The Aboriginal culture is complex and diverse. The Indigenous cultures of Australia are the oldest living cultural history in the world – they go back at least 50,000 years. Cultural heritage is seen as ‘the total ways of living built up by a group of human beings, which is passed from one generation to the next’, given to them by reason of their birth. In Australia, Indigenous communities keep their cultural heritage alive by passing their knowledge, arts, rituals and performances from one generation to another, speaking and teaching languages, protecting cultural materials, sacred and significant sites, and objects.
Land is fundamental to the wellbeing of Aboriginal people. All of Australia’s Aboriginals were semi-nomadic hunters and gatherers, with each clan having its own territory from which they ‘made their living’. These territories or ‘traditional lands’ were defined by geographic boundaries such as rivers, lakes and mountains. They understood and cared for their different environments, and adapted to them . For Indigenous Australians, the land is the core of all spirituality and this relationship and the spirit of ‘country’ is central to the issues that are important to Indigenous people today.
Indigenous knowledge of the land is linked to their exceptional tracking skills based on their hunter and gather life. This includes the ability to track down animals, to identify and locate edible plants, to find sources of water and fish. National parks can contain sites of significance for Aboriginal communities, such as rock engravings and artwork. National parks can be significant for Aboriginal people because of Dreaming stories associated with those sites. National parks management recognizes this intrinsic relationship that Aboriginal people have with their ‘country’. The land is often less disturbed by European settlement.
Often the land areas have been relatively inaccessible or not suitable for European agricultural practices, or have been left relatively intact. National Parks and Wildlife Service programs are often run in conjunction with Traditional Owners and Aboriginal communities to ensure Indigenous involvement in national and state parks is seen to be part of processes which help contribute to reconciliation, respect, recognition and cultural awareness, resolution of Native Title, training, employment and enterprise development, support for Aboriginal heritage and cooperative management of the parks and wildlife.
Aboriginals identify themselves through their land areas, their relationship to others and their language and stories – which may be expressed through ceremony, the arts, family, religion, and sports. Cultural heritage is passed on from one generation to the next. There were about 600 different clan groups or ‘nations’ around the continent when Europeans arrived, many with distinctive cultures and beliefs. Their ‘territories’ ranged from lush woodland areas to harsh desert surroundings.
Different groups developed different skills and built a unique body of knowledge based on their particular environment. The system of kinship put everybody in a specific relationship to each other as well special relationships with land areas based on their clan or kin. These relationships have roles and responsibilities attached to them. Kinship influences marriage decisions and governs much of everyday behaviour. By adulthood people know exactly how to behave, and in what manner, to all other people around them as well as in respect to specific land areas.
Kinship is about meeting the obligations of one’s clan, and forms part of Aboriginal Law, sometimes known as the Dreaming. In most stories of the Dreaming, the Ancestor spirits came to the earth in human form and as they moved through the land, they created the animals, plants, rocks and other forms of the land that we know today. They also created the relationships between groups and individuals to the land, the animals and other people. Once the ancestor spirits had created the world, they changed into trees, the stars, rocks, atering holes or other objects.
These are the sacred places of Aboriginal culture and have special properties. Because the ancestors did not disappear at the end of the Dreaming, but remained in these sacred sites, the Dreaming is never-ending, linking the past and the present, the people and the land. For Aboriginal people all that is sacred is in the land. Knowledge of sacred sites is learned through a process of initiation and gaining an understanding of Aboriginal law. It is, by definition, not public knowledge.
This is why the existence of many sites might not be broadcast to the wider world unless they are threatened. Music, song and dance was and is still today a very important part of Aboriginal life and customs. There were songs for every occasion, some of which were expressed in special ceremonies. Songs and dances were exchanged often at large ceremonial gatherings when many people gathered together and when trade goods were also exchanged. These gatherings often occurred at a time and place when there was plenty of food.
Dance is a unique aspect of ceremonies which is learnt and passed down from one generation to another. To dance is to be knowledgeable about the stories of the ancestral heroes although dancing, unlike painting and singing, is learnt at an early age. This allows large groups of people to demonstrate their clan rights in front of an audience. Dance is also seen as an occasion to entertain and to be entertained and through the work of dance to show their love for families and kin. It is for this reason that dance may be performed at the end of every day in some communities.