Introduction:
The Spiritual Imperative looks at the Mardu the indigenous people of the Australian interior. These Aborigines may have the oldest continuing hunter-gatherer culture in the world. They do not use metal tools, agriculture, or keep domesticated animals. This is hard to do because the region is barren making it a difficult place to live in even with the most modern technology. A large part of their success is due to their ancient culture that helps them survive there. They think of everything they do as a religious action, including their nomadic lifestyle.
Aborigines share a Dreaming religious heritage that includes myths, rituals, songs, and portable things that tie them to the land. They share and teach them using an oral tradition. This tradition is a basic part of the way they live and understand the world and the cosmic order.
Discussion:
The Aborigines lived isolated from other human societies for thousands of years. This allowed them to develop a tradition that is free from outside influence. Although, other human beliefs did not make them change they still made their own changes to their culture. They also kept parts if it intact for tens of thousands of years. For example, their ritual use of red ochre goes back around thirty thousand years. Before the Europeans settled in Australia, most of the changes they made to their beliefs and traditions were in response to gradual changes in the environment.
They believe in omnipotent spiritual beings that have unlimited life giving and sustaining powers. Anyone who follows the laws of the master plans developed at the beginning of time can share these powers. This spiritual takes away people’s independent creativity but does not stop them from being individuals. The Mardus judge people based on how well they follow the master plan instead of their status or wealth.
The Aborigines use the terms The Dreaming or Dreamtime to refer to the past and the ancient heroes who had a human form and sometimes an animal form too. Some of these called Jilganggaja are travelers and their tracks called the yiwarra, others the ngurangaggaja stay in one place. They have superhuman magic powers but behave a lot like people. By doing that, they made many of the landforms.
These landscape features are they explained in myths that pass from generation to generation in the form of the tales, songs and rituals that make up the Mardu religion. This creative time has no set beginning or end. The Dreaming beings just got worn out by all this activity and stopped doing things. Their vital powers were broken up as they were doing this and the fragments became spirit children that over time changed into people. This is important because it ties everyone to the Dream Time and makes each person unique. Eventually, the spirit heroes’ bodies changed into natural earth features and celestial bodies, or just disappeared. Although their bodies metamorphosed, their spirits stayed behind; they still are interested and have ultimate power over everything. This Dream Time sometimes called the “everwhen” ties together the past, present and future of the Mardu Aborigines.
Conclusion:
The Mardu traditions are basic to how they live and understand the world and cosmic orders. Rituals bring out the eternal element of the Dreaming and any person can connect with it by using rituals like dances and dreams of through powerful emotional and physical experiences. All new knowledge comes from this. Their lives continue this legacy. Because they have a small society and do not write things down everyone plays a part in preserving the culture. Europeans look at culture as separate from lifestyle and environment. Because of this, they did not understand the Mardu beliefs and way of life. It is only recently that they are starting to understand how the Mardu Aborigines tie everything together and that unity is the foundation to their understanding of the cosmic order.
Works Cited
"Introduction to The Spiritual Imperative." The Spiritual Imperative. n.d. 18 - 25.
Vocabulary List
