Subalterns and Spirituality

After a day reading pomobabble about Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Ranajit Guha - the latter apparently implying that only subalterns can speak about subalterns and subalterneity, Spivak (in 'Can The Subaltern Speak') adopting the position that although the subalterns can't speak she can speak for them - I've turned to Aboriginal Spirituality: Aboriginal Philosophy - The Basis of Aboriginal Social and Emotional Wellbeing [PDF] by Vicki Grieves.

It is a 78 page Discussion Paper (No. 9) for the Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health. The paper is glossed as -

Aboriginal Spirituality provides a philosophical baseline for Indigenous knowledges development in Australia. It is Aboriginal knowledges that build the capacity to enhance the social and emotional wellbeing for Aboriginal people now living within a colonial regime.

Spirituality [upper case S] is -

a feeling, with a base in connectedness to the past, ancestors, and the values that they represent, for example, respect for elders, a moral/ethical path. It is about being in an Aboriginal cultural space, experiencing community and connectedness with land and nature including proper nutrition and shelter. Feeling good about oneself, proud of being an Aboriginal person. It is a state of being that includes knowledge, calmness, acceptance and tolerance, balance and focus, inner strength, cleansing and inner peace, feeling whole, an understanding of cultural roots and 'deep wellbeing'.

That's a somewhat capacious description.

Grieves goes on to comment that

Aboriginal Spirituality derives from a philosophy that establishes the wholistic notion of the interconnectedness of the elements of the earth and the universe, animate and inanimate, whereby people, the plants and animals, landforms and celestial bodies are interrelated. These relations and the knowledge of how they are interconnected are expressed, and why it is important to keep all things in healthy interdependence is encoded, in sacred stories or myths. These creation stories describe the shaping and developing of the world as people know and experience it through the activities of powerful creator ancestors. These ancestors created order out of chaos, form out of formlessness, life out of lifelessness, and, as they did so, they established the ways in which all things should live in interconnectedness so as to maintain order and sustainability. The creation ancestors thus laid down not only the foundations of all life, but also what people had to do to maintain their part of this interdependence — the Law. The Law ensures that each person knows his or her connectedness and responsibilities for other people (their kin), for country (including watercourses, landforms, the species and the universe), and for their ongoing relationship with the ancestor spirits themselves.