What is Aboriginal spirituality?

Aboriginal spirituality is grounded in the Tjukurpa (in Pitjantjatjara languages) or Dreaming (in English), the body of stories, law, and ceremony that explains how the country, its features, its plants and animals, and its people came into being. Different language groups across Australia have their own words for this concept, including bugarrigarra (Karajarri), ngarrangkarni (Gija), and altyerre (Arrernte).

Tjukurpa is not religion in the European sense of belief in a remote deity. It is a continuing reality in which the actions of ancestral beings during the creation period are still active in the landscape today. The features of country, the rocks, water holes, mountains, and trees, are evidence of those actions, and Aboriginal law, kinship, and ceremony arise directly from Tjukurpa. People who hold the knowledge are responsible for caring for country and for passing the stories on to the next generation.

Spiritual practice takes many forms. Ceremonies mark initiations, the resolution of disputes, the renewal of country through fire and water, and the deaths of community members. Songs, dances, body designs, and ground paintings all express elements of Tjukurpa and are owned by particular individuals, families, or clans. Sacred sites and objects are protected from outside view, and the disclosure of secret-sacred knowledge to the wrong audience is a serious breach of law in many communities.

Aboriginal spirituality continues to shape land management, art, and politics in Australia. Native Title cases under the Native Title Act 1993 require Indigenous applicants to demonstrate continuing connection to country through Tjukurpa and ceremony. Welcome to Country ceremonies at the start of public events draw on the same tradition. Many Aboriginal Australians today also hold Christian, Muslim, or other faiths alongside their traditional spiritual obligations, and the various traditions sit comfortably side by side in many communities.