Customer Reviews

The Elements of the Aborigine Tradition (The Elements of Series)

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This book is a commentary on some Aboriginal traditions. It discusses how the Dreaming may reflect actual events in prehistory, as suggested by archeological finds. There is also a chapter on some common elements of Aboriginal belief, including especially the Rainbow Snake and totemic identity. Cowan describes some rites and rituals, and includes a few brief accounts of myth cycles. Other topics addressed are Clever Men, sacred love, and the yellow ochre (funeral) dance. Sources are cited in endnotes collated at the end of the book. There is an index.

Not being familiar with any elements of Aboriginal culture, I hoped to find a concise introduction to Aboriginal religious beliefs in this book. However, this book was not a good place to start for such questions, since Cowan assumes familiarity with many elements of the belief system on the part of readers, and much of the text is commentary on the belief system or its theories rather than description or explanation of the elements of the system. Rather than explain what the Dreaming or the Rainbow Snake are, Cowan assumes that the reader is familiar with these terms, and discusses present historical records or the geographical extent of the beliefs. Perhaps this lack of description is due to desire to keep the information secret, but if so, it would have been appropriate to at least explain the limitation. One bizarre term that Cowan used was "sacred love". From his description, the ritual seemed to be "sacred sex," since love seemed to have no relevance to the context-is this a standard term, or could Cowan have used a more precise term here?