Aboriginal rituals

Aboriginal people express and identify with their spirituality in different ways. These include

• ceremony (corroborees),
• rituals,
• totems,
• paintings,
• storytelling,
• community gathering,
• dance,
• songs,
• dreamings,
• designs.

[Aboriginal] spirituality is preoccupied with the relationship of the earth, nature and people in the sense that the earth is accepted as a member of our family, blood of our blood, bone of our bone.—Mudrooroo, Aboriginal writer [1]

Example of a ritual

One example of how Aboriginal people express spirituality is a ritual they do before they walk across country. To express respect for the country’s spirits they perform a welcome ritual whose exact nature varies from nation to nation.

• In some NSW nations Aboriginal people put ochre on the forehead, top of the palms and chest. This signalled that they were open to receive information [2].
• Other NSW Aboriginal people pick up a pebble or earth, throw it into the air and say “I am John, I’m in your country, please welcome me.”
• The Nyoongar in the Perth region rubbed soil into their armpits so that it would take on their smell. The soil was then released back to the land. This told the ancestral spirits about the person asking for the protection while travelling on the land [3].
• Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory placed a rock under their armpit and threw it into the river to let the water spirit know they were around [4].

Secret Yolngu ceremony

‘Riyawarray: Common Ground’ is a film that honours and celebrates Yolngu (Aboriginal) customary law and culture. Yolngu people’s right to live their lives as free people without the inappropriate impositions of the Federal Government’s emergency response the intervention.

This powerful snapshot documentary on Yolngu rites, rights and rituals as expressed through the recent Yirritja Ngarra Ceremony, was filmed in August 2008 at Milingimbi, Arnhemland, about 450 kms east of Darwin.