Indigenous Australian

Indigenous Australians are descendants of the various ethnic groups that inhabited the territory of present day Australia prior to British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal Australians of the mainland and many islands, including Tasmania, and the Torres Strait Islanders of Melanesia. There have been many different Aboriginal groups, each with its own individual language, culture, and belief system. At the time of British settlement, there were over 200 distinct languages. In Aboriginal communities knowledge and decision making is shared between tribal elders. Within Aboriginal belief systems, a formative epoch known as the Dreaming or the Dreamtime stretches back into the distant past. In the beginning, creator ancestors known as the First Peoples travelled across the land, naming things things that they encountered. Indigenous Australia's oral tradition and religious values are based upon reverence for the land and a belief in this Dreamtime, which is simultaneously the ancient time of creation and the present-day reality of Dreaming. Different language and cultural groups each had their own belief structures. These cultural beliefs overlapped to a greater or lesser extent, and they evolved over time. Major ancestral spirits include the Rainbow Serpent (the great life giver, and protector of water, his spiritual home), Baiame (creator god and sky father), Dirawong (a lizard-like Ancestral Being who taught humans how to live on the land, as well as important ceremonies and rituals), and Bunjil (who created much of south-eastern Australia, the animals within it, and humans by breathing life into figures moulded from clay. Knowledge contained in the Dreaming has been preserved and transmitted through a variety of stories, songlines, dances, and ceremonies. It provided, and continues to provide a framework for ongoing relationships, kinship responsibilities, and good stewardship of the land. Traditional healers (known as Ngangkari in the Western desert areas of Central Australia) were highly respected men and women who not only acted as healers or doctors, but were generally also the custodians of important Dreaming stories. Torres Strait Islander people have their own traditional belief systems. Stories of the Tagai represent Torres Strait Islanders as sea people, with a connection to the stars, as well as a system of order in which everything has its place in the world.[259][261] Some Torres Strait Islander people share beliefs similar to the Aboriginal peoples' conceptions of Dreaming and Everywhen.