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- The dreaming is the concept which underpins all beliefs and practices in Aboriginal communities
-  A person's identity is inextricably linked to the land, because an understanding of the land enables them to understand their totemic responsibilities
-  Dreaming is frequently communicated through art, song, dance, story and ritual shows

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- Traditional Aboriginal attitudes are a challenge to the individualistic
thinking of the modern Western mind
• Over 80 000 years of living in one of the most demanding natural
environments has taught Aboriginal people the law of cooperate, or die
out
• Aborigines have simply articulated in Law what they have discovered
themselves to be part of

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In the Aboriginal context, living itself is religion/spirituality

There is no need, therefore, for all the special behaviours that, in other traditions, make religious life different from daily living

Aboriginals are connected to the land and the dreaming, this influences their way of life

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- The preservation and enhancement of life is the ultimate criterion of
Aboriginal morality, and the ultimate purpose of Aboriginal Law
• Each part of the whole natural system has its own life and traditional
ways, according to which it is responsible for maintaining itself, for
contributing to the whole, and for respecting all other parts of the whole
• For the life of the cosmos to be preserved as a whole, the relationships
between all the self-regulating parts of the cosmos must also be
preserved

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Death is seen as an integral and necessary part of life. In fact, the whole cycle of life is a complete system in which all beings participate according to the laws of their respective Dreaming’s

Reverence for life allows respect for death; assent to life includes acceptance of death
In the ceaseless cycle of creative spiritual activity, one dies that another may live, each in its own time

There are various rituals associated with death. These rites are directed to ensure that the spirit of the deceased has a safe passage to the spirit world and does not return to trouble the living

Aboriginals have sacred places of death, with many returning to the environment where they came from.  Ceremonies are common and no one can say the desisted persons name as the spirit of this person could come back.

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• Traditional Aboriginal religion is an affirmation of the wholeness of creation and life
• The problems of suffering and scarcity are not denied but acknowledged, accepted and celebrated as a part of the spiritual wholeness of life
• Aboriginal spiritualties, therefore, are one of the most life-affirming and least material-minded of all religions and spiritualties
• Life as it is encountered now was initiated in the Dreaming. As such the present world is the seamless and undiminished extension of eternal spiritual reality
• The stories of the Dreaming tell how the world came to be in the present form – while other choices might have been made, the ones that were have set the terms of life ever since
• Therefore, the natural world is the materialisation of the Dreaming and traditional human existence is not seen as deficient in any way but already complete and fulfilled as it is
• The whole of life is taken as sacred and a fundamental reverence for life pervades every aspect of daily and ceremonial activity
• This reverence is extended to the landscape and the earth itself, for the ground is the original mother of all life
• All individual lives receive the reverence eg death adders are controlled, not obliterated as they have their own law and their own right to exist

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-  the law found to operate on the cosmic level is naturally    seen to apply on the social level.

- Relationships are typically marked by a strong sense of sharing and caring - this arises out of an awareness of mutual indebtedness.

- In the case of conflict, the objective is to contain and not destroy - no more than sufficient retaliation is exacted.

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• The spirit ancestors and the human descendants do not live in worlds separated from one another, nor do they have a different set of goals
• Present human existence, especially in ceremony, is already fully in tune with the timeless world of the Dreaming
• The individual person carries, through incarnation, an immortal spark of eternal life which comes directly from the original ancestors
• To be alive is to participate fully in the life force of the primordial spark; and to follow the traditional ways is to share the fulfilment of eternal creative activity in the continuous present
• Through everyday actions, and especially those of ceremony, each and every individual life affirms and maintains the completeness of existence as it is and always has been