Christine10 things you didn’t know about Australian Indigenous Culture
December 31st 2007 08:57
I’ve just spent a week in the outback of the Northern Territory visiting a group of remote indigenous communities called Utopia. I was there with friends who teach music to the kids out there. It was amazing. I also learnt a few interesting things about our indigenous culture and I thought I’d let you in on them.
1. There is no `please’ or `thank you’ in indigenous culture.
2. There is no `hello’ greeting.
3. Everyone has a `skin’ name that lets you know how you relate to everyone. This also has a practical application so you don’t marry someone who is closely related to you. It also means that from a young age, you know who you’re going to marry in the community.
4. Every person has a ‘dreaming’; a story that is a cornerstone of their lives. The stories are to do with the land and it’s animals and plants. Men and women have different dreamings in the landscape, and neither can come in contact with the others’. It’s said that in Alice Springs the great MacDonnell Ranges, called Caterpillar Dreaming, are men’s dreaming, so women cannot cross the ranges, but must walk for miles around them.
5. Hunting and gathering food is the priority for these traditionally living people, and that can take up most of the day. In the heat of summer when the weather is too hot for the older members and youngsters of the group, the adults go out hunting and the grandparents use that time to tell the children stories and teach them about culture and the land.
6. Most of the traditional weapons, tools and bowls are made from the strong mulga or blood woods out at Utopia. Spinifex resin is used as glue, and the sinew of kangaroo (tendon at back of leg between knee and shin) is used as rope.
7. ‘Pay back’ is a term used for punishment, for someone who has killed another or has married the wrong skin person. Traditionally the men would spear the person in the back of the legs and the women would beat them on the back with a pole, and then the wrong-doer would be banished from the tribe.
8. ‘Sorry Business’ is the term used when someone dies. The whole village usually moves away from the place where the death occurred, and anything the person had touched is either destroyed or put away for a long period of time.
9. Bush Tucker consists of lizards, honey ants, kangaroo, goanna, prente, seeds and bush fruits and berries. Indigenous people make damper with crushed seeds on their own version of a flat mortar and pestle!
10. Kids are treated just like adults: they are respected and are allowed to do things for themselves and don’t have to obey adults’ commands.
1. There is no `please’ or `thank you’ in indigenous culture.
2. There is no `hello’ greeting.
3. Everyone has a `skin’ name that lets you know how you relate to everyone. This also has a practical application so you don’t marry someone who is closely related to you. It also means that from a young age, you know who you’re going to marry in the community.
4. Every person has a ‘dreaming’; a story that is a cornerstone of their lives. The stories are to do with the land and it’s animals and plants. Men and women have different dreamings in the landscape, and neither can come in contact with the others’. It’s said that in Alice Springs the great MacDonnell Ranges, called Caterpillar Dreaming, are men’s dreaming, so women cannot cross the ranges, but must walk for miles around them.
5. Hunting and gathering food is the priority for these traditionally living people, and that can take up most of the day. In the heat of summer when the weather is too hot for the older members and youngsters of the group, the adults go out hunting and the grandparents use that time to tell the children stories and teach them about culture and the land.
6. Most of the traditional weapons, tools and bowls are made from the strong mulga or blood woods out at Utopia. Spinifex resin is used as glue, and the sinew of kangaroo (tendon at back of leg between knee and shin) is used as rope.
7. ‘Pay back’ is a term used for punishment, for someone who has killed another or has married the wrong skin person. Traditionally the men would spear the person in the back of the legs and the women would beat them on the back with a pole, and then the wrong-doer would be banished from the tribe.
8. ‘Sorry Business’ is the term used when someone dies. The whole village usually moves away from the place where the death occurred, and anything the person had touched is either destroyed or put away for a long period of time.
9. Bush Tucker consists of lizards, honey ants, kangaroo, goanna, prente, seeds and bush fruits and berries. Indigenous people make damper with crushed seeds on their own version of a flat mortar and pestle!
10. Kids are treated just like adults: they are respected and are allowed to do things for themselves and don’t have to obey adults’ commands.
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Comment by Lilla
Enviro Warrior
An Extra Ordinary Life
Dream Herald
Wow, it really would be a 'Sorry Business' having to move about like that in our complicated 'civilised' world...
It is nice to hear something positive about the indigenous people and their lifestyles for a change, thanks for the interesting insight.
HAPPY NEW YEAR
Lilla ...
Comment by Christine
Mind Orgasms
Thanks for the comment. Yep it's all pretty positive out there - and the elders have made it a dry community (means no alcohol allowed).
I love the way they don't care about all the formalities and manners that are instilled in us from an early age. Makes life a lot easier!
Comment by WeR1Family
Stories of Wisdom
Lone - My Life and Thoughts
Comment by Christine
Mind Orgasms
I wondered at first too, but after a while I got how instilled `manners' are to me, and that if you live the way they do, then gratitude is expressed in everything you do - it's not a thing you have to add verbally to remind you (or be reminded by your parents to do.) It's in the way they speak to each other, act, and the way they think.
Maybe it's just that we're a more verbal culture, so the idea of not saying polite things in words is a little strange.
Maybe `development' is not always `better'.
Let me know what you think.
Christine