Many Aboriginal people believe in a place called the "Land of the Dead". This place was also commonly known as the "sky-world", which is really just the sky.
Aboriginal Death Beliefs
Notions of heaven and hell though, were not a part of their beliefs. So the idea of an Aboriginal afterlife with rewards or punishment does not exist. Instead, aboriginals focus on helping the spirit in its journey.
Many traditional aboriginal cultures consider death to be very natural. For many aboriginal people, a “good death” is one where they meet death with dignity and composure. Dying this way implies a further experience of an afterlife.
An Aboriginal person's soul or spirit is believed to "continue on after our physical form has passed through death", explains Eddie Kneebone. After the death of an Aboriginal person their spirit returns to the Dreamtime from where it will return through birth as a human, an animal, a plant or a rock.
The Mimi are tall, thin beings that live in the rocky ridges of northern Australia as spirits. Before the coming of Aboriginal people they had human forms. When Aboriginal people first came to northern Australia, the Mimi taught them how to hunt and cook kangaroos and other animals.
In Australian Aboriginal mythology, Baiame (or Biame, Baayami, Baayama or Byamee) was the creator god and sky father in the Dreaming of several Aboriginal Australian peoples of south-eastern Australia, such as the Wonnarua, Kamilaroi, Guringay, Eora, Darkinjung, and Wiradjuri peoples.
It is by knowing and understanding both which deepens our faith in God the Creator Spirit. Aboriginal Christians around the nation believe we are all God's chosen people and we can rediscover God through our Aboriginal Spirituality, through our stories and through our history.
According to Haudenosaunee beliefs, when a person dies, their breath of life is taken by the Faceless One, the destroyer who brings death. However, the spirit of the individual takes a number of days to get used to the death of the body and prepare to take its journey skyward.
Dreamtime is the foundation of Aboriginal religion and culture. It dates back some 65,000 years. It is the story of events that have happened, how the universe came to be, how human beings were created and how their Creator intended for humans to function within the world as they knew it.
Burial often takes place either near the place that the deceased was camping at the time of their passing or in a cemetery where descendants can return to for many years to come. These are known as Aboriginal burials and they are sacred in Indigenous culture.
Aboriginal burial often involved very distinctive cultural rituals such as the use of burial mounds, or burial sites built above ground, drying and embalming the remains, burying bodies in a sitting position, or marking them with red ochre. These were very different practices than those used by Europeans.
A new genomic study has revealed that Aboriginal Australians are the oldest known civilization on Earth, with ancestries stretching back roughly 75,000 years.
kumanjayi. Western Desert. substitute name for a dead person.
As Indigenous people regain knowledge of their culture and reconnect to their home communities, they often choose traditional services and burial.
“An Australian Aboriginal genome does not exist and therefore to even propose that a test is possible is scientifically inaccurate,” Ms Jenkins said. “The two companies which currently offer this 'service' use sections of DNA called single tandem repeats (STRs) that vary in the number of copies each person has.
Aboriginal burial or cremation
In the past and in modern day Australia, Aboriginal communities have used both burial and cremation to lay their dead to rest. Traditionally, some Aboriginal groups buried their loved ones in two stages. First, they would leave them on an elevated platform outside for several months.
Sacred sites are places within the landscape that have a special meaning or significance under Aboriginal tradition. Hills, rocks, waterholes, trees, plains, lakes, billabongs and other natural features can be sacred sites.
"Aborigine"
'Aborigine' is a noun for an Aboriginal person (male or female). The media, which is sometimes still using this term, has been called on to abandon it because its use has "negative effects on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' self-esteem and mental health".
Ngangkari are Aboriginal traditional healers from the Western Desert in Central Australia, which includes the Pitjantjatjara, Ngaanyatjarra and Yankunytjatjara peoples. The Ngangkari members of ANTAC come from different communities in the Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankuntjatjara Lands.
In Aboriginal culture it is taboo to mention (or in some cases write) the name of a deceased person. Aboriginal people believe that if the deceased person's name is mentioned, the spirit is called back to this world.
Losing Indian Status (Enfranchisement)
The process of losing one's Indian status for citizenship rights was called “enfranchisement.” Initially, any Indians who obtained a university degree and/or became a professional such as a doctor or lawyer would automatically lose their status.
Cutting a visible part of their body is also a way to inform other members of the community that a death has occurred. And indeed, when Samson wakes up and sees his friend roughly cutting her hair, he seems to understand immediately what has happened and silently moves back to his brother's home.
The Great Spirit is the concept of a life force, a Supreme Being or god known more specifically as Wakan Tanka in Lakota, Gitche Manitou in Algonquian, and by other, specific names in a number of Native American and First Nations cultures.
Australian Aboriginal religion and mythology is the sacred spirituality represented in the stories performed by Aboriginal Australians within each of the language groups across Australia in their ceremonies. Aboriginal spirituality includes the Dreamtime (the Dreaming), songlines, and Aboriginal oral literature.
Refers to the customs and stories the Aboriginal peoples learned from the Dreamtime. Aboriginal lore was passed on through the generations through songs, stories, and dance and it governed all aspects of traditional life.