The Interaction between Western and Aboriginal Cultures - Assignment Example

Topic: A COMPARATIVE STUDY (Name) (Institution) (Professor) 17 July 2008 Introduction Culture is one of the strongest terms that define a given society. It refers to the cumulative treasuring, passing on and retention of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and communal interest and effort. In simpler terms, culture can be said to be our general way of life that goes beyond the day to day lifestyle to how we perceive life itself. There are several aspects that help us in defining culture otherwise stated as the key elements of culture: 1) Learned. Culture is not natural and hence new members of the society have to be taught and incorporated in to the community's way of life. The process of learning one's culture is called enculturation. 2) Shared by the members of a society. Members of a given society have to share the culture as there can be no culture for an individual. 3) Patterned. People in a society live and operate in ways that form definite patterns throughout the seasons, for example, certain periods in the years are set aside for particular activities 4) Mutually constructed through a constant process of social interaction that takes time and keeps on changing though the rates of change are minimal. 5) Symbolic. Culture, language and thought are based on symbols and symbolic meanings. 6) Arbitrary. Not based on "natural laws" external to humans, but created by humans according to the "whims" of the society. Example: standards of beauty. 7) Internalized and therefore taken-for-granted as an every day affair perceived as "natural." The interaction Western and Aboriginal cultures In ancient times due to our geographic locations, different cultures evolved differently. However, with the invention of sailing and other means of travel that heightened the means of transport and contact between different peoples separated by long distances, so were the rates in exchange in culture and other ways of life. Two of the most distinct and respected cultures in the world have to be the Greek and the Aboriginal cultures. Though separated by thousands of miles and oceans of water, there are similarities that we can identify between the two cultures as a result of interaction and influence on one another. Now, what necessitated this interaction? The interaction was after the European invasion of Australia and the settling of Greeks in Australia and New Zealand. The best way we can analyze the relationship and the trading of culture between the two communities is familiarizing ourselves with the theories that were involved. In this theory of ethnocentrism we see that the Greeks together with their fellow Europeans believed that the aboriginals were an inferior people and their culture was inferior. They therefore took it upon themselves to incorporate their own way of life onto the aboriginals. Even though one may recognize the environmental differences and problems associated with change, but may focus only on achieving objectives related to the home-country. This may result in the loss of effectiveness of a company or an individual in terms of international competitiveness. The objectives set for global operations should also be global. (Leslie, 2003) Aboriginal culture versus Western culture Culture can be simply said to be our way of life. But our day to day life consists of so many aspects that we have to break them down into o the major elements. Theses are family life religion education, occupation and other intricate events such as how we perceive life and death and how marriage and initiation are handled. The Greek and the Aboriginal culture being among the two most powerful cultures sin the world interacted after the European invasion into Australia. The interaction and cultural exchanges whether forced or mutual occurred in different levels. The nature of the interaction at the different levels occurred at various intensities. Let’s look at them in detail. Kinship and Family institutions In the indigenous Aboriginal culture it was in their tradition to value and pay attention to the extended family instead of the smaller nuclear family. Within their structure “kinship” was determined purely by marriage and descent given that the community had a variety of tribes. This larger and more inclusive family unit is predominantly made up of a number of ‘nuclear families’, which are based on marriage and consists of mother, father and children. As opposed to the nuclear family structure that came with the Greek lifestyle, the Aborigines were very much focused on the extended arrangement. People not directly related by blood ties were included in the extended family and united by a common family name, in today's world a surname. Such a setting served them very well due to their kind of occupation as hunters and gatherers. As hunters and gatherers, a great emphasis is placed on sharing since not all hunting and gathering expeditions by members of a single nuclear family turned out to be successful. As an integral part of their survival skills and bonding factor, sharing is conducted according to the kinship relationship. By keenly observing this unwritten code of sharing, one gained respect and trust and general acceptance among his/her people. In today's world, sociologists have observed that sharing within a given community