Australia

Australia holds one of the world's oldest continuous living cultures through its Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, alongside knowledge brought by waves of later settlers.

Music & dance Crafts Spirituality & rites Nature & herbalism

Knowledge in this place

Didgeridoo playing

Didgeridoo playing

A wind instrument made from a eucalyptus branch hollowed by termites, played with circular breathing in northern Aboriginal communities.

Aboriginal dot painting

Aboriginal dot painting

A visual technique using arrangements of dots to depict Dreaming stories and maps of Country, rooted in desert communities.

Songlines

Sung itineraries that encode geography, law and ancestral knowledge across vast distances of the continent.

Spirituality & rites

Bark painting

Bark painting

Paintings made on prepared sheets of stringybark using natural ochres, a longstanding tradition of Arnhem Land.

Cultural burning

Cultural burning

Controlled low-intensity burning of the land to manage vegetation, regenerate plants and reduce wildfire risk.

Nature & herbalism