Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth — Page 228
THE CONCEPT OF GOD AMONG. THE ABORIGINES OF AUSTRALIA leaders have no outside contact and access to them by the non-Aborigine is barred. When the dreams are presented to them, the dreamer himself has often no idea as to the message they carry. The interpreter however can read the underlying message and, most often than not, he is proved right. It is the subsequent events which testify to his truth as well as to the validity of the institution of dreams. . Thus, a clear line has to be drawn between their religious beliefs and practices on the one hand and their rituals and superstitions on the other, which are of no real significance anyway. Superstitions and superstitious practices vary from tribe to tribe and there is no common heritage found among all the Aborigines. The issue of dreams is radically different. Like their belief in one God, their reliance on dreams as a means of Divine instruction is shared by all invariably. The dreams very often follow their contemplation on matters of grave importance. Hence, it is not unlikely that this contemplation is just another name for prayers. It has to be so because their contemplation, unlike that among the Buddhists, results in such dreams as are answers to them. In relation to their dreams the Aborigines also have a strong and well-defined discipline, the breach of which is punishable. . To dub them as a religionless people therefore is far from justified. As far as their belief concerning death 'caused by magic' is concerned, in this context, it does not have the same meaning as understood elsewhere in the world. There are no theatrical magicians among the. Aborigines, like those who operate elsewhere in the world. . They certainly do not believe that every death which occurs among them, occurs because of a spell cast by an evil person through magical chanting. In this case magic is far more likely to refer to satanic influences, which symbolize darkness as against light in the spiritual sense. For magic to 224