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 emphasized. Language groupings and tribal divisions exhibit a range of individual cultures. Australian Aboriginal art has existed for thousands of years and ranges from ancient rock art to modern watercolor landscapes. Aboriginal music has developed a number of unique instruments. Contemporary Australian aboriginal music is predominantly of the country music genres. Indigenous Australians did not develop a system of writing.

Indigenous Australians' oral tradition and spiritual values build on reverence for the land and on a belief in the Dreamtime. The Dreaming is considered to be both the ancient time of creation and the present-day reality of Dreaming. There are many different groups, each with their own individual culture, belief structure and language.

These cultures often overlapped, and evolved over time. The Rainbow Serpent is a major ancestral being for many Aboriginal people across Australia. Baiame or Bunjil are regarded as the primary creator-spirits in South-East Australia. Dingo Dreaming is a significant ancestor in the interior regions of Bandiyan, as Dingo formed the songlines that cross the continent from north to south and east to west. The Yowie and Bunyip are other ancestral beings.

Traditional healers (known as Ngangkari in the Western desert areas of Central Australia) were highly respected men and women who not only acted as healers or doctors, but also generally served as custodians of important Dreamtime stories.

[Aborigines] perceived death as a transition to another life that is not completely different from the one they have left when they died. This appears to apply even to cases where a person is believed to have more than one spirit or soul. After death, the new situation was seen as not too different from the person's earthly life in which he or she had many roles. In death, [...] part of him may move to the Land of the Dead, or return to the site where spirit children await rebirth, or merge with the great ancestral and creative beings, etc., while another part of him or her may play the role of a spirit trickster.

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