Bereavement, known as sorry business, is a very important part of (Australian) Aboriginal culture.
Funerals can involve entire communities, and the expression of grief can include self injury. The grieving relatives may live in a specially designated area, the sorry camp, for a period of time. The relatives may also cut off their hair or wear white pigment on their faces.
The community refrains from using the name of the deceased, but can refer to him or her by the name Kwementyaye. People with the same name as the deceased should also be called Kwementyaye. Photographs or videos of the deceased have to be destroyed.
The traditional healer, or Ngungkari, is of central importance in Aboriginal society in central Australia. They are sought for help in all manner of physical, psychological and spiritual problems. They are usually paid a fee and people may travel long distances to see one that has a good reputation. Their treatment involves various magical techniques such as removing objects from people’s bodies, the use of culturally appropriate explanations for symptoms and the use of suggestion. Pharmacological intervention with bush medicine seems less common. I have had few direct interactions with Ngungkaris but have found it very beneficial to work in parallel with them. For example I will often ask a patient if they have seen a Ngungkari and perhaps recommend that they see one if they have not already done so. Even if the patient does not see their problems as relating to sorcery, the Ngungkari can be very useful to the patient. [it is suggested] that they can act in a supportive psychotherapy role. Their high standing within the Aboriginal community suggests that they are likely to provide the therapeutic benefits of making the patient feel understood.
Don’t Send ya Kidz to Skool
12/08/2008 — DjubbaIn recent years, more and more of my Aboriginal associates, colleagues and average community members, have joined the mainstream belief that “our kids need to go to school” and that [Aboriginal] parents should be “penalised” — such as in the latest policy/strategy/law in having Federal Govt. payments (child support and parenting payments, and similar) be stopped or suspended — if they do not “send their kids to school”.
I have never been an advocate nor believer in compulsory schooling, and was probably one of the most “difficult”, uncooperative, and rebellious students I know — though I have met many similar children and young people, who were known (labelled) as “problems”, throughout my years in community service work.
Of course, as a very vocal (outspoken and often ostracised) representative and advocate for the protection and continuance of Aboriginal “culture”, I have continued to hold grave concern about the role of so-called [modern] compulsory education on a society generally, and more specifically, its detrimental and subversive impact on real “cultural survival” and genuine maintenance of diversity (differences) into the present day and age …
My further research and inquiry lead me to this view, and also to other well documented articles/books regarding the beginnings and foundations of our most common form of “Western” education …
Be assured, I now feel validated and/or affirmed in what I initially had felt or “intuited” from an early age … that school as I and millions of others know it, was not to “encourage nor bring-out the best in me”, nor can it be the means for “cultural” survival nor revival.