LINKS
https://australian.museum/blog-archive/science/our-global-neighbours-remembering-truganini/
https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/people/aboriginal-remains-repatriation
Aboriginal burial rituals vary significantly between different communities and regions, but generally involve respecting the deceased and assisting their spirit on its journey. Practices can include burial with personal belongings, placing the body on a platform, or, in some cases, a tree hollow. Ritual activities like singing, dancing, and painting with ochre or clan designs are also common.Here's a more detailed look at Aboriginal burial rituals:
Burial Practices:
In the ground: The most common practice involves burying the deceased in the ground, often with personal belongings like tools or ornaments.
In the ground: The most common practice involves burying the deceased in the ground, often with personal belongings like tools or ornaments.
Platforms or tree hollows: In some areas, the body is placed on a platform above the ground, sometimes in a tree, or within a hollow tree, and the remains are later collected for burial.
Specific burial positions: Burials may involve lying flat on their back, on the side in a fetal position, or in an upright sitting position.
Location of burial: Burials can be near the deceased's living area or in established cemeteries, sometimes visited by descendants for generations.
Grave coverings: Some burials are marked by special structures like small huts or earth mounds, or by cutting bark from surrounding trees.
Ritual Practices:
Ritual paintings: Bodies may be ritually painted with totemic designs relevant to the deceased's clan or community.
Ritual paintings: Bodies may be ritually painted with totemic designs relevant to the deceased's clan or community.
Singing and mourning: Songs and mourning are often part of the ceremony, helping the spirit transition to the Dreaming or afterworld.
Dancing: Traditional dances may be performed to honor the deceased and assist their spirit's journey.
Ochre: Ochre, a red pigment, may be used to cover the body or sprinkle around the burial site.
Hollow log ceremonies: In Arnhem Land, a hollow log is prepared, painted with clan designs, and the deceased's bones are placed inside.
Important Considerations:
Cultural sensitivity: Aboriginal burial practices are deeply sacred and vary considerably between communities.
Respect for the deceased: All rituals are designed to honor the deceased and assist their spirit on its journey.
Community involvement: Families and community members often participate in the burial ceremonies and rituals.
Carrying bones
LINK
https://www.firstpeoplesrelations.vic.gov.au/fact-sheet-aboriginal-burials
lutruwitaAboriginal Burials
In pre-colonial times, Aboriginal people had several different practices in dealing with a person’s body after death. Records of pre-colonial practices are sketchy because they were written by European people during the colonising experience. During this time Aboriginal people were pressured to adopt European practices such as placing a deceased person’s body inside a wooden coffin and burying it in the ground.
Burial
In general, Aboriginal burials were less than one metre depth in the ground. They were more likely around the sea coast and along rivers where the sand and soil were softer. Some reports suggest the person’s body was placed in a crouching position. The burial place was sometimes covered with a large flat stone. In some places several burials are located close to each other.
Some burials happened in sand dunes.
Cremation
Cremations were more common than burials. A cremation is when a person’s body is burned. Branches and grasses were gathered together and formed into a structure about one metre high. This is called a pyre. The person’s body was placed in a sitting position on top of the pyre before being covered by more branches and grasses. Sometimes it faced the east. The cremation pyre could be on open ground, inside a hut, in hollow logs or hollow trees. There appear to be different practices among the tribes around the island.
One practice was to build the funeral pyre inside the deceased person’s hut so that the cremation pyre and the person’s hut were consumed together in the fire. Although burials became more common in the colonising years, there is one report of a ‘traditional’ cremation occurring at the Wybalenna Settlement on Flinders Island in the 1830s.
Human remains have also been found within some shell middens. It is not clear if these were placed in the midden at the time of death or were placed there later.
Wybalenna cemetery
Carrying bones
A commonly reported practice was a family member carrying a bone, or several bones, of a recently deceased relative. Some report adult jaw bones hung by a grass cord around a person’s neck, or carrying a parcel of ashes from a cremation site. These bones and ashes were thought to be used to cure illness.
These practices are consistent with Aboriginal peoples’ belief in the nearness of the spirits of deceased people and the potential healing power of their bones.
Beliefs
It is very difficult to be certain about pre-colonial beliefs of Aboriginal people because all records were created during the colonising years and were strongly influenced by those relationships and those contexts.
Some Aboriginal people appear to have had a strong sense that their death was coming soon. This included a description of a man preparing his own funeral pyre.
There are reports of Aboriginal people who believed they returned to their home country when they died. Other statements indicate people believed they became a younger and healthier version of themselves after death. A statement in the 1830s by a young Aboriginal man, Walter Arthur, indicates a belief that people’s skin colour changed to white in their post-death experience. He wrote “we skin black people died then arose from the dead became white men we begin to make friends of them …” (Robinson Papers, Mitchell Library, A7074).
Repatriation of human remains
The bones of Aboriginal people have been removed from graves by Europeans since early colonial contact. The European belief that Tasmanian Aboriginal people were a primitive form of humanity led to an obsession with examining their bones. The most well-known desecrations are of William Lanne and Trukanini. However, the bones of many other Aboriginal people were removed to private collections, such as the Crowther Collection, and to museums overseas.
Long and continuing campaigns have led to the return of the remains of many Aboriginal people. However, many museums are reluctant to co-operate. When human remains are returned to the Aboriginal community exhaustive research has identified the people’s traditional home country. The Aboriginal community have conducted cultural ceremonies when placing their ancestral remains in their home country.
Trukanini and William Lanne
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