Maintaining Aboriginal Cultural Values through Art, Music and Literature - Article Example

Maintaining Aboriginal Cultural Values through Art, Music and Literature Name Institution Course Date of Submission Maintaining Aboriginal Cultural Values through Art, Music and Literature Introduction Different people all over the world have different cultures. In Australia, the Aboriginal culture is perceived as the most ancient surviving culture around the globe. Most communities lost their cultural values due to intermarriage and lack of proper conservation methods of their cultural practices. During those days, people could not conserve their culture through scripts or writings. However, the Aboriginal people maintained their culture through utilizing the stone technology and paintings using the red ochre paintings. Most of the Aboriginal art work can be dated up to 60,000 years ago. The Aboriginals also strived to maintain their culture through songs and writings1. The most important cultural values amongst the Aboriginal people were the country and kinship. These were generally inclusive of the land and the people living within the land. There is diversity in the Aboriginal language and culture throughout Australia. The Aboriginal people from the Sydney region were referred to as Koorie, while those from Darwin were referred to as Larrakeyah, and those from northeast Arnhem were referred to as Yolgnu and those from central Australia as Pitjantjatjara2 . In this paper, discusses the two most important core values amongst the Aboriginals were conserved through artwork, music or literature. It also presents argument on how the Aboriginal era impact upon the current artistic expressions Their art, music and dances are taught to each new generation in order to maintain their cultural connection to their land and sea. The successful utilization of artwork to conserve the aboriginal culture can be attributed to the fact that the Aboriginal people are said to have utilized the ancient stone technology up to the 1960s and even later. Most of the Aboriginal artworks depict animals which were found in the Aboriginal land and sea, details on the experiences by the Aboriginal people and other ideas which originated from the people of that land. Some reflect the Aboriginal’s people interaction with other people such as the European. The paintings also contained historical events as well as geographical and ceremonial elements. These were referred to as dreaming. On the other hand, their music and dances opens up the channels for telling stories about the people’s lives and their relationship to their natural environment. The Aboriginal people have different works which show their culture and how they conserved their core values throughout the Australian continent. The artists used to express themselves using patterns and symbols, which had been used for more than a thousand years3. The longest ever surviving cultural religion belongs to the Aborigines. It is an artwork which is a rainbow serpent mythology, carved in a rock shelter painting, within the Kakadu national park. The cultural carving is still of great religious importance to the local people around the Kakadu region. Some still worship the ancestral being despite it being more than 10,000 years old. Such an artwork has conserved the Aboriginal culture for a long period and will still continue being seeing and preserved for the future generation. Other such like arts can be found in sorcery sites and on ceremonial places and everyday objects4. Another example of the ancient rock art used by the Aboriginal people is the different art sites found in the Princess Charlotte Bay, which is the sea country belonging to the Yiithuwarra group of the Aboriginal people. To be more specific, these sites are found within the Flinders group National park, which is off the east coast at Cape York Peninsula. The artworks show the intensive interaction between the European people and the Yiithuwarra people during the 1800s. The site also has artworks which show marine animals and post ship artistic paintings. Some of them reveal animals which are believed to have been extinct for more than 20,000year ago. In the northern Part of Australia, there are some rock shelters which depict people groomed for traditional ceremonies and dancing. They are groomed in particular attires and have similar decorations drawn on their skin. This reveal the great age of the Aboriginal culture5. Other artworks such as the dugong carving show how the Aboriginal people related with their setting. Additionally, there is a rock art by the Ngaro people, found in the Nara inlet of Whitsunday’s, which is described as a nonfigurative art. It neither depicts the human nature or animals within the region. However it triggers the memories of the artistic works of the Ngaro people and conserves the culture of the Ngaro people in that manner. The Yidinji people who were found within the Cairns region incorporated weapons in their artwork. They made shields which were used in different ceremonies and fights by the people. Some of these armaments were also used to symbolize the eight clans amongst the Yidinji people. The ones symbolizing clans were decorated using images artworks which were unique to the different clans. Some of these ancient arts are still used in the contemporary world for storytelling and totems. An example of an incidence where the old Aboriginal culture influences the contemporary art is in the Balarinji artwork which is embedded in many Qantas Jumbo Jets6. Dances and songs in the Aboriginal culture were vital social activities. Music linked the people to their country and ancestry. Generally, most dances imitated domestic tasks or terrestrial and marine creatures, especially those which represent the environment or totems. For instance some dance movements could imitate sharks, sea waves or kangaroos. Others could imitate the movements made during hunting with a spear, shooting bows and arrows or even padding out in the sea. Most of these dances were energetic and were used during ceremonial activities. It would also be used to measure