er by decent through males (Goldberg, 147). Members of an estate were scattered in bands across their territory. A band consisted of two or more families. Each family cooked and camped separately from the others in their estate. Even though they could function alone, they preferred to live and travel together in bands, probably for survival.The Aborigines religion was centered on Dreamtime. They saw their way of life as already ordained by the creative acts of the Dreaming beings and the "blueprint" that was their legacy, so their mission was simply to live in agreement with the terms of that legacy (Flood, 7). Because of this, there was no room for competing dogmas or rebellion against the status quo. Everything that now existed was fixed for all time and all that they were asked to do, in order to guarantee the continuance of their world, was obey the law of the Dreaming and correctly perform all the rituals. Human creativity was not excluded but was explained away. The Dreaming legacy was not a static, dead weight of tradition but was forever being added to and enlivened, despite an ideology that proclaimed non-change and the need only to reproduce existing forms (Flood, 10). This view of the world gave precedence to spiritual powers and explanations over human intellect, and it placed everyone squarely under the authority of Dreaming rather than that of other people. Because of this, there were no leaders in the Aborigine society. Aborigines were constantly surrounded by proofs of the existence and power of spiritual forces--the landscape itself represented the Dreaming's reality. Everyday activities were in large measure a reenactment of those of the creative beings, making religion inseparable from the concerns of daily life. Outside the ritual arena, and notwithstanding the superior rights of men over women and of older men over younger men, people valued their personal affairs highly and were likely t...
