Australia. Guide to Australia

The ancient natives lived in direct contact with nature, rather, They saw themselves as part of the natural world, where the animals, plants, and they were a single entity. Sky also belonged to this world. Always close to them, is it just a little taller than the tallest tree, It was "home" mighty creatures, heroes, That, Tired of his earthly labors, lived there in the form of stars.

The Milky Way seemed Path, by which these creatures move. The sun was seen a woman with a flaming torch, and the moon-man with a torch modest; they made light of the world. The southern aurora alleged blood, shed by the people in the great battles, and the falling stars and meteorites-sticks for making fire, that someone threw in a wizard-witch, clearly wanting to kill him.

Explanations ranged, but it is unlikely there was anything on earth or in heaven, that the natives did not find an explanation, it was strange and incomprehensible. The problem was that human, to live in harmony with living beings, delivshimi with the outside world. Her decision to facilitate the idea of ​​totemism, because it united the people and the surrounding natural forces.

Totemism is inherent not only to Aborigines, but also to other nations; in particular, American Indians had the same outlook. In Aboriginal society, each had its totem, which is identified with Nature. For example, members of the totemic group, worshiping rat-Bandicoot, believed in their family relationship with her. And this totem not only protected them, but also a symbol of their common ancestor, linking members of the "Great Time".

Totemism, Like other aspects of social life in Aboriginal, had a lot of varieties. In some places the totem installed the elderly, that determined, what spirit-child could get into the mother's body through food or because, that a woman came close to the center of the totemic. Some types of totems passed on. The child could inherit the totem of the ritual of the father or the uncle on the mother.

Totems widely used worship, nobody would have dared to kill or eat their totem animal. Funeral ceremony is just focused on their well-being and prosperity.

Totems, played a significant role in the lives of Aboriginal, symbolized by their proximity to the world of spirits, existing alongside them. The world was filled with good and evil spirits. This explains many of the events in human life, his birth, and so death.

Death for Aboriginal people has always meant only the end of physical life, as the spirit of the deceased only freed from the body, but did not die. He went to heaven, where he lived with his heavenly heroes, or settled in the center of the spirits, such as water source.

In some tribes there was a belief, that the spirit of the deceased is sent across the sea to the land of the dead. In the future, he can be reborn again in human form, and then another way of life will be held. And after the death of the deceased can expect different events. Especially to be feared "vicious" spirit. It is an insidious, repairing all sorts of trouble and constantly strives to stay near the deceased. It is better not to disturb.

After the mourning, often accompanied by loud lamentations, and even applying a cut, the deceased left, and his name continue to try not to mention, so as not to disturb the "vicious" the spirit of. As a reminder of the dead were: bulk, or the tomb of the platform in the branches of a tree for the burial of the air, to mourn the dead signs of mourning, ornaments, applied white clay and bracelets from the bark.