Aboriginal Studies

Home > Aboriginal Studies > Part II - A or B > A Aboriginality and the Land > Aboriginality and land

A - Aboriginality and the Land

Outcomes

A student:

H2.1	examines contemporary expressions of Aboriginal and other Indigenous peoples’ culture, heritage and identity
H2.2	analyses the importance of Country as a contemporary issue impacting on Aboriginal and other Indigenous peoples’ cultural, political, social and economic life

Welcome

Aboriginal Art Divider

We would like you to join us on a journey in understanding the important issues of Aboriginality and land.

First, let's start with a quote by Noel Pearson in the book Voices of Aboriginal Australia:past, present, future compiled by Irene Moores for the Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Watch Committee.

Aboriginal title has to be treated differently because Aboriginal culture is inseparable from the land to which Aboriginal title attaches. The loss of impairment of that title is not simply a loss of real estate, it is a loss of culture.

Noel Pearson

Key concepts

Land and water rights
The ongoing struggle of Aboriginal people to be acknowledged as prior owners of the land and for recognition of all rights and obligations that flow from this association.

Country
The term Country can mean cultural practices, family, community, knowledge and learning, songs, stories, art, tracks, places, landforms, plants, animals and natural resources. Country means more than just the land, as culture, nature and land are all linked. Peoples' lives and spirituality are related to the land and to custodial relationships with Country reaching through time. For Aboriginal people each place, animal, plant and event holds living stories. In oral traditions, these stories contain the knowledge of Country, to be passed down through generations.
Aboriginal Australia Art and Culture Centre - Alice Springs
Nourishing Terrains - Australian Aboriginal Views of Landscape and Wilderness Australian Heritage Commission

Customary lore/traditional law
These laws were handed down from the Dreaming to each Aboriginal group and remained unchanged for generations. Lore is the foundation of all Aboriginal communities throughout Australia and as such is as unique and as varied as there are communities.

Spirituality
Aboriginal people are very spiritual in the sense that they have an affiliation with the Land. They believe the Land is the giver of life and that when they die their spirit returns to the Land. Aboriginal people also believe that Elders teach Spirituality through Dreaming stories.

Terra nullius
This is a concept of international law meaning territory belonging to no-one or over which no-one claims ownership. When Captain James Cook claimed the Eastern coast of Australia for the British Crown he justified the move with the concept of Terra Nullius. He believed, "We are to consider that we see this country in the pure state of Nature, the Industry of Man has had nothing to do with any part of it. They seem to have no fixed habitation but move about from place to place like wild Beasts in search of food." (Yarwood & Knowling 1991:31). The British law system recognised ownership of land based on specific principles so that ownership was shown by the fencing of land to mark boundaries, the building of permanent structures and the farming of the land.

Legislation
These are laws that are made by the State, Commonwealth or Territories on factors or issues affecting the Aboriginal people living in these areas.

Native Title
Form of land title that recognises Aboriginal people as the rightful owners of the land they occupied prior to 1788.

Sovereignty
This is the recognition of legal ownership of land. This is at the heart of the Land Rights struggle as Aboriginal peoples cared for themselves and country for thousands of years. With the introduction of British common law in 1788, Aboriginal peoples lost the right to care for their own country and govern their own affairs.

Welcome