Aboriginal Worldview: The Dreaming

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While a variety of factors have shaped the diversity of Indigenous Australian philosophy and practices across the Australian continent, one of the central characteristics of the Aboriginal worldview is the concept of the ‘Dreaming’. Outline some of the key aspects of this belief system and reflect on this in comparison to your own worldview. The Aboriginal civilisation has survived over the last 40,000 years, and the key to this survival lies in the Indigenous Australian philosophy and practices. Grieves (2009, p. 1) explains that the Aboriginal people/s operate on a core set of values and beliefs that are complex and form the basis for religious practices and ways of being and doing. Grieves (2009, p. 1) states that the philosophy constitutes…show more content…
23) points out The Dreaming is not confined to the remote past but remains as a present reality. Today life is lived according to the pattern laid down by the ancestors. Aboriginal people/s are participants in, rather than spectators of life. Edwards (1998, p. 23) also talks about the elements of The Dreaming, such as songs. These are considered to be a legacy from The Dreaming rather than human compositions. Ancestors sang as they moved across the land as a record of their travels, teaching them to human offspring. As Aboriginal people/s depended on hunting and gathering for food, the ancestors are portrayed as engaged in these pursuits in The Dreaming. All occupations originated with the totemic ancestors. The ancestors used the same technologies as used by Aboriginal people/s in hunting and preparation of food. Aranda stories from Central Australia record the euro-man taught the bird-man how to make spears and spear throwers and how to cook meat which they had eaten…show more content…
We as ‘westerners’ ask ‘what is the meaning of life?’ ‘Where do we fit into this life?’. As Graham (2008, p. 3) observes that the Aboriginal mind is always aligned with what everyone in the group want, and this maintains a harmonious relationship, a sharing relationship, and that the reflective thought is always associated with the ‘other’. As the western society can be about ‘self ‘and gaining personal material assets to make the ‘meaning of life’ surreal, western society could look to the Aboriginal perspective as Graham (2008, p. 4) states that the ‘meaning of life’ resides in the relationship between the human spirit and the natural life force, and if this is severed then it becomes and remains in a hostile

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