Bereavement issues in Aboriginal culture

Aboriginal people have lived in Australia for at least 40,000 years. More recently, non Aboriginal settlement has taken place, but in that 200 years, ie the last 0.5% of Aboriginal time, huge change has taken place. However, especially in more remote communities, old ways have persisted, and powerful cultural beliefs and practices have continued.

I will look at these traditional beliefs as they relate to my people, the Eastern Arrernte, from the area East of Alice Springs. In this area traditional birthing, initiating, dying, and other ceremonial rites are still carried out. Our traditional language is still our primary language, and English is a second language, even to our children.

Some background cultural knowledge is needed to fully understand bereavement issues and these will be discussed under the headings listed below.

1. It must be understood that there is very little separation of the physical and spiritual worlds in traditional Aboriginal culture, a concept that is finally being more clearly grasped in European culture now.
2. Much of the deeper thinking about death and dying is very complex. There is some information denied to me, because of my gender, (and to my brothers because of theirs)
3. There is a lot of information which is only known by fully initiated members of our community. This information was not written down until destructive pressures made loss of culture and knowledge imminent and inevitable. It was passed on through generations as children grew, and was learned as life was lived, and people died.

Subjects to be considered:

• Anticipation of birth -dreamtime unfolding, time, space and place, cycles of growth and death, paternity, maternity, my place in the universe.
• expectations of life -family; land, peace, spiritual health, dreamtime harmony, strife and its resolution, breaking the law; nature and her providence
• sickness and health - why? powerful people, remedies
• expectations of death - dreamtime family; spiritual wanderings, peace at last
• relationships in life -skin groups, extended family; clans, the spirit world, travel, discipline and the law; interpretation of new experiences. .relationships after death -with those already dead, with those still alive -power of the dead
• making death more comfortable why, how; where, when,
• euthanasia then: bereavement issues who? why? when? so what?

Bereavement is a time of unhappiness for Aboriginal people today, as it was for our ancestors, and as it is for non Aboriginal people. However we still have a traditional belief that there are reasons why people die, which may not be physical. Our degree of bereavement depends on who has died, whether the death has occurred after strong bonding occurs, and whether the death was expected. A death can be a time of great trial, as reasons are explored, as we look for powerful influences that may have had some bearing on the death, and powerful people to remedy or avenge the situation. It is a time of avoidance of name and place, for fear of delaying or interfering with the process of the spirit finding rest. We expect the spirit world to be unsettled, and vengeful perhaps. We must explore what we must do to even the balance of life and death now, and who can explain this death, and help us to see the way ahead. We are troubled for maybe we were responsible, and can expect consequences. We miss the loved one, and must cope with the cycle of life and death.

More recent influences

• Christianity
• Money and other possessions
• Inheritance
• Common law
• Dispossession and its consequences
• Urban living
• Euthanasia now