Indigenous Australian Cultures

The Dreaming
The Dreaming is the essence of understanding for Indigenous Australians, deeply rooted in the land and all it encompasses; people, flora, fauna and so on. “The Dreaming mythology provides Aboriginal people with answers to the great universal religious questions of humankind- concerning the origin, meaning, purpose and destiny of life” (Clark, 2003, p. 16).
Constructions within the Dreaming are as varied as there are language groups, demonstrated in the varying name ascribed to the Dreaming itself, “Ngarinyin people in the north-west of Western Australia refer to it as Ungud, the Aranda of Central Australia as Aldjerinya, the Pitjantjaljara of north-west South Australia as Tjukurpa, the Yolngu of north-east Arnhem Land as Wongar, while in the Broome region it is referred to as Bugari.” (Edwards, 1998, p. 79).
(McKay, McLeod, Jones, & Barker, 2001) identify up to twenty or more lessons can be conveyed in one story, including; customs, animal behaviour, land maps, hunting and gathering skills, cultural norms, moral behaviours and survival skills. For example; ‘Alinga the Lizard Man’, a story from Uluru in the Northern Territory, explains the use of the boomerang; or ‘Pikuw, the Crocodile’, from the Cape York Area of Northern Queensland conveys the offence of extra-marital affairs.
The Dreaming is as much about informing the history of Creation as it is informing the structure for life itself. “The Dreaming ancestors provided the model for life. They established a pattern for the daily round of economic, social, political, cultural and ritual activities” (Edwards, 1998, p. 84). For example, (McKay et al., 2001) explains the totemic system of identification present in the kinship system originates in the Dreaming.

Kinship
“A complex and sophisticated system of social organisation covering responsibilities, roles and reciprocal bonds, determining how people are related, who can marry who and who supports who” (University of Sydney, 2002-15).
Kinship structure comprises three levels; moiety, totems and skin names; inherited from the mother (Matrilineal nations) or from the father (Patrilineal nations). (University of Sydney, 2002-15).

Moiety
“All humans and life forms, and even inanimate natural phenomena, are divided into two groups” (Fryer-Smith, 2008). (Fryer-Smith, 2008) further explains, moiety structures can be comprised of subsections depending on the structure of the language group. For example; the Ngarluma and Nyangumarta peoples of northern Western Australia have a four-division subsection while the Warlpiri people, Central Australia; the Yolgnu people, Arnhem Land; maintain an eight-subsection system. Moiety determines; “People of the same moiety are obliged to support each other” (University of Sydney, 2002-15) or; in Gunditjamara society, of two moieties, Krokitch and Kaoutch, a person of Krokitch moiety must marry a person of Kaoutch moiety described by (Fryer-Smith, 2008).

Totems
“Each person has atleast four totems which represent their nation, clan and family group. Individuals are also given an individual totem” (University of Sydney, 2002-15). People are responsible to protect their totems, “Often people are custodians of their totems and are not allowed to kill or eat…” (Fryer-Smith, 2008). Nations are linked to each other via their totems; “people sharing the same totem, even if they came from distant or neighbouring territories, could not marry because they were linked spiritually” (Fryer-Smith, 2008). This kinship provides a basis for sharing of resources and trade as explored in economic organisation.

Skin names
Indicates bloodline (University of Sydney, 2002-15).

Economic Organisation
A hunter-gatherer economy generalised by “women were the gatherers of plants (vegetables), roots, fruits and nuts, shellfish and small land mammals. Men were the hunters of large land animals, sea mammals and fish” (Altman, 1980). “The economy followed a seasonal pattern” (Bennett, 2007) and if food sources became scarce, “kinship ties mediated by the Dreaming” (Bradley, 2006) ensured sharing of resources. For example, (Bradley, 2006) describes the relationship between the Yanyuwa ans Garrawa peoples of the southwest Gulf of Capentaria and their shared use of the cycad palm, “Yanyuwa people and the freshwater-riverine Garrwa people had deliberately divided this important food source among themselves”.

Trade extended beyond neighbouring lands, following “‘dreaming trails’ (the routes travelled by ancestral beings)” (South Australian Government, 2012). Trade centres were established based on “sites where fresh water was plentiful, and access and movement were facilitated along periodic watercourses or between suitably spaced water-holes” (South Australian Government, 2012) and were linked by Dreaming stories, for example “a dingo centre within the Simpson (desert) was linked ...with another dingo place at Mt. Gilen” (Mulvaney, 2002).

International trade existed. For example between the Maccassans and people of coastal regions in Northern Australia, encompassing exchange of items other than food such as “cloth, dugout canoes, knives, axes, glass…” in return for labour (Clark, 2003, p. 181).

(Altman, 1980) found in regions of Northern Australia, “exchange was associated with elaborate ceremonial exchange cycles”. (Mulvaney, 2002) also acknowledged the “spiritual and ceremonial value” of exchanges where “ideas are interchanged, superstitions and traditions handed from district to district…new words and terms…and corroborees are learnt and exchanged, just like other commodities”. (Mulvaney, 2002).

Altman, J. C. (1980). Northern Australia: Options and Implications. Canberra: Reasearch School of Pacific Studies Australian National University.

Bennett, M. (2007). The economics of fishing: sustainable living in colonial New South Wales. Aboriginal History, 31, 85 - 102.

Clarke, Philip (2003). Where the Ancestors Walked : Australia as an Aboriginal Landscape. Crowsnest: Allen and Unwin.

Edwards, B. (1998). Living the Dreaming. In Bourke, C., Bourke, E. & Edwards, B. (Eds). Aboriginal Australia: An Introductory reader in Aboriginal Studies. (2nd ed). (pp.77-99). St Lucia: University of Queensland Press.

Fryer-Smith, S. (2008). Aboriginal Benchbook for Western Australia Courts (Second ed.). Victoria: Australian Institute for Judicial Administration Incorporated.

McKay, H. F., McLeod, P. E., Jones, F. F., & Barker, J. E. (2001). Gadi Mirrabook Retrieved from Ebook Library database

Mulvaney, J. (2002). '…these Aboriginal lines of travel'. Historic Environment, 16(2), 4-7.

South Australian Government (2012). ‘Aboriginal Occupation’. Atlas of South Australia. Retrieved from http://www.atlas.sa.gov.au/resources/atlas-of-south-australia-1986/the-course-of-settlement/aboriginal-occupation (22/03/15)

University of Sydney. (2002-15). The Kinship Module. Retrieved from http://sydney.edu.au/kinship-module/ (15/03/2015).