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Aboriginal Ceremony
Australian Aboriginal culture includes a number of practices and ceremonies centered on a belief in the Dreamtime and other mythology. Reverence and respect for the land and oral traditions are emphasised. The words "law" and "lore", the latter relating to the customs and stories passed down through the generations, are commonly used interchangeably. Learned from childhood, lore dictates the rules on how to interact with the land, kinship and community. Over 300 languages and other groupings have developed a wide range of individual cultures. Aboriginal art has existed for thousands of years and ranges from ancient rock art to modern watercolour landscapes. Traditional Aboriginal music developed a number of unique instruments, and contemporary Aboriginal music spans many genres. Aboriginal peoples did not develop a system of writing before colonisation, but there was a huge variety of languages, including sign languages. Oral tradition Cultural traditions and beliefs as w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dreamtime
The Dreaming, also referred to as Dreamtime, is a term devised by early anthropologists to refer to a religio-cultural worldview attributed to Australian Aboriginal religion and mythology, Australian Aboriginal mythology. It was originally used by Francis James Gillen, Francis Gillen, quickly adopted by his colleague Walter Baldwin Spencer, and thereafter popularised by A. P. Elkin, who later revised his views. The Dreaming is used to represent Aboriginal concepts of "Everywhen", during which the land was inhabited by ancestral figures, often of heroic proportions or with supernatural abilities. The term is based on a rendition of the Arandic languages, Arandic word , used by the Aranda people, Aranda (Arunta, Arrernte) people of Central Australia, although it has been argued that it is based on a misunderstanding or mistranslation. Some scholars suggest that the word's meaning is closer to "Eternity, eternal, uncreated". Anthropologist William Edward Hanley Stanner, William ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hermannsburg School
The Hermannsburg School, also known as the Hermannsburg School of Modern Art is an art movement, or art style, which began at the Hermannsburg Mission in the 1930s. The best known artist of the style is Albert Namatjira. The movement is characterised by watercolours of western-style landscapes that depict the often striking colours of the Australian outback. History Located west of Alice Springs, in Central Australia, Hermannsburg was founded by German Lutheran missionaries from the Hermannsburg Mission Society in 1877. The Western Arrernte people have lived in this region for thousands of years. In 1941 Rex Battarbee founded the Aranda Art Group, which controlled the supply of materials and helped handle the business affairs of the emerging artists. Style The Hermannsburg painters' work is characterised by soft hues, usually water colours, of their Western Arrernte landscape, which European settlers named the Western Macdonnell Ranges. Previously, Western Arrernt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bunjil
Bunjil, also spelt Bundjil, is a creator deity, culture hero and ancestral being, often depicted as a wedge-tailed eagle in Australian Aboriginal mythology of some of the Aboriginal peoples of Victoria. Creation stories In the Kulin nation in central Victoria he was regarded as one of two moiety ancestors, the other being Waang the crow. Bunjil (or Bundjil) has two wives and a son, Binbeal the rainbow. His brother is Palian the bat. He is assisted by six ''wirmums'' or shamans who represent the clans of the Eaglehawk moiety: Djart-djart the nankeen kestrel, Thara the quail hawk, Yukope the parakeet, Lar-guk the parrot, Walert the brushtail possum and Yurran the gliding possum. A Boonwurrung story tells of a time of conflict among the Kulin nations, when people argued and fought with one another, neglecting their families and the land. The mounting chaos and disunity angered the sea, which began to rise until it had covered the plains and threatened to flood the enti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baiame
In Australian Aboriginal religion and mythology, Australian Aboriginal mythology, Baiame (or Biame, Biami, Baayami, Baayama or Byamee) is the Creator deity, creator god and sky father in the Dreaming of several Aboriginal Australian peoples of south-eastern Australia, such as the Wonnarua, Kamilaroi, Kuringgai, Guringay, Eora, Darkinjung language, Darkinjung, and Wiradjuri peoples. Description and history The Baiame story tells how Baiame came down from the sky to the land and created rivers, mountains, and forests in all the lands. He then gave the people their laws of life, traditions, songs, and culture. He also created the first initiation site. This is known as a Bora (Australian), bora; a place where boys were initiated into manhood. When he had finished, he returned to the sky and people called him the ''Sky Hero'' or ''All Father'' or ''Sky Father''. He is said to have two wives, Ganhanbili and Birrangulu, the latter often being identified as an emu, and with whom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rainbow Serpent
The Rainbow Serpent or Rainbow Snake is a common deity often seen as the Creator deity, creator God, known by numerous names in different Australian Aboriginal languages by the many List of Australian Aboriginal group names, different Aboriginal peoples. It is a common Motif (visual arts), motif in the art and religion of many Aboriginal Australian peoples. Much like the archetypal mother goddess, the Rainbow Serpent creates land and diversity for the Aboriginal people, but when disturbed can bring great chaos. There are many names and stories associated with the serpent, all of which communicate the significance and power (sociology), power of this being within Australian Aboriginal religion and mythology, Aboriginal mythology, which includes the worldview commonly referred to as The Dreaming. The serpent is viewed as a giver of life through its association with water, but can be a destructive force if angry. The Rainbow Serpent is one of the most common and well-known Aborigin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australian Aboriginal Languages
