CONCEPTUALISATIONS

RELATING TO SACRED SITES

IN ABORIGINAL ENGLISH
Tóth Anita Tímea
 WHAT IS A SACRED SITE?
• Church, cemetery, mosque. synagogue Jerusalem, Mecca…
• Places within the landscape that have a special meaning or significance under Aboriginal
tradition. Hills, rocks, waterholes, trees, plains, lakes, and other natural features can be
sacred sites.
• Their status is from the association with particular aspects of Aboriginal social and cultural
tradition. (activities of ancestral beings)
 WHAT IS A SACRED SITE?
• An Operational Definition (2008):
• A sacred site is a place in the landscape, occasionally over or under water, which is
especially revered by a people, culture or cultural group as a focus for spiritual belief and
practice and likely religious observance.
• Nineteen characteristics
• Descriptive
• Spiritual
• Functional
• Other
 NINETEEN CHARACTERISTICS

• It is a memorial or mnemonic to a key recent or past event in history, legend or myth, e.g., a battle site, creation or
origin myth.
• (Descriptive)
• It is a place of spiritual transformation for individual persons or the community, e.g., healing, baptism, initiation,
religious conversion, rite of passage, funeral, vision quest.
• (Spiritual)
• It is a place especially associated with resource-gathering or other key cultural activities, e.g., gathering medicinal
plants or material for sacred or ritual ceremony or objects, fishing, hunting, cultivation, burial of ritual objects,
giving birth.
• (Functional)
• It clearly satisfies the stem definition but has unique cultural features that are not represented in the previous
eighteen characteristics.
• (Other)
 WHY ARE THEY IMPORTANT?
• Cultural fabric and heritage of the Northern Territory
• To all Australians.
• Laws and tradition
• Meaning to the natural landscape
• Cultural values and spiritual and kin-based relationships in the land
• They are dangerous. They play an important role in the aboriginal health and well-being.
(industrial development, construction projects, ground disturbing works.
• Consequences
 ABORIGINAL SPEAKER
• Um if we said that that place was sacred over there you know across Uluru. If I sat down I
was tellin’ a lot of politicians or someone you can’t develop over there because that place is
sacred over there and the first thing that they would do, then they would go and they would
look to see what was sacred about it or they would try and bring the sacredness down, and
you know they’d say “well so what’s sacred about it?” You know but they can’t understand
the energy or the ceremonies that went into the land and the singing that went into the land,
into the rocks ah into the trees ah they cannot understand that and ah and so they’ve got to
look to find some to identify something there. They’re trying to look for that sacredness
thing, you can’t see sacredness.
 PROTECTION
• All sacred sites, whether or not they have been recorded or registered in the Northern
Territory are protected by the Northern Territory Aboriginal Sacred Sites Act.
• The Authority helps to protect sacred sites
• CUSTODIAN of Sacred Sites:
• a person who has responsibility for that site.
• Management
• Safety
• proper use
 PROTECTION
• Protection from unauthorised entry and damage
• The Act also gives the Authority the power to punish people and organisations that damage
sacred sites.
• Anyone proposing to use or work on land
in the Northern Territory may apply to the
Authority for an Authority Certificate to
cover their proposed activities.
(consultations with custodians)
 ABORIGINAL DREAMTIME
• The land and the people were created by the Spirits. They made the rivers, streams, water
holes the land, hills, rocks, plants and animals. It is believed that the Spirits gave them their
hunting tools and each tribe its land, their totems and their Dreaming.
• men, women and animals
• declared the laws of the land and how people were to behave to one another
• the customs of food supply and distribution
• the rituals
• the ceremonies of death
• laws of marriage.
• Places
 WHO MADE THE WORLD
• Animal spirits
• Huge snakes
• Wanadjina (Gulingi)

• Several Dreamtime Stories

• Rainbow Serpent Dreamtime Story
 RAINBOW SERPENT
• Creatures who held great powers and gave shape to the Earth
• Flat Earth
• emerged from under the ground
• awaken different groups of animals
• The movement of its body formed physical features
• Once it grew tired -> Waterhole
• Better not to disturb
• Heavy rainstormes disturb the holes
• Rise up and travel through the clouds to another waterhole
• sources of water never dry up
 SOURCES
• https://www.aapant.org.au/sacred-sites/sacred-sites-nt/uluru-environs
• https://sacredland.org/tools-for-action/
• https://www.aboriginal-art-australia.com/aboriginal-art-library/aboriginal-dreamtime/
• https://www.kateowengallery.com/page/rainbow-serpent
• Cultural Linguistics: Cultural conceptualisations and language – Chapter 7. 3.
THANK YOU FOR ATTENTION