1. AUSTRALIAN
ABORIGINAL
BELIEFS AND
SPIRITUALTIES
TERMINOLOGY

2. INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
Those people who are
the original inhabitants
of any country

3. ABORIGINAL
Derived from the Latin ab origine, meaning “from the
beginning”.
This is the term given to the
Indigenous peoples of Australians by
the Europeans

4. Koori – (South) NSW, Victoria, Tasmania
Murri – Queensland
Yolngu – Northern Territory
Nunga – South Australia
Nyungah – Western Australia

5. TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER
The indigenous people of the
Torres Strait Islands which are
located north of the Cape York
Peninsula and south of Papua New
Guinea.
Torres Strait Islanders often use the
name of their island community:
e.g. Badu, Murray, Yam

6. DREAMING
A complex concept of fundamental
importance to Aboriginal culture,
embracing:
• the creative era when the Spiritual
Beings and Ancestral Beings roamed and
instituted Aboriginal society
• the present and future

7. ANCESTRAL
BEINGS
Commonly, this term refers to deities/spirits
regarded as direct ancestors that shaped
creation in the Dreaming and founded the
ceremonies, marriage laws and other laws
of human society. They continue to exist.

8. COUNTRY
The term used by
Aboriginal people to refer
to the land in which they
belong and their place of
Dreaming

9. SACRED SITES
The places where the ancestral
beings became a part of the land
(e.g. watering holes, rocks, trees).
Thus the Ancestral Beings remain
present in the sacred sites,
linking past and present, the
people and the land.

10. KINSHIP
The system of relationships
traditionally accepted by a
particular culture and rights
and obligations they
involve

11. ELDERS
Key persons and keepers of various sacred-
secret knowledge within Aboriginal
communities.
They are the overseers of the Dreaming tracks
Highly respected: matriarchal and patriarchal
Matriarchal/patriarchal: a form of social
organisation in which the mother (L: mater –
mother) or Father (L: pater – father) is the head
of the family or social group

12. TOTEM
An object such as an
animal, pant or particular
landmark through which a
person is linked to the
Ancestral Being
responsible for his or her
existence