What Is The Dual Nature Of Aboriginal Spirituality

Aboriginal people (Indigenous people of Australia, see Image 1) have the longest living cultural history of any single language group in the world, dating back to more than 50,000 years. It has been able to survive this long as it is a dynamic culture. A dynamic culture is a culture that is able to adapt to the time period and is able to change without losing its core paradigms. This is why Aboriginal spirituality is known as a dynamic religion as its culture which is dynamic, shaped its religion. Aboriginal people were also nomadic, this describes people who never had a permanent home and lived by hunting and gathering.

Before the arrival of Captain Cook (British navigator, see Image 2) to Australia, Australia was dominated by 600 aboriginal nations (see Image 3) with over 200 languages. This resulted in the diverse nature of Aboriginal Spirituality. Although their beliefs are diverse from region to region, the Aboriginal nations believe the worldview (a system of answers shared by a significant amount of people) that everything is animistic. This is the belief that everything on earth has a living soul, for example, trees, rivers, mountains and caves. …show more content…
For instance, there are numerous words for spirituality and beliefs in the Aboriginal language such as palaneri, bugaregara, ngarangani, ungud and wongar. Some facets of the dreaming are taboo (secret because it is sacred) which further convolutes fathoming the dreaming fully. To top it all off, the dreaming is extremely diverse as each aboriginal community has different versions of the Dreaming due to their language