpa moves beneath our feet,
The landscape is alive.

Anangu Guides and white guides,
working together.
We stand firm in our laws of the two cultures,
keeping the culture and natural heritage strong.

Our feet on sacred ground,
our hands reach up to hold the new circle of life;
The campfire, the waterhole,
where people of all cultures can meet and share."

- Diana James, 1995

The Aboriginal flag was designed by Harold Thomas in 1972 and was first flown in Adelaide that year.

The Australian Aborigines live in both a physical world and a spiritual world. Baiame is the God, the creator with supernatural intelligence. He is also the first spiritual substance. They believe that the universe was created as a result of a dream, or an intense desire, an emotion that was directed and also created by Baiame. This period is called the Dreamtime, the beginning of the world, when the physical features of the land were formed by creative beings who were neither human nor animal, but a form of both (such as Baiame himself).

It was through the actions of these ancestors that flora and fauna, and also the humans evolved. i.e. the Rainbow-serpent (giant serpent) came from beneath the ground and as he moved around on the surface of the empty world he created rivers, the great ridges and the valleys. These ancestors also taught human beings the ceremonies, their myths and songs. Sacred places were formed where certain actions were taking place and where ancestors left parts of their energy. This energy can, even today, be awakened through the ceremonies.

Art is a central part of the Aborigines life. It is tied to their religious life and is also a means with which the Creation is tied to the Present and to the future. Their art is full of symbols and graphic designs with which they tell their "stories". The art also activates the Energy from the Ancestors. It expresses the relation between the people and the land. The Aborigines’ life is built around Dreaming. Every Aborigine is born with a Dream. It will be his totem, the most precious possession in his life. His reason for living, his source of identity. The totem is in form of an animal or plant, with which the person will have some kind of a physical identity.

The most important religious custom for the Australian Aborigine is Initiation. An Aboriginal boy cannot enter manhood or a girl marry until he or she passed the initiation ceremony. Those ceremonies vary a little between tribes. For boys, the initiation can be quite harsh. In some tribes the ceremonies can begin around the age of eight or nine. In some rituals, initiation includes circumcision, others require the removal of a tooth or the piercing of the nose. This is to show the final stage of the process. The entire process can take place over many years. During some time the initiate is taken across his land by an adult who teaches him the routes of the ancestors and the songs and the stories. For girls the ceremony is not as severe, but it includes the preparation for marriage. In both cases, the ceremonies include teaching of how the universe was created by the Super Intelligence.