Aboriginal Culture

Australian Aboriginal culture includes a number of practices and ceremonies centered on a belief in the Dreamtime. Reverence for the land and oral traditions are emphasised.

Language groupings and tribal divisions exhibit a range of individual cultures.

Sacred sites and Dreaming stories

In most stories of the Dreaming, the Ancestor spirits came to the earth in human form and as they moved through the land, they created the animals, plants, rocks and other forms of the land that we know today. They also created the relationships between groups and individuals to the land, the animals and other people.

Once the ancestor spirits had created the world, they changed into trees, the stars, rocks, watering holes or other objects. These are the sacred places of Aboriginal culture and have special properties. Because the ancestors did not disappear at the end of the Dreaming, but remained in these sacred sites, the Dreaming is never-ending, linking the past and the present, the people and the land.

For Aboriginal people all that is sacred is in the land. Knowledge of sacred sites is learned through a process of initiation and gaining an understanding of Aboriginal law. It is, by definition, not public knowledge. This is why the existence of many sites might not be broadcast to the wider world unless they are threatened.

The quality and variety of Australian Indigenous art produced today reflects the richness and diversity of Indigenous culture and the distinct differences between tribes, languages, dialects and geographic landscapes.

The emergence of 'dot' paintings by Indigenous men from the western deserts of Central Australia in the early 1970s has been called the greatest art movement of the twentieth century. Prior to this, most cultural material by Indigenous Australians was collected by anthropologists. Consequently, collections were found in university departments or natural history museums worldwide, not art galleries. That all changed at a place called Papunya and with what became known as the Papunya Tula art movement of the Western Desert.

Today Indigenous art ranges across a wide variety of mediums from works on paper and canvas to fibre and glass. The story of the way these art forms runs parallel to the history and experiences of the artists themselves. It reflects customary trading patterns, a struggle for survival and the influence of governments and churches.

Wood carvings are made using stone tools and they vary from swirling spirals and rippling waves to zigzags and concentric triangles. The carvings don't have dots, they're mostly linear, with lots of cross-

hatching. As abstract pieces of art, they show a great deal of complexity.

Tree carving was a practice specific to the Wiradjuri and Kamilaroi tribes of NSW, used to mark sites of special ceremonial significance. Young men were given their own design as part of their initiation into manhood. That design was then carved into the tree by artists using stone tools. Many tree carvings were also used as grave markers, signposts for the burial sites of important tribal members.

Carving designs were specific and unique to individual men and to tribes

Ceremony and Ritual

Traditionally, when a person in Arnhem Land dies the body is ritually painted with relevant totemic designs, sung over and mourned. It is then taken to the deceased's clan land, and is either buried or placed on a platform in a tree and left to decompose. The bones are recovered later (this can be months or even years later) and a hollow log ceremony is performed.

Boy in ceremonial dress and with his body painted at his initiation ceremony.

The different painting styles apparent in groupings are related to the artists' social groups (sometimes described as clans) which link people by or to a common ancestor, land, language and strict social affiliations.

Carvings and Trees

Artist Jimmy Wululu working on a hollow log coffin

A tree trunk, naturally hollowed out by termites, is cut down, cleaned and, in a ceremonial camp, is painted with the clan's totemic designs. The bones of the deceased are painted with red ochre and, during special dances, placed inside the log. The larger bones and skull are broken before being inserted. The coffin is danced into the main camp, placed upright and the final songs and dances performed. It is then left to the elements, and the burial cycle is complete.

Traditionally in Aboriginal culture, artworks were produced for ceremonial purposes. Therefore, not many original artworks exist today. The artwork is steeped in spiritual significance about the land, the creatures and spirits that inhabit it.

Thuuth Thaa'-munth (Law Poles) by Ron Yunkaporta, 2009 Cottonwood, red ochre, pipe clay Collection of Peter Sutton

Bob Burruwal’s Namarroddo spirit figures (2005), associated with shooting stars.Maningrida Arts and Culture.Fashioned from string or paperbark, ochre, human hair, or all of the above.

Artist: Lena Yarinkura & Bob BurruwalAbove: Dancing Belt

Right: Jamu (Dog) and2 Bandicoots