Good morning, my name is Georgia and today I will be speaking to you about the Yolngu People from Arnhem Land, one of the oldest living cultures. I will be exploring the events in their life stages and comparing those with my own culture as a white Australian. Their biggest influences on everyday life include the idea of family and kinship and their belief system

Before birth, the Yolngu individual's sense of self and self-consciousness is already beginning to be developed greatly, largely due to their environment. This initial idea comes from the cosmological belief around spirits, where the mum first feels the baby move in the womb a conception totem is given to the foetus. This totem stays with them for their entire life, joined by other assigned totems during infancy (0-2), their clan and skin totems, which define the roles and responsibilities of individuals and links them to their families and clans closely.

During their early childhood …show more content…
A young adult now has the responsibility to care for themselves and develop their own lives and identity outside of their micro and meso-world, becoming largely invested in the macro-world, for instance, what is happening in the world currently and events that could impact their own life. This is largely different for the Yolngu people, who have already been experiencing this for around the past 5-8 years. Their biggest step is kinship, not only being with their family but accepting others from outside Arnhem Land to experience their ways, for instance, the men teaching the tourists who come to visit and walk upon Arnhem land with respect and the women who teach traditions like weaving. This idea of outside kinship is carried on for their rest of the lives, especially during adulthood (30-50) and late adulthood