This document contains 9 items summarizing key concepts and stories from Indigenous Australian and Maori spiritual traditions. Item 1 discusses the Dreaming/Dreamtime, the Aboriginal view of creation and the ordering of all things. Item 2 provides an overview of traditional Maori religion, describing how all things were thought to possess a life force and be connected through genealogy. Item 3 is a short excerpt about the significance of the Pohutukawa tree in Maori culture. Items 4-9 are titles and brief descriptions of additional concepts, stories, and resources relating to Indigenous Australian and Maori spiritualities.

1. STIMULUS MATERIALS
FOR
EXTENDED WRITING
RESPONSE
Year 11
Study of Religion:
Indigenous Spiritualities
Semester 2, 2009

2. ITEM 1
The Dreaming
The Dreaming (also referred to as “Dreamtime” ITEM 2
holds the essence of truth of Aboriginal religious
beliefs. Dreaming does not refer to a dream that Maori
one would have during the night. Instead, the
Dreaming holds the Aboriginal view of creation: Traditional Maori religion, that is, the pre-European belief
it is the beginning of everything - the beginning of system of the Maori, was little modified from that of their
time, the creation of life, the birth of humanity, tropical Eastern Polynesian homeland (Hawaiki Nui),
and the ordering of all things. It is the remote conceiving of everything, including natural elements and all
past of the Spirit Ancestors or Spirit Beings or living things as connected by common descent through
Ancestral Beings; it is the period, long ago, when whakapapa or genealogy. Accordingly, all things were
Spirit-beings interacted with Aboriginal people. thought of as possessing a life force or mauri.
This past lives on in ceremonies that have been Maori Religion, Wikipedia
passed down by word of mouth from generation
to generation for over 140,000 years - the time
that the Aboriginal people have lived on his land
called Australia.
Class Handout
ITEM 4
I belong to this earth.
Soon my bones become earth...all the same.
ITEM 3 My spirit has gone back to my country…my mother.
Now my children got to hang onto this story…
The Pohutukawa tree I hang onto this story all my life.
My children can’t lose it.
This law,
This country,
This people,
All the same…
Gagudju.
Gagadju Man, Bill Neidjie
The Pohutukawa (Metrosideros excelsa) is known as the New ITEM 5
Zealand Christmas tree, as it flares into crimson display from
late October until the end of November and into the Christmas
holiday period. The most famous Pohutukawa grows from a
promontory on the tip of Cape Reinga. It is reputed to be 800
years old, at least twice the generally accepted mature age of
the tree, and is sacred to the Maori, who believed it to be the
last stepping-off place of spirits from this world.
www.history-nz.org/maori6.html
Living Religion: Third Edition
Morrissey, J. (ed.)

3. ITEM 6
Living Religion: Third Edition
Morrissey, J. (ed.)
ITEM 7
Whakairo House
SOR PowerPoint
ITEM 8 Ta Moko ITEM 9 The Emu and the Jabiru
SOR PowerPoint From the Marrkula clan in Arnhem Land comes this
story of greed between two brothers-in-law and the
creation of the Emu and the Jabiru. It also offers an
insight into the life of the Gapuwiayk people. Translated
by Bangana Wunungmurra and told by Clancy Guthijpuy
Marrkula.
www.dreamtime.net.au