Aboriginal Spiritual Life

The spiritual life of Aboriginal people centres on the Dreaming which provides the great themes of art.

During ceremonies, one becomes one with the ancestor as the various song cycles are sung and dances performed enabling continued fertility of the land, plants and animals. Amongst them is important water dreaming ceremonies, significant ceremonies to mourn a deceased person and those of love magic, enabling success in love and teaching the right social group to marry.

Handed down from generation to generation, these ceremonies are an important learning tool and strong bond which helps place people in context and more deeply understand their place in society.

Women’s business or ceremony, found in many desert cultures, is essentially of increase or fertility rituals. 

The entire continent of Australia is covered by an intricate web of Dreamings. Some Dreamings relate to a particular place or region and belong to those who live there, others travel over vast distances and connect those whose lands they cover.

Among the major Dreamings are Ancestral beings such as the Wandjina and Rainbow Serpent; all figure in major ceremonial cycles.

The powers of these supernatural and ancestral beings are present in the land and in natural species, and also reside within individuals. They are activated by ceremony and nourish generation after generation of human descendants.

An individual’s links with the ancestral beings in the Dreaming and his or own spiritual identity are expressed through totemic associations with natural species and phenomena, ritual songs, objects, dances and graphic designs.