Death Rituals in Aboriginal Culture

Death Rituals in Aboriginal Culture

When there is a death ceremony, the people come together and use a white paint, get their instruments, use knives and altogether use these items in remembrance of the person that died.

The white paint is used for Women of the desert and they paint their upper chest, shoulders and breasts. The men also do that on their upper chest, shoulder, and the remainder of their body. This symbolizes the art and renewal of the after life.

Scars were made on the body for many reasons, but mainly during ceremonies to mark age, initiation or to raise a person's status after death.

What is practiced

during the ritual?

One of the ways Aborigines preserve their culture is by practicing ritualistic burial rites. They mourn the loss of their loved one with symbolic chants, songs, dances, body paint, and physical cuts on their own bodies. But because Aborigines believe in rebirth of the soul, they also have the positive intention of guiding the departed spirit back home to be reborn.

In Aboriginal Culture there are two parts to a funeral ceremony/ ritual...

Primary Burial: The body of the deceased is elevated on a wooden plank and shortly after is covered in leaves and branches. The body is kept there for several months to let the flesh decompose from the bones.

Secondary Burial: The bones are used in different ways......

Some are painted with Red Ocher and are carried around by relatives for a year or more

Sometimes they also wrap the bones in paperbark and leave it in a cave where it can decompose

They can also place the bones in a hollow tree log that was eaten by termites and leave it to decompose in the bush lands.

Practicing of the ritual.

To Aboriginal peoples, ceremony is about community; ceremony is a way to acknowledge the interconnectedness of everything; ceremony is how values and beliefs are taught and reinforced.

Some ceremonies are sacred and private. But sometimes, at Aboriginal gatherings, everyone present is asked to participate in a cultural ceremony, a prayer, a dance or a feast.

Death Rituals

What is the significance

of the Ritual?

An important time for ceremonies is on the death of a person, when people often paint themselves white, cut their own bodies to show their remorse for the loss of their loved one, and conduct a series of rituals, songs and dances to ensure the person’s spirit leaves the area and returns to its birth place, from where it can later be reborn.

During the two rituals aboriginals paint their faces white and cut themselves during the ceremony to show the pain they are feeling for the loss of the family or friend. They also dance and sing numerous songs with many instruments including drums. This is to ensure the dead spirit will leave the burial place and return to it's birth place so when the time comes it can be re-born, because aboriginals believe in re-carnation.