An Ancient Practice: Aboriginal Burial Ceremonies
Aboriginal Rock Art (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Aborigines of Australia might represent the oldest living culture in the world. Aboriginal culture is most commonly known for its unique artistic technique evolving from the red ochre pigment cave paintings that started cropping up 60,000 years ago, but many don’t know about their complex and environmentally friendly burial rites. One of the most interesting aspects of Aboriginal people is that they’ve maintained many of their ancient cultural practices from stone tools to religion and continue to uphold their traditional values despite a constantly changing global atmosphere.
“Many don’t know about their complex and environmentally friendly burial rites.”
Count the Dots (Photo credit: mischiru)
One of the ways Aborigines preserve their culture is by practicing ritualistic burial rites. They mourn the loss of their loved one with symbolic chants, songs, dances, body paint, and physical cuts on their own bodies. But because Aborigines believe in rebirth of the soul, they also have the positive intention of guiding the departed spirit back home to be reborn. In accordance with their religious values, Aboriginal people follow specific protocol after a loved one has passed away. The family of the departed loved one will leave the body out for months on a raised platform, covered in native plants. This makes up the primary burial.
The secondary burial consists of the ceremonial aspect of the funeral. When nothing but bones are left, family and friends will scatter them in a variety of ways. Whether they wrap the bones in a hand-knitted fabric and place them in a cave for eventual disintegration or place them in a naturally hollowed out log, the process is environmentally sound. The respect for nature as well as the loved one who passed away leads me to think there are still many things we can learn from this ancient culture.
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Thank you for that insiteful introduction into aboriginal culture.
I have learnt information that may be useful in the future.
How interesting!
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Very interesting reading.
I am currently working on a confidential project which needs a little help to understand more on Aboriginal burial Ceremonies.
If an aboriginal person died overseas and was buried overseas, what does this mean to the family here in Australia.
As Aboriginals believe in the rebirth of the soul and they help the passed on person do this via rituals, as there is no body is this a major gap…I must assume it is.
The term ‘Aboriginal Burial’ is misleading. There were many nations of Aboriginals in Australia, just as there are many nations of people in Europe or Asia. Each nation’s traditional manner of disposing of the dead varied. Please be aware of this.
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Hi, would you know how the burials were performed on the north coast of nsw, specifically the Clarence area please.
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this was very helpful
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you make no sense to me
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I meant this guy made no sense to me
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this did not give good enough to find answers
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Hi Sam,
Thanks for your input. Admittedly this article doesn’t provide as much information as we would like. It was written a long time ago and could certainly use a little work. Please rest assured that we are in the process of updating our Cultural Perspectives content and will be adding/deleting and clarifying many of our posts over the next several months.
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THIS SITE IS VERY UN HELPFUL, IT DIDNT GIVE ENOUGH INFOMATION AND FACTS I DO NOT RECOMEND FOR ANYONE TO USE THIS SITE! BOB YOUR A GREAT MAN
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Thank you for your comments, Ronda.This article was written many years ago and could certainly use an update. That said, however, I’d like to point out that we create new, interesting content every week and are always striving to provide our readers with relevant information that they can use. Though you are certainly entitled to your opinion, I would hope that you would read more of what we have to offer before condemning our entire site.
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Why do they often paint the bones of the dead with red ochre?
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