Aboriginal People do have a religion, but it is different from most
other religions which mean believing in one single creator.
Australian
Aboriginal people don’t do that. They have their beliefs, very strong
beliefs, but it’s more like spirituality than a religion.
Aboriginal religion by Malcolm Williams via Flickr.com
Traditional Aboriginal Religion
As opposed to believing in a single creator, Australian Aboriginal
people believe that in the beginning of the time, there were creation
beings that rose out of the ground and created landscape features, plants
and animals,
much in the similar way as Christians believe that God created the
world in six days. Aboriginal people refer to that period of creation
as Dreamtime. The time after that period, which still goes on today, is
called Dreaming. As opposed to Christians and believers of many other
religions who go to a church or a mosque to pray, Aboriginal
People
express their beliefs in spiritual rituals. In the old days when they
all lived traditional life, they went to their sacred mountain or any
other natural feature that was believed to be their creator (different
tribes had different objects), and they performed spiritual ceremonies.
On those ceremonies they danced, sang, and they painted
their bodies with symbols that had
messages. Because they believed that their creator, the mountain like
for example Uluru
had a soul, they could communicate to their creators. Before they went
walking across long distances for example, they’d communicate to the
creator of the land and ask the creator to protect them from accidents.
Different Kinds of Ceremonies
There were also many other kinds of ceremonies. Some of the most
important ceremonies were family ceremonies, like when children entered
the adulthood and burial ceremonies when people deceased. Others were
seasonal, to 'ensure' there was enough plant and animal food resources
available for the coming season. Some of the ceremonies were large,
people from different tribes got together and travelled long distances.
Those large ceremonies were usually put on during the times of food
abundance, like for example when the Bogong moths were abundant in Victorian
Alps and southern New
South Wales.
Aboriginal Religion Today
Many Aboriginal People have also changed their beliefs since the
European
invasion. Early missionaries forced them to learn the Bible, so there
are some Aboriginal People who are Christians. There are even some
Muslims, even though they are much fewer than Christians. But most
Aboriginal People haven't given up their original beliefs, they still
believe in their own creation story, although probably in a new
perspective.
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