what is the significance of aboriginal body paint?
815164
First off the aboriginal people are very strong belivers in magic and most thing that they do is either for magical protection or to envoke some magical thing to happen.  Also they strongly believe in this magical earth that they live on, and they also paint themselves up to tell a story about certain things that happen in the past or in present time. What I am wondering is why you were to lazy to pick up a book and do your own research................ For I find reading and doing research to be a lots of fun.............. Also it really expands your mind.............
579015
Respect it.\n\nOnly a handful of colonized countries still practice thier indiginous customs in everyday life. \n\nMore is the pity that the Original Australian Citizens do not show a Haka for international Sport. It would be a fantastic tribute to the almost destroyed Aboriginal history of this ancient country.\n\nI am Irish and I live is Australia. I feel a certain connection with the history of both our countries. Centuries of maltreatment, oppression, pillaging, rape, stealing of our lands and the demagogy of both our Heritages.\n\nMy two cents
408010
The Aborigines believe that there it is hollow below ground, and that there is an energy source that they call 'Tjukurpa' the dream time. The term Tjukurpa is also used to refer to the record of all activities of a particular ancestral being from the very beginning of his or her travels to their end. Anangu know that the area around \n\nAyers Rock (Mount Uluru) is inhabited by dozens of ancestral 'beings' whose activities are recorded at many other sites. At each site, the events that took place can be recounted, whether those events were of significance or whether the ancestral being just rested at a certain place before going on. \n\nUsually, there is a physical feature of some form at each ancestral site which represents both the activities of the ancestral being at the time of its formation and the living presence of Tjukurpa within that physical feature today. For the Australian Aboriginal people, that physical feature, whatever its form or appearance, animate or inanimate, is the Tjukurpa. It may be a rock, a sand hill, a grove of trees, a cave. For all of these, the creative essence remains forever within the physical form or appearance. \n\nAround Mount Uluru there are many examples of ancestral sites. The Anangu explanations of these sites and of the formation of Mount Uluru itself derive from the Tjukurpa. Most of these explanations are in the realm of secret information and are not disclosed to Piranypa, the non-Aborigines. \n\n'The Dreaming' is not a creation myth, per se, but a myth of formation. The world existed, but was featureless. Giant semi-human beings, resembling plants or animals, rose up from the plains where they had been slumbering for countless ages. \n\nThese ancient heroes roamed the land aimlessly. As they wandered around, they carried out the tasks that the present Aborigines do today including camping, making fires, digging for water, fighting each other, and performing ceremonies. When the heroes became tired of doing these things, Dreamtime came to an end. \n\nWherever the creators had been active, some form of natural feature now marks the place. The creators made everything with which the aborigines are in daily contact and from which they gain their living. The heroes also established laws that govern all aspects, both secular and sacred, of the tribes. \n\nDreamtime was in the past, but it is the Aborigines present religion and culture. The saying, 'As it was done in the Dreamtime, so it must be done today,' dominates all aspects of aboriginal behavior. Because of their beliefs in 'the dreaming,' ceremonies and rituals are held, stories are told, pictures are drawn, and daily life is defined. \n\nIn order to understand the religion of the Aborigines, one must have a basic understanding of the organization of the tribes. All men and women belong to small groups, called clans. Each clan posses a distinct body of spiritual properties, or sacred sites. \n\nA clan may have several sacred sites that they claim, and the area surrounded by the connection of these sites forms the clan's estate. Clans are linked by common religious traditions, intermarriage, shared dialects, and overlapping foraging rights. \n\n\n \nStone monument made by the heroic ancestors\n\n\n \nClans people of the crow believe they are descended from \nthe Dreamtime's crow spirit who became a man.\n\nEach clan has a totem. 'Totemism is a view of nature and life, of the universe and man, which colors and influences the Aborigines' social groupings and mythologies, inspires their rituals and links them to the past. It unites them with nature's activities and species in a bond of mutual life-giving, and imparts confidence amidst the vicissitudes of life'. The totem provides a tangible expression of a man's relationship to his deities. Everything in the Aboriginal world contains an essence or spirit that had its beginnings in the Dreamtime. Each person descended fr
