Could anyone give a brief summary of the Australian Aboriginal traditional religious beliefs?
Australian Aboriginal Religion Doctrines A key aspect of Australian aboriginal belief is the Dreaming. At the heart of this is the belief in powerful beings who arose out of the land, created or gave birth to people, plant life and animal life, and connected particular groups of people with particular regions and languages. The Dreaming beings continue to control the natural world, but their willingness to release the powers of fertility depends upon people continuing to perform certain rituals. People are believed to possess spirits which originate from the dreaming. As children grow up they undergo a variety of rites of passage which initiate them into adulthood. Boys would be subjected to practices such as, circumcision, subincision into the urethra, blood letting or tooth pulling. Girls would be ritually decorated, and subject to partial seclusion or food taboos. Totemism was also important to the aboriginal world view. The representation of mythic or living beings was seen to prov
