Sacred Country.
Deborah Bird Rose (1996) defines country in terms of a person. Just as one would communicate, visit, support or feel for a person so do the Aboriginal people treat the land? Goodall (1996) held that the significance of land to the Aboriginal People is not purely bound to a spiritual relationship but also to a social and political relationship and cultural construction. He believed that 'land embodies profound religious and philosophical knowledge'. He writes about their relationship with the land prior to the invasion. The land was the basis for kinship and the links with families, clans and tribes. It was 'the physical and symbolic basis for almost every aspect of life.' The Australian aborigines had an affinity with the land that defied the understanding of the early settlers. .
Rose (1996) wrote that apart from having a spiritual attachment to the land they were skilled in regenerating areas by using fire. Unfortunately there were people such as Elkins (1954) in Rose (1996) who were very critical of the Aboriginal people declaring that they were totally dependent on the land and offered little. Edwards (1998) argues that the colonists were very critical of Aboriginal peoples way of life, failing to understand their unusual diets (seeds and fruits) and the fact that the Aboriginal people did not store food. Unfortunately, for the Aboriginal people, early settlers came to farm, grow produce and herd sheep and cows. Aboriginal people, for thousands of years, maintained the balance of nature by killing only what they needed, keeping their water source devoid of pollution and managing the land. Australian Aboriginal's spiritual relationship with the land could not be understood by a people who saw land, as a commodity; something to be owned. .
Webs of Relatedness.
According to Rose (1996) the Australian continent is 'criss-crossed' with the tracks of the Dreaming allowing the Aboriginal people to make relationships between one place and another.
