Aboriginal Culture In Australia

Australia, the multicultural hub of the world. We pride ourselves on accepting any religion, colour or race however, it is too often that we forget about the first occupants of these lands and how their culture extends into modernity. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture provides international intrigue of visiting Australia, with their perplexing culture which seems to have lasted for time immemorial. Without these cultures Australia would be a colourless and bland place to live. The indigenous people of these lands have contributed immensely to the image of an Australian however, rarely have they been acknowledge for harbouring such a rich culture. Indigenous spiritualties and the culture which accompanies it has a strong relationship …show more content…
The Indigenous culture is arguable the longest surviving culture in existence with first mentions of it dating back to 60,000 years before European settlement. Apart from the extraordinary amount of time that their culture has been around the other remarkable point is that each region of Australia has their own unique and completely different culture to any other region with 270 different groups in total (Shareourpride.org, 2016). While each clan discuss differently how the world or their land came to be each nation shares a common name for the period of time where it takes place, The Dreamtime or Dreaming. The dreamtime stories as they came to be discussed the creation of the land and the people by various ancestral spirits. These stories The Dreaming is passed from generation to generation through stories, song, dance and art to keeping the culture alive (Big Black Dog Communications Pty Ltd, 2015). An interesting fact of the dreamtime is that it is a never ending period of time and that the ancestral spirits are said to be still in the sacred sites such as the rainbow serpent (Hughes, 2015). Therefore the preservation and care for the land is a high priority of the Indigenous people as the land is deeply linked to their entire culture. Aboriginal culture is maintain in modern Australia through various celebrations such as NAIDOC Week (NAIDOC.org, 2016). NAIDOC Week is held across Australia each July where it celebrates …show more content…
The indigenous people relationship with the land is much deeper than our own, instead of us owning the land that we live on the indigenous people believe that the land owns them (Korff, 2015). The health of land and water is central to their culture and therefore they endeavour to protect it and care for it as much as possible. Land sustains Aboriginal lives in every aspect, spiritually, physically, socially and culturally so it was with great outcries when the European people settled and took over land wherever they pleased. These new occupiers denied them even basic human rights and ran the country without their involvement. This way of thinking was common place until the mid-1960s when aboriginal Australians gained citizenship rights (Australian Electoral Commission, 2015). Directly afterwards the Land rights movement begun which focused on the repurposing of land that was originally taken for the aboriginal people. It succeed and many parts of Australia were returned to previous owners. Their relationship with the land is so strong in their culture that they fought first with spear and club and last with word and pen to ensure that the land was respected and therefore their culture persevered (Australia.gov.au, 2015). The inclusion of the Indigenous people and the respect given to their land serve as distinct reminders of how far Australia has