Aboriginal spirituality, the Dreaming, dispossession and the Land Rights movement: HSC Studies of Religion

What this dot point is asking

The Aboriginal spiritualities section of Religion and Belief Systems in Australia post-1945 asks you to discuss how Aboriginal spirituality is determined by the Dreaming (kinship, ceremonial life, obligations to the land and people), discuss the continuing effect of dispossession (separation from the land, separation from kinship groups, the Stolen Generations), outline the importance of Native Title, Mabo and Wik for the Land Rights movement and analyse the importance of the Dreaming for the Land Rights movement.

It is common to Studies of Religion I and II and is examined almost every year: the 5-mark short answer in 2023 (the relationship between the Dreaming and the land rights movement) and 2021 (religious traditions and Reconciliation), and several multiple-choice questions in 2022, 2024 and 2025.

This is a sensitive area. There are hundreds of distinct Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations, languages and traditions, so avoid generalising. Where possible, learn from and about the Aboriginal Country on which you live, following the protocols the syllabus recommends for working with Aboriginal communities.

The answer

How the Dreaming determines Aboriginal spirituality

The Dreaming (a translation of many different terms in Aboriginal languages) is the foundation of Aboriginal spiritualities. It is not a myth about the distant past: it is an ever-present reality, sometimes called "the everywhen", in which ancestral beings created the land, waterways, plants, animals and people, established the law, and remain present in the land. It gives meaning, law and identity to every part of life.

The syllabus asks you to show how the Dreaming determines three things.

Kinship

The Dreaming establishes kinship systems that locate each person in relation to other people, ancestral beings and Country. Depending on the nation, these include moieties, skin names and totems. Kinship sets out obligations of care, respect and avoidance, marriage rules and responsibilities for ceremony and for particular sites. Relationships are therefore spiritual as well as social.

Ceremonial life

Ceremony, song, dance, story and art re-enact and renew the Dreaming. Ceremonies mark stages of life (such as initiation), care for Country and species, and pass on law and knowledge. Knowledge is often restricted by age, gender and status, and ceremony must be performed at the right place by the right people, which is why access to Country matters.

Obligations to the land and people

People are custodians of Country, not owners in a European sense. They have responsibilities to care for Country and sacred sites, maintain ceremonies, and pass on law and knowledge to the next generation. The land is kin: harm to Country is harm to people.

The consequence is that identity, law and spirituality are inseparable from particular Country and particular kin. This is the key to the whole section.

The continuing effect of dispossession

Because the Dreaming depends on connection to Country and kin, dispossession had a uniquely deep spiritual impact.

Separation from the land

Colonisation, the doctrine of terra nullius, pastoral expansion, massacres and confinement on reserves and missions removed peoples from their Country. People lost access to sacred sites and could not perform ceremonies or fulfil custodial obligations, and some sites were damaged or destroyed. The continuing effect is loss of the places through which the Dreaming is known and renewed.

Separation from kinship groups

Relocation to missions and reserves grouped together people from different nations and separated families, and missionaries often discouraged language and ceremony. Kinship structures, which carry the Dreaming, were disrupted.

The Stolen Generations

From about 1910 to 1970, governments and churches removed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families under protection and assimilation policies. The Bringing Them Home report (1997) estimated that between one in three and one in ten Aboriginal children were forcibly removed in that period. Removal broke the transmission of language, story, totem, ceremony and knowledge of Country. Many people did not know their family or Country as adults. The effects continue as intergenerational trauma, loss of identity and the continuing over-representation of Aboriginal children in out-of-home care. The National Apology on 13 February 2008, Link-Up services that reunite families, and reparations schemes (NSW from 2017; Commonwealth Territories from 2021) are part of healing, as is cultural and language revival.

The Land Rights movement

The Land Rights movement is the long campaign by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples for legal recognition of their rights to Country.

Mabo. Eddie Koiki Mabo and other Meriam people of Mer (Murray Island) in the Torres Strait brought a ten-year case. On 3 June 1992 the High Court held that terra nullius was a legal fiction and that native title survives where a people have maintained their connection under traditional law and custom and it has not been extinguished.

The Native Title Act 1993 (Cth) set up a process for claims through the Federal Court and the National Native Title Tribunal and validated past grants.

Wik. On 23 December 1996 the High Court held that pastoral leases, which cover much of Australia, did not necessarily extinguish native title; the two could coexist, with the pastoralist's rights prevailing where they conflicted. The government responded with the Native Title Amendment Act 1998, which limited native title rights.

Why the Dreaming is important for the Land Rights movement

This is the analysis the syllabus and the 2023 HSC question require.

1. The Dreaming is the basis of the claim. Land is sacred because ancestral beings created it and remain in it, and law comes from it. Land rights are therefore spiritual rights, not just property rights.
2. The legal test reflects the Dreaming. Native title depends on proving continuing connection under traditional laws and customs, which is evidence of the Dreaming: songlines, stories, ceremony, kinship responsibilities and knowledge of sites.
3. Recognition allows the Dreaming to be lived. Returned land and native title allow people to return to Country, perform ceremonies, care for sacred sites and teach young people, renewing spirituality after dispossession.
4. The limits hurt most where dispossession was greatest. In Yorta Yorta (2002) the High Court held that the Yorta Yorta people had not maintained continuous observance of traditional law, so native title had been lost. The peoples who suffered the most severe dispossession found it hardest to prove the connection.
5. Recognition of spiritual loss. In Northern Territory v Griffiths (2019) the High Court included compensation for cultural and spiritual loss, acknowledging the spiritual meaning of Country in Australian law.

In one sentence

Aboriginal spiritualities are determined by the Dreaming, which binds kinship, ceremony and custodial obligations to particular Country, so dispossession and the Stolen Generations struck at their foundation, and the Land Rights movement, grounded in the Dreaming and advanced by Mabo, native title and Wik, is essential to their continuity and renewal.

Try this

Q1. Outline the importance of ceremonial life in Aboriginal spirituality. (3 marks)

• What the marker wants. Ceremony as re-enacting the Dreaming, passing on law and connecting people to Country and ancestral beings.

Q2. Discuss the continuing effect of dispossession on Aboriginal spiritualities. (5 marks)

• What the marker wants. Separation from land, from kin and the Stolen Generations, each linked to how the Dreaming is lived and passed on, with current effects.

Q3. Outline the importance of Mabo and Wik for the Land Rights movement. (4 marks)

• What the marker wants. Accurate outcomes and dates of both decisions and their significance for recognition of connection to Country.