facilitates the building up of a store of ‘social credit’. This can be said the same of the indigenous Aboriginal community where almost all the social and other personal commitments were done on a communal basis. One of the most distinct a rather personal commitment relegated to the community was marriage. Any prospective groom had to involve members of the extended family to help him make a choice of partner. Once the tradition of choosing marriage partners for relatives was established, it was hard to be done away with as it turned out to be cyclical. However with the coming of the Greek and their more civilized way of life, things were bound to change as events that were happening by then contributed nothing to help sustain that culture but worked on the side pf the Greek to help them in ''civilizing'' the Aboriginals. As a trusted institution in the Aboriginal community, marriage took place early. This was encouraged by the availability of plenty of hunting grounds and wilderness from where they could gather and hunt. Religion As years passed on more and more Europeans arrived in Australia to settle. The settlers would have to venture inland for more land as their main interest was farming. As they did this they forcibly occupied Aboriginal land without due consent and agreement. They were not happy with this and they showed their resentment by attacking settlers among them the Greek and stealing or killing their animals. Hostility between the two groups was on for a long time before they learned how to coexist peacefully. Each group resented the other and viewed each other skeptically. This proved to have penetrated in to deep levels as attempts by the Greek to introduce their way of worship and gods to the natives proved a monumental task which at first bore no fruits. This was because of the perception the aboriginals had come to embrace of the Greeks and all the Europeans as bad and immoral. Again the Aboriginals felt inferior due to their skin color which is relatively dark compared to the Europeans that had settled in their land. To consolidate their presence and togetherness they were brought together by their culture and religion. One of the most hyped about and celebrated aspect of Aboriginal region and culture is the Dreaming. Some books go ahead and define it as the Aboriginal story of creation as such while others go ahead and ascertain the definition. From the Department of Indigenous Affairs, we learn that The Dreaming is not a creation myth, per se, but a myth of formation rather than creation. According to the site the Aboriginal believed that the world existed before them, but was just a plain mass of land with no natural features that we see today. Huge semi-human beings that stood between the description of plants and animals rose up from the sprawling featureless plains. The beings have kept their position and remained static despite being alive to them and still remain so. Eventually a time came when the beings started roaming the plains living a life similar to the Indigenous Aboriginals that we know today. This includes activities such as hunting and gathering, camping and performing the same ceremonies. To the Aboriginals these beings are no just life forms but heroes and their creators to them. As thousands and thousands of years passed on, the Aboriginal heroes eventually tired and settled and with that came the end of The Dreaming. Wherever one of the heroes settled, there arose a natural feature such as a mountain etc that still remains up to now. Before departing from this world, Heroes established a set of laws and cultural values to be observed by the Aboriginals. The laws were to apply to all the tribes. In the current world involving The Dreaming among the Aboriginals, all beliefs and stories are individually owned and not to be shard or compared among members of a given language group. However, to ensure continuity, members of the community are bound to pass on the culture of Dreaming and the performing of other rituals and ceremonies. The Dreaming has tried to be explained by many languages with no meaningful success. This is not new as it started since the Aboriginals begun interacting with the Europeans. Almost all the settlers were intrigued by this ritual that enormous time and energy was wasted in tying o convince the natives out of this ''weird'' act. To help the world relate to the Aboriginals, various tribes have made attempts to expound on the word casting different lights on the perceptions and fallacies surrounding it. There are many words that are translated into 'the Dreaming.' Among the main ones are Altijiranga, wongar and djugurba. All these words for 'the dreaming' refer to basically the same set of circumstances and phenomena. Though these words may appear distinct and unrelated, they all have connected meanings in one way or another. In general The Dreaming can be simplifies and split to include a myth of the shaping of the world according to the Aboriginals. it is an illustration of the power of the ancestors. it is a general way of life, or law. it is a way in which an indigenous Aboriginal is connected to particular identified sites that are now protected as Aboriginal heritage. Dreamtime featured prominently in the past, but it is the Aborigines present religion and cultural activity that still points at their culture and makes them unique