Aboriginal Australians are very religious people. They are
polytheistic and pray to various deities, whose form is pictured as a
recognizable image. The aboriginal religion utilizes landscape features
which are sometimes the embodiments of deities. The image of the deities is
created based on a specific figure, something that the deity did,
or something that happened to the deity during the Creation Period. Aboriginal
Australians do not accept animism. They do not believe that natural
objects possess a soul. For example, they do not think that a rock has a
soul but they think that the particular rock outcrop was made by a
particular deity in the creation period or that the rock symbolizes a deity
from the Creation Period. The deities of the aboriginal Australians are native
to each tribe because each tribe has its own deities with an overlap of
beliefs. There are different spirits that have different functions. For example,
the Wandjina spirits are accountable for bringing the Wet Season rains.
The deities of the Aboriginal Australians have many
functions. Their primary roles fall into three categories while one deity
may belong to one, two, or all three of the categories. The categories are: the
creation beings, ancestral beings, and totemic beings. The creation beings are
known for creating people, the landscape, and parts of the environment. The
ancestral beings are known as the direct ancestors of the Aboriginal
Australians that are still living today. The ancestral beings taught the
first people essential tools and tips such as making weapons, hunting, and
creating the law. These beings may appear in human, plant, or animal form.
Totemic beings represent the original form of an animal, plant, or other object
(totem), such as it was in the Creation Period. The totemic
being combine the concepts of a Creation Being and the Ancestral Being
because the Aboriginal Australians see the Creation Beings and the Ancestral
Beings as derived from different Totemic Beings.
Welsh, D. (n.d.)
Religion and Ceremony.
http://www.aboriginalculture.com.au
/religion.shtml,
accessed February 7, 2015.
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