3. Topography
• The indigenous people of Australia are from
the land, honor the land and are one with the
land.
• The Island of Australia is enourmouse and
contains various habitats such as….
7. History of Culture
• Oldest surviving culture in the world
• Stone tool technology and paintings dating back
60,000 years.
• Never developed an iron age, or pottery.
• Technology did not really progress along with other
parts of the world.
• Did not build monuments, did not farm animals or
cultivate crops.
• They were and some still are Nomads who always
carried what few belongings they had with them and
this is why they know the land and the forest so well.
8. Longest Continuing Religion in the
World!
• Rainbow Serpent mythology.
• Carved into stone over 7000 years ago in the
Kakadu National Park region.
9. Dreamtime (The Time before Time)
• When ancestral beings moved acreoss the
land and created life and significant
geographical features.
• Purpose: To pass on important knowledge,
cultural values and belief systems to later
generations.
• Expressed through song, dance, painting and
storytelling.
• Maintain the link today.
10. Our story is the land… it is written in those sacred
places… My children will look after those places.
• The stories vary by region.
• Often linked to lessons to be learned or moral
tale about creation period deities, animals,
plants and other beings.
• Creation Beings
• Ancestral Beings
• Totemic Beings
11. Creation Beings
Many are involved in the creation of the people, the land and the aspects of the
environment. Usually in red or yellow and white.
12. Ancestral Beings
In many examples, these dieties are regarded as
the direct ancestors of the people living today.
Ancestor Beings
Ancestor Heros
Or Dreamtime Ancestors.
Taught people how to make tools and wapons,
hunt and collect food and laws of ceremony.
13. Totemic Beings
• A totemic Being represents the original form
of an animal, plant or other object/totem as it
was in Dreamtime.
• People see themselves as being derived from
different totemic beings
• Each person comes from at least one Totemic
Being and these help define a person’s origin
and connection to the world their past
present and their future.
16. Ancestors
Mimi Spirits:
"The Mimi are tall, thin beings that live in the rocky escarpment of northern Australia as
spirits. Before the coming of Aboriginal people they had human forms. The Mimi are
generally harmless but on occasions can be mischievous.
"When Aboriginal people first came to northern Australia, the Mimi taught them how
to hunt and cook kangaroos and other animals. They also did the first rock paintings and
taught Aboriginal people how to paint.”
17. Ceremonial Life
Ceremonies and rituals are an important part
of daily life.
• Ensure a supply of plant and animal foods
• MOST IMPORTANT: The initiation of boys
and girls into adulthood. (Days or Weeks)
• Funerals
Take the form of
Chanting
Singing
Ritual action to invoke the Ancestral Being
Story Telling
Body painting and decoration
18. Burial Practices vary throughout Australia
2 stage
1) Laid out on a elevated wooden platform and covered with leaves and branches
for several months.
2) Bones are collected painted with red ochre and then dispersed in different ways.
3) Sometimes carried, wrapped in paperbark and deposited in a cave shelters or
left to disintegrate over time or sometimes left a designated places in hollowed
trees in the bushland