and different from other acclaimed cultures of the universe. In performing the act today it is obvious that they do it in recognition of its past performance but not that it has showed any meaningful place in today's world. This is portrayed by the saying 'As it was done in the Dreamtime, so it must be done today,’ this is not unique to The Dreaming only but also all cultural aspects that dominates Aboriginal behavior. Because of their beliefs in 'the dreaming,' ceremonies and rituals are held, stories are told, pictures are drawn, and daily life is defined. Aboriginals in the modern world In order to understand the religion of the Aborigines, one must have a basic understanding of the organization of the tribes. All men and women belong to small groups, called clans, each clan posses a distinct body of spiritual properties, or sacred sites. A clan may have several sacred sites that they claim, and the area surrounded by the connection of these sites forms the clan's estate. Clans are linked by common religious traditions, intermarriage, shared dialects, and overlapping foraging rights the same as it was long time ago. However the modern westernized way of life does not fit well with what an Aboriginal would call a conducive surrounding to carry on with his indigenous cultural ways of life. Present theories of creation give no room for the verification of the Aboriginal theory of creation for they draw no resemblance at all. According to the Department of Indigenous Affairs the present Aboriginal population only constitutes 2.3% of the whole Australian population. The mere decrease in the population of aboriginal can verify that the aboriginals are threatened by the mere presence of foreign civilization in their territory. Before the European invasion, it is estimated that there were more than 300 aboriginal language groups and over five million individuals. The difference was only in languages as their cultures were almost all synchronized and even performed at the same times of the year. With the coming of the Europeans the aboriginal almost forgot their religious ways and appreciated the foreign attributes such as the Greek gods. (Leslie, 2003) Other aspects of the Aboriginal culture facing threat and mere extinction are the family units. After the European invasion of Australia there happened to be marriages and intimate interactions between the foreigners and the natives tat resulted into colored persons. According to the aboriginal culture, the resultant kid should have been taken back into the Aboriginal camps where they could be introduced in their own cultural way of life. However, this was not the case as the westerners preferred to keep the kid for various services such as the provision of labor in their farms. However though this might be not the case today’s Aboriginal youth are opting to indulge in the rather ''culture-less and immoral'' western lifestyle. A good pointer to this has been the recent increasing the number of suicide cases among the Aboriginal youth. Such deaths are pointing to a more serous impact of the western lifestyle on the Aboriginals. The way they handle death In the traditional Aboriginal setting, an individual's death is mourned by the whole community and thereby numerous suicides related Aboriginal deaths are affecting the productivity of the whole community. The idea of storytelling among the aboriginal is not yet clear whether it started with either aboriginal themselves or they adopted from the Greek. This is because the Greek also had their own method of passing on knowledge and information fro m one generation to the other through stories. The aboriginals were known to pass their knowledge using the popular dreaming method. In the indigenous aboriginal families strong family values were upheld. Formal education the westernized way is institutionalized and begins at a later stage in life. However, the Aboriginal way of life calls for education to begin at birth and continues all along in life. In adopting formal education, the Aboriginals maintain that it has t start at the age of 12 after rigorous training in informal education. Some other difference that is apparent in the aboriginal way of life as set against the modern way of life is as earlier stated death and the issue of individualism. While the modern lifestyle encourages one to fend for himself, Aboriginals want to maintain group harmony and communal sense of belonging. Work Cited Ronald, B. (2001). Indigenous Communities of Australia, London: McMillan Elkin, A. (2002). Forgotten communities of the world, Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1999. Barrandura, K. (2001). The Dreaming and Story telling among the Australian Aborigines, Ringwood: Penguin, 2004. Australian History and Mythiology at, http://www.godchecker.com/pantheon/australian-mythology.php?deity=WANDJINA&ds=N (Retrieved on 16 th July 2008) Aboriginal Culture and History, at http://www.deathreference.com/A-Bi/Australian-Aboriginal-Religion.html, (Retrieved on 16th July 2008) Electronic journal of New Zealand and Australia History http://www.jcu.edu.au/aff/history/conferences/newcastle/kelen.htm, (Retrieved on 17th July 2008) Department of Indigenous Affairs at, http://www.dia.wa.gov.au/Heritage--Culture/Aboriginal-culture/Lifestyles-and-traditions/Aboriginal-culture-versus-Western-society/ (Retrieved on 16th July 2008) Read More