What is meant by The Dreaming in Aboriginal Spirituality? What is its significance for Aboriginal Australians and how is this expressed?

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What is meant by The Dreaming in Aboriginal Spirituality? What is its significance for Aboriginal Australians and how is this expressed?

        The Dreaming is the core of traditional Aboriginal religious beliefs. The term itself translates as various words in different languages of the Aboriginal people. Groups each have their own words for this concept: for example the Ngarinyin people of north-Western Australia use the word Ungud, the Arrernte people of central Australia refer to it as Aldjerinya and the Adnyamathanha use the word Nguthuna. Its meaning is paramount to traditional Aboriginal people, their lifestyle and their culture, for it determines their values and beliefs and their relationship with every living creature and every characteristic of the landscape. Through a network of obligations involving themselves, the land, and the Ancestors, traditional Aboriginals express The Dreaming through every facet of their life.

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        The Dreaming is not just a recollection of the past, it is also the reality of the now and the creator of the future. At the most elementary level, the Dreaming embodies the Aboriginal idea of creation. In Aboriginal belief it was the activities of the Ancestral beings as the moved around which created the world as it is today. For example, to the Pitjantjatjat people of the western Desert of Central Australia, a high mountain peak may represent a place where one of the Ancestors stood up and looked over the surrounding country These Ancestral beings have been ...

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