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Article: Australian Aboriginal Religion
- Article from:
- Macmillan Encyclopedia of Death and Dying
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Australian Aboriginal Religion
Notwithstanding the diversity of Australian Aboriginal beliefs, all such peoples have had similar concerns and questions about death: What should be done with the body? What happens to the soul? How should people deal with any disrupted social relationships? And how does life itself go on in the face of death? All of these concerns pertain to a cosmological framework known in English as "The Dreaming" or "The Dreamtime," a variable mythological concept that different groups have combined in various ways with Christianity.
There are many different myths telling of the origins and consequences of death throughout Aboriginal Australia and versions of the ...