Traditional Urban Aboriginal Religion

This paper represents a group of Aboriginal people who claim traditionalAboriginal ownership of a large Australian metropolis. They have struggled for at least thelast 25 to 30 years to articulate and represent their contemporary group identity to the widerAustralian society that very often does not take their expressions seriously. This is largelybecause dominant discourses claim that ‘authentic’ Aboriginal culture only exists inremote, pristine areas far away from western society and that urban Aboriginal traditions,especially urban religious traditions are, today, defunct. This paper is an account of oneoccasion on which such traditional Aboriginal religious practice was performed before theeyes of a group of tourists.