The Death and Dying Beliefs of Australian Aborigines :: Aborigines American Indians Religion Essays

The Death and Dying Beliefs of Australian AboriginesAlthough the Aborigines are often classified as a underbred race whosereligion is based upon animism and totemism like the American Indians, theAb passe-partout funeral practices and beliefs about death have much in common withother cultures. This paper leave behind discuss the death and dying beliefs of theAborigines that share a common thread with art objecty popular religions of today.Ab passe-partout beliefs in death and dying are original in that they combine allthese beliefs in a different way. The purpose of looking at the commonalties isto examine the shared foundations of all religions by investigating the shotof death and dying in a very localized and old set of beliefs.As in many religions, Aborigines share a belief in a celestial SupremeBeing. During a novices initiation, he learns the myth of Daramulun, whichmeans Father, who is also called Biamban, or Master. Long ago, Daramulundwelt on earth with his mother. The earth was barren and sterile. thither wereno human beings, nevertheless animals. Daramulun created the ancestors of the tribesand taught them how to live. He gave them the laws that are handed down fromfather to son, founded the initiation ceremonies and made the bull-roarer, thesound of which imitates his voice. It is Daramulun that gives the medicine mentheir powers. When a man dies, it is Daramulun who cares for his spirit. Thisbelief was witnessed before the intervention of Christian missionaries. It isalso used only in the most secret initiations of which women know nothing andare very telephone exchange to the archaic and genuine religious and social traditions.Therefore it is doubtful that this belief was due to missionary propaganda butistruly a belief of the Aborigines (Eliade, 1973).Another belief that is reminiscent of the Christian faith is that deathcame into being only because the communications between heaven and earth hadbeen violently interrupted. When Adam and E ve were thrown out of the garden ofEden, death came into existence. This belief of the origin of death is commonto many archaic religions where communication with heaven and its subsequentinterruption is related to the ancestors loss of immortality or of his originalparadisal situation (Eliade, 1973).The Australian ritual re-enactment of the Creation has a strikingparallel in post-Vedic India. The brahmanic sacrifice repeats what was done inthe beginning, at the moment of creation, and it is only because of the strictuninterrupted performance of the sacrifice that the world continues andperiodically renews itself. It is only be identifying himself with the