the level of maturity of a child, depending on the amount of knowledge he/she has been able to acquire through music. It would also be used for communication, especially when one wanted to pass a message secretly. Aboriginal music was carried from one generation to another through being taught to the next generation. The Aboriginal music is not fixed, but rather, it is flexible and built on the successive performances. The diversity of the songs, music, dances and instruments across the Aboriginal people reflects the diversity in cultures amongst the Aboriginal people7. The Aboriginal people utilized their natural environment to structure the instruments which accompanied their songs and dances. For instance, there were specific sticks which were used to make the clap sticks which were used in most dances. Other instruments used by the Aboriginal people included the didgeridoo which was common amongst the Aboriginal people who were living in the northern part of Australia. This instrument was played using a circular mouth movement, whereby the player had to exhale using the mouth and inhale through the nose. According to the Aboriginal taboo, the instrument cannot be played by a woman, unless she seeks consent from the local Aboriginals prior to playing it. Other instruments included rums, whereby different people from different clans of the Aboriginal people used to have their own types of drums. Drums were made from different types of hide, and were played for different occasions. Music used to differ from region to region and used to serve different purposes amongst different Aboriginal people8. Some literature books which reveal how the Aboriginal culture is conserved include a book by Geoffrey Bardon. The book, which is referred to as “Papunya Tula”, gives information on the process of initiation that all Aboriginal men within the western desert region had to undergo. He explains how each had to go through the full tribal initiation and own at least one particular dreaming and be a custodian of a song. Tribal skin group would define the ownership of a dreaming. The skin system would also manage complexities within the groups and also influenced art work amongst the communities. The literature reveals how skin groups were determined, and entails a list of 8 male skin groups and eight female skin groups. The male skin groups begin with letterset” while the female ones begin with letters “N”. The skin groups were a great determinant of the kinship system. They would be used to determine the marriage laws, generational linage and determine the relationships between all the people within a society9. James Morril (1864) tries to explain the Aboriginal kinship system as being a complex system in his book “17 years wandering amongst the Aboriginals”. He explains that the kinship system operates in such a way that everybody is related to each other. According to this literature, people lived together as family groups. The kinship determines marriages and other social interactions. It dictates people’s obligations and behaviors towards each other and the responsibilities of each person within the society10. In many parts of the world, the current musicians still borrow a leave from the ancient music artists. For instance, modern musicians such as Youth and Christine Anu still utilize the traditional musical instruments such as the didgeridoo in their music. Christen Anu performed a song called “My Island Home” during the 2000 olympics, and s made the song a reconciliation anthem amongst the young generation. Some of their words include the traditional languages used by the Aboriginal people. The themes of their songs also tend to borrow from the ancient Aboriginal people. For instance, they sing about their homeland, treaties, and animals to name but a few. The advent of a cycle of songs referred to as the Krill Krill song and ceremonies within East Kimberly is a clear indication that the Aboriginal traditional culture is still playing an important role in the current generation of music11. Other type of music that has been influenced by the Aboriginal culture includes the rock and folk music. For instance, a band referred to as the coloured stone, form Koonibba in South Australia tends to fuse reggae, country music and rock, using some indigenous words. The band also utilizes the didgeridoo to make their songs more appealing. Examples of songs they have sung include Black Boy and Kapi Pulka. Dances such as those performed at the Bangarra dancing theatre, at Unaipon promote the maintained of traditional Aboriginal movements. Some of these include the Praying Mantis Dreaming which was performed in 1992, the Boomerang performed in the year 2005 and True Stories true story which were performed in the year 200712. In conclusion, culture is an imperative part of life. It gives a person the sense of belonging and an identity. Different communities use different methods to conserve their cultures. In Australia, the Aboriginal people are known as the group of people who have preserved their cultures for the longest duration of time. They utilize art, music and literature to do so. The Aboriginal culture have a great influence on today’s art and Music hence is an important part of life. Bibliography ABS(Australian Bureau of Statistics).(2004). National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia. Berndt,R.M.,& Berndt,C.H.(2002). The world of the first Australians: Aboriginal traditional life, past and present. Canberra: AIATSIS. Dousset, Laurent, 2011, Australian Aboriginal Kinship: An introductory handbook with particular emphasis on the Western Desert, Marseille, Pacific-credo Publications. Haebich,A.(2008). For their own good: Aborigines and government in the southwest of Western Australia. Perth: University of Western Australia Press. Orrissey, P. (2003). Aboriginality and corporatism. In M. Grossman (Ed.), Blacklines: Contemporary critical writing by Indigenous Australians(pp. 52–59). Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. Morrill J.1864. 17 Years Wandering Among the Aboriginals. 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