305922
In Native American culture, a dreamcatcher is a handmade object based on a hoop (traditionally of willow), incorporating a loose net, and decorated with items unique to the particular dreamcatcher. There is a traditional belief that a dreamcatcher filters a person's dreams, letting through only the good ones. There are related legends. \n\nDreams -- Throughout history, nearly every person and culture has placed importance on the meanings of dreams - archetypical messages from 'the other side' - given by various sources - that must interpreted by their symbology and content. Today, dreams are still a powerful force in many people's lives, particularly because of the meanings that can be found in them. Whether dreams are good or bad, they can inspire, confuse, or upset the dreamer. \n\nIn the Ojibway tribe, night visions, or dreams, were so important that children were not given a name until after a person designated as the "namer" of that child had a dream as to what he/she should be called. The namer might give the child a charm woven to look like a spider's web in order to protect the baby's dreams. \n\nDreamcatchers are an authentic American Indian tradition, from the Ojibway (Chippewa) tribe. The people would tie sinew strands in a web around a small round or tear-shaped frame - in a somewhat similar pattern to how they tied webbing for Ojibway snowshoes--and hang this "dream-catcher" as a charm to protect sleeping children from nightmares. The legend is that the bad dreams will get caught in the web. \n\nThe Dreamcatcher allegedly helps us remember our dreams. It is regarded by some as a serious tool that is much more than a decorative ornament. The opening in the center determines the volume that you are asking to receive and parallels the changes that will occur in your life. \n\nHang the dreamcatcher near the place where you sleep, on the wall, or perhaps from a lampshade or bedpost. Should your dreams become too active, or if you feel you need a break from the workings of your dreamcatcher, simply lay it down on a flat surface to render it inactive until you are ready to hang it up again. Beads, feathers and fetishes are not appropriate on a dreamcatcher as they interfere with the spiraling motion and can cause disturbing dreams. \n\nThey are quite beautiful, I have an authentic one hanging over my bed.
870128
kinda like the people from Otavalo or Iquitos. noted for their fine painted red and black on white textiles.\n\ncheck out these photos:  http://amazonmedicinals.netfirms.com/picturepro/nfpicturepro/thumbnails.php?album=1\nalso lots of photos  @ exotickitchen.com (below)
877811
Good one!  And consider some other grusome (cool) icons...\n\nHanged - a body with rope around neck\nBurned  - a chared figure on a stick\nDrawn & quartered - four horses w/ body parts behind each\nBoiled in oil - a steaming cauldron\nExposure in animal skin - vultures with flesh hanging\nFlayed - a "skinless" figure\nBrazen Bull - A bronze bull\nScaphism - I'll let you look this one up
563549
Our body store very little quantity of melanine in the palm  thus its always fairer than any other part of the body. Melanine gives the colour to our skin, more the melanine darker the person is and vice a versa.
740093
Sounds like a depiction of Backus. I could be wrong. I'm not sure what specific art piece you're referring to.
595788
You have a hole in your bucket.  Native American philosophy worships and respects the earth, beauty, life, and death, but you wouldn't accept it because it isn't EXACTLY what you believe.  You have presented no meaningful criteria.  I like all that stuff too, and it is more beautiful and amazing without being a product of a personality.
474414
These were formally established in a proclamation by the Governor-General, Sir Ninian Stevens, dated 19 April 1984.\n\nGreen and gold are the colours commonly used by Australians when representing their county in international sporting events. These are the predominant colours found on many species of Wattle, namely, green foliage and golden inflorescences.
441773
As one member wrote, all tribes have different meanings but maybe I can give you a few pointers. I am Navajo, my husband is Chirachua Apache. The medicine wheel is red, yellow, white, and black. White is North or the path of wisdom, red is south and is the spirit, the earth. Yellow is east and represents the sun. Black is south and represents night or a look within yourself. Eagle feathers are used to send your prayers to the Creator. I don't know anything about cuts in the feathers.
