Aboriginal Medicine

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Traditional medicine
At our service we can teach the children that throughout Australia, Aborigines believed that serious illness and death were caused by spirits or persons practicing sorcery. Even trivial ailments, or accidents such as falling from a tree, were often attributed to malevolence. Aboriginal cultural cosmology was too constraining in meaning to allow the possibility of accidental injury and death, and when somebody succumbed to misfortune, a man versed in magic was called in to identify the culprit.
These spiritual doctors were men (rarely women) of great wisdom and stature with immense power. Trained from an early age by their elders and initiated into the deepest of tribal secrets, they were the supreme authorities on spiritual …show more content…
Plants were prepared as remedies in a number of ways. Leafy branches were often placed over a fire while the patient squatted on top and inhaled the steam. Sprigs of aromatic leaves might be crushed and inhaled, inserted into the nasal septum, or prepared into a pillow on which the patient slept. To make an infusion, leaves or bark were crushed and soaked in water (sometimes for a very long time), which was then drunk, or washed over the body. Ointment was prepared by mixing crushed leaves with animal fat. Other external treatment included rubbing down the patient with crushed seed paste, fruit pulp or animal oil, or dripping milky say or a gummy solution over them. Most plant medicines were externally …show more content…
By having local peoples showing how these were used. Some examples are.
• Didjeridu. Traditionally the Didjeridu originated in Arnhem Land on the northern coastline of the Northern Territory Australia, where it is called a 'yidaki or yiraki' in the Local Aboriginal language. It came to the Bunjalung tribes through trade.
• The humble gum leaf from a tree of the Eucalyptus family was used by Bundjalung tribes as a musical instrument by holding against the lips and blowing to create a resonant vibration. Originally used in the imitation of bird-calls.
• A bullroarer, rhombus, or turndun is a primitive ritual musical instrument, made of a small flat slip of wood, through a hole in one end of which a string is passed; swung round rapidly it makes a booming, humming noise. It is used as the Aboriginal "bush telephone" to communicate over extended or long-distances. The instrument is called a "Burliwarni", "Ngurrarngay" and "Muypak". Bullroarers are given to men during their naming ceremonies.
Tribal
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