AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL RELIGION By: Abby Evard & Chelsey Scheurich

Attitude Towards Death For those who follow the traditional ways, death is often viewed as a transition, a change from the World of Physical Things into the World of Spirit where the sacred Grandmothers and Grandfathers reside with our creator. When we grieve, we grieve not for the one who has moved on, but for those of us who are left behind. Death is seen as part of the natural order of Life. Life is a Circle of birth, growth, death, and rebirth.

Belief Towards Death Aboriginal people believe in multiple human souls, which fall into two broad categories: one is comparable to the Western ego—a self-created, autonomous agency that accompanies the body and constitutes the person's identity; and another that comes from "The Dreaming" and/or from God.

Mourning Rituals Another important time for ceremonies is on the death of a person, when people often paint themselves white, cut their own bodies to show their remorse for the loss of their loved one, and conduct a series of rituals, songs and dances to ensure the person’s spirit leaves the area and returns to its birth place, from where it can later be reborn.

Death Customs When a death occurs in the camp the men and women throw themselves on the ground, run a few paces, and prostrate themselves again, beating their heads with shells and stones,-- the men using the ends of their throwing-sticks, in each of which is set a piece of flint for cutting purposes with spinifex wax called "Bulga." It is quite usual to see streams of blood pouring from their heads. They lie upon the body to signify they would like to restore life.

Random Facts

An Aborigine from the Tiwi tribe in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia, stands beside painted funeral totems. Phases of funerary rites are often explicitly devoted to symbolic acts that send ancestral spirits back to their places of origin where they assume responsibility for the wellbeing of the world they have left behind.

What can be learned? The relationships within the Aboriginal people must have been much more close and personal for them to be so violent and crazy when the person died. They also embrace life more than the westernized cultures.