871485
While aliens and Bigfoot are among the many myths, folklore and "believe it or not" there are both photos, ancient markings, historical statements and personal account of both.\n\nAborigine Paintings dipicted many forms of figures not of human formations. The most obvious clues to an extraterrestrial visit long ago are found in the drawings of ancient cultures. One such drawing is located inside a cave in Kimberly Mountain, a peak on the western side of Australia. Haunting the surface of the cave walls are paintings of several beings with round heads and huge black eyes. Calling the figures in the paintings the Wondjina, the Aborigines consider the beings extremely sacred. The Wondjina, originally drawn in some period between ten thousand to thirty thousand years ago, bear little resemblance to any known earth creature. However, the Wondjina slightly resemble the gray type of aliens reported today by alleged alien abductees. The Wondjina and the Grays look similiar because they both have large, black eyes and a pear-shaped head. Therefore, it is possible that the Wondjina are actually aliens seen by the Aborigines a long time ago. \n\nIn the Sahara desert, another strange figure painted on the wall of a cave, the "Great Martian God", is located in the Tassili mountains. It was called the "Great Martian God" because it resembled Martians found in comic books. Discovered by Henri Lhote on an expedition after World War II into the mountains, the Martian, along with similiar nearby drawings depicting space men are drawn in a much larger scale than the nearby drawings of people, animals, and ones of Egyptian influence. \n\nA small but continuously growing body of physical evidence now exists, in addition to documented visual encounters. This evidence includes: photographs and casts of footprints and handprints, with some of the casts determined by dermal ridge experts to be of unknown primate origin; hair samples found in association with encounters that scientists have determined to be of unknown primate origin; and recorded vocalizations that expert bioacoustics analysts have determined to be of unknown primate origin.\n\nNative American cultures are also rich with related anecdotes pertaining to encounters extending back hundreds of years. Indeed, anthropologists have determined that tribes throughout the continent had names for these creatures such as Nalusa Falaya (Choctaw), Tsiatko (Puyallup/Nisqually), Skookum (Chinook), Windigo (Ojibway), Omah (Yurok), Bukwas (Kwakwaka'wakw), and many others.\n\nRegardless of the credence accorded the myths and legends of Native Americans, the Texas Bigfoot Research Center maintains that the body of contemporary sighting reports, ecological patterns and relationships arising from the study of those reports, along with the physical evidence that has accumulated during the last fifty years, and our own personal observations while in the field, all serve to indicate the existence of a living species that has yet to be documented.\n\nSo maybe it is a matter of what you want to believe.  Much study and wonder has been done to document the proof, or non-exsistance of many things...........\n\nAliens, Bigfoot, Heaven, Hell, the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, Soul mates, the Tooth fairy, Unicorns and Christ have been under fire for years.\n\nWhich is most likely to exsist?  Belief, wonder, discovery, faith, culture or science?\n\nI would say that all things have the possibility to exsist with the understanding that all things could be fictitious.
1164070
Well I have read the response so far and I must say that some are very amusing, but so far only one of these is close. That is this one: (the real answer is at the bottom please read on.)\n\nGreen and gold are the national colours of Australia, as proclaimed by Sir Ninian Stephen, the Governor General of Australia on 19 April 1984. The exact colours were specified as being Pantone Matching System numbers 116C and 348C. Green and gold are also the traditional team colours of Australian national sporting teams. Nearly every current Australian national sports teams wears "The Green and Gold", although the hues and proportions of the two colours may vary between teams and across eras. It is widely believed that the colours were chosen because they are the dominant colours of Australia's floral emblem, the Golden Wattle.\n\nYou will find that every major Australian national team wears green and gold including most notably the two time world champion Wallabies of Rugby, the Socceroos of the World Cup, and the Olympic team. \n\nSource(s):\n\nwikipedia.org \n+++++ \n\nReal Answer:\nThe official colours of Australia are BLUE AND GOLD... (Not Green and Gold, Green and Yellow, or any other colours of the rainbow or anything else that the so called greenies or hippies or even other minority group may wish to conjure up. If you go to Parliment House and read the constitution ( not that many of obviously have or have the ability to) you will find amongst the small print that the national colours for the reprsentaion of this great land of yours (I am an Indian in USA) called Australia are Blue and Gold... the reason that you'll portray Green and Gold is for our sporting teams and that is due to the above mentioned clours of the Wattle flower and tree. \n\nNow before you so called experts try to smack me down with all your references, I suggest you visit the National Capitol and see the constitution for yourself. Also take the time to read it (if you are able to that), and you will no doubt see that I am correct and you are misinformed\n\nI hope that this has shed a bit of light on your dilemna or at least given more ammunition for a good arguement as I really do enjoy that.\n\nSource(s):\nAust National History, My Schooling, Parliment House, Common Knowledge- Only if you are Patrick Mondal.
439258
I have the perfect site for you to look up the information you  are looking for. It has myths listed from Aboriginal tribes up to the latest urban mythology. I am sure you will find this link most useful for your studies.
902130
It is a whitening agent, often found in paint.
635824
Everybody has their reasons for getting them or not getting them.  If somebody is in a gang, they get one to represent what gang they are in.  This comes from history.  When tribes wanted to recognise one another, they would get matching tattoos.  Some people get tattoos because they like the way they look.  Some people get tattoos because they represent something.  Some people get tattoos because of religion.  Some Christians get a small tattoo of a cross on their wrist to show that they are Christian.  Some gypsies get tattoos in the middle of their foreheads to show that they are gypsies.  Some people get them for fashion.  Bottom line is, what may not be good for you may be perfect for somebody else, and that is why we all need to respect each other's opinions and feelings.
498856
http://www.schoolnet.ca/ABORIGINAL/Plains_Cree/part24-e.html