The Death And Dying Beliefs Of Australian Aborigines

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bull-roarer, the
sound of which imitates his voice. It is Daramulun that gives the medicine men
their powers. When a man dies, it is Daramulun who cares for his spirit. This
belief was witnessed before the intervention of Christian missionaries. It is
also used only in the most secret initiations of which women know nothing and
are very central to the archaic and genuine religious and social traditions.
Therefore it is doubtful that this belief was due to missionary propaganda but
istruly a belief of the Aborigines (Eliade, 1973).
Another belief that is reminiscent of the Christian faith is that death
came into being only because the communications between heaven and earth had
been violently interrupted. When Adam and Eve were thrown out of the Garden of
Eden, death came into existence. This belief of the origin of death is common
to many archaic religions where communication with heaven and its subsequent
interruption is related to the ancestor's loss of immortality or of his ...

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spirit species of nature's soul before
merging with its ancestral source in the Dreaming (Lawlor, 1991).
In the Aboriginal tradition, death, burial and afterlife are rich in
meaning and metaphysical interpretation. Aborigines use a wide variety of
burial practices, including all of those known to have been used in other parts
of the world, as well varieties not practiced anywhere else. Although these
rites vary, all Australian Aborigines share many fundamental ideas about death
and its relationship to life.
The most fundamental concept of death in the Aboriginal tradition is the
doctrine of three worlds, the unborn, the living, and the dying, and the Land of
the Dead. Therefore ...

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