The Indigenous languages of Australia number in the hundreds, the precise number being quite uncertain, although there is a range of estimates from a minimum of around 250 (using the technical definition of 'language' as non-mutually intelligible varieties) up to possibly 363. The Indigenous languages of Australia comprise numerous language family, language families and language isolate, isolates, perhaps as many as 13, spoken by the Aboriginal Australians, Indigenous peoples of mainland Australia and a few nearby islands. The relationships between the language families are not clear at present although there are proposals to link some into larger groupings. Despite this uncertainty, the Indigenous Australian languages are collectively covered by the technical term "Australian languages", or the "Australian family". The term can include both Tasmanian languages and the Kalaw Lagaw Ya, Western Torres Strait language, but the Genetic relationship (linguistics), genetic relations ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Aboriginal Australian Group Names
This list of Australian Aboriginal group names includes names and collective designations which have been applied, either currently or in the past, to groups of Aboriginal Australians. The list does not include Torres Strait Islander peoples, who are ethnically, culturally and linguistically distinct from Australian Aboriginal peoples, although also an Indigenous Australian people. Typically, Aboriginal Australian mobs are differentiated by language groups. Most Aboriginal people could name a number of groups of which they are members, each group being defined in terms of different criteria and often with much overlap. Many of the names listed below are properly understood as language or dialect names; some are simply the word meaning ''man'' or ''person'' in the associated language; some are endonyms (the name as used by the people themselves) and some exonyms (names used by one group for another, and not by that group itself), while others are demonyms (terms for people from sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Songline
A songline, also called dreaming track, is one of the paths across the land (or sometimes the sky) within the animist belief systems of the Aboriginal Australians, Aboriginal cultures of Australia. They mark the route followed by localised "creator-beings" in the Dreamtime, Dreaming. These routes serve as crucial connections between individuals and their ancestral lands, carrying intricate geographical, mythological, and cultural information. At its core, a songline functions as both a navigational aid and a repository of cultural knowledge. Embedded within traditional song cycles, dance rituals, stories, and artistic expressions, these pathways enable individuals to traverse vast distances while reciting the songs that describe landmarks, water sources, and natural features. Notably, the melodic contours and rhythmic nuances of the songs transcend linguistic barriers, facilitating cross-cultural understanding as different language groups interact and share the essence of these a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cosmology
Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe, the cosmos. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', with the meaning of "a speaking of the world". In 1731, German philosopher Christian Wolff used the term cosmology in Latin (''cosmologia'') to denote a branch of metaphysics that deals with the general nature of the physical world. Religious or mythological cosmology is a body of beliefs based on mythological, religious, and esoteric literature and traditions of creation myths and eschatology. In the science of astronomy, cosmology is concerned with the study of the chronology of the universe. Physical cosmology is the study of the observable universe's origin, its large-scale structures and dynamics, and the ultimate fate of the universe, including the laws of science that govern these areas. It is investigated by scientists, including astronomers and physicists, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aboriginal Australians
Aboriginal Australians are the various indigenous peoples of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland and many of its islands, excluding the ethnically distinct people of the Torres Strait Islands. Humans first migrated to Australia (continent), Australia 50,000 to 65,000 years ago, and over time formed as many as 500 List of Aboriginal Australian group names, language-based groups. In the past, Aboriginal people lived over large sections of the continental shelf. They were isolated on many of the smaller offshore islands and Tasmania when the land was inundated at the start of the Holocene Interglacial, inter-glacial period, about 11,700 years ago. Despite this, Aboriginal people maintained extensive networks within the continent and certain groups maintained relationships with Torres Strait Islanders and the Makassar people, Makassar people of modern-day Indonesia. Over the millennia, Aboriginal people developed complex trade networks, inter-cultural relationships, law ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Songline
A songline, also called dreaming track, is one of the paths across the land (or sometimes the sky) within the animist belief systems of the Aboriginal Australians, Aboriginal cultures of Australia. They mark the route followed by localised "creator-beings" in the Dreamtime, Dreaming. These routes serve as crucial connections between individuals and their ancestral lands, carrying intricate geographical, mythological, and cultural information. At its core, a songline functions as both a navigational aid and a repository of cultural knowledge. Embedded within traditional song cycles, dance rituals, stories, and artistic expressions, these pathways enable individuals to traverse vast distances while reciting the songs that describe landmarks, water sources, and natural features. Notably, the melodic contours and rhythmic nuances of the songs transcend linguistic barriers, facilitating cross-cultural understanding as different language groups interact and share the essence of these a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emu Public
The emu (; ''Dromaius novaehollandiae'') is a species of flightless bird endemic to Australia, where it is the tallest native bird. It is the only extant member of the genus ''Dromaius'' and the third-tallest living bird after its African ratite relatives, the common ostrich and Somali ostrich. The emu's native ranges cover most of the Australian mainland. The Tasmanian, Kangaroo Island and King Island subspecies became extinct after the European settlement of Australia in 1788. The emu has soft, brown feathers, a long neck, and long legs. It can grow up to in height. It is a robust bipedal runner that can travel great distances, and when necessary can sprint at . It is omnivorous and forages on a variety of plants and insects, and can go for weeks without eating. It drinks infrequently, but takes in copious amounts of fresh water when the opportunity arises. Breeding takes place in May and June, and fighting among females for a mate is common. Females can mate several t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
