Aboriginal+Day

// Aboriginal Day -// Home Yesterday on the 24th of July 2008 three aboriginals came up from Ballarat to teach us about their culture as indigenous Australians. I was looking forward to this day all week because living up in the country means that I barely see different cultures to mine. The three instructors were named Big Al, Tristan and Leoni, they were all passionate about their work and great teachers! The first activity I learnt was traditional dancing. This was fun and different, I was glad I participated in all that I could and stepped outside my comfort zone. The only regret about dancing would be that I didn’t put my hand up to perform in the 'end of the day concert'. The second activity was history about the aboriginal culture, and a dream time story. I learnt that there were over 300 different tribes in Australia at the moment, all these clans have different beliefs, cultures and languages. When Big Al told us the dream time story, there were 3 different messages that I took on board, they were respect your elders, don't brag and treat others the way you would like to be treated. The 3rd activity was aboriginal paintings. These painting were more like symbols telling a story then paintings. I made my own story in a painting and I shared it with the class. After lunch we had a little performance of dance and music. Tristan dressed up in the traditional clothing (cloth and body paint) and gave a dance like none other i have ever seen. Then we ate some damper with honey which was 'b e a utiful' the crust was to hard! At the end of the day I understood more about the aboriginal beliefs, values and similarities between our two different cultures. They value their elders the animals and live off the land, while we value our houses, money, and our jobs. The similarities between us are that we all live in Australia and we both need to care for the environment.