For First Nations Peoples, the drum represents the universal heartbeat of Mother Earth, the Universal goddess and mother to us all. The first sound that was heard in the world was the heartbeat of Mother Earth. First Nations Peoples manifest this heartbeat through playing a special rhythm on the drum.

Drums gave Native Americans a way to connect to the gods and have spiritual experiences. Many Native Americans believed that their drums had the power of lightning and thunder inside. The beating of the drum was meant to get the attention of the gods and communicate with the spirits.

Just like many things in the Native American culture, the drum is used to bring balance and renewal to a person through participation in dancing, singing or listening to the heartbeat. The drum is referred to as both the instrument and the group of people gathered around it to play and sing.

powwow drums

Conveying Joy, Expressing Life: Many people join in, so there is usually a lot of call and response with people singing in answer to the drums or other percussive instruments. These events are about celebrating together, as a tribe, a clan, a village.

The music carries the word of the ancestors across time, transmitting key knowledge from deep in our sacred memory. Academics are just beginning to see the deep significance of these songs and the knowledge they carry and some are working with Indigenous collaborators to unlock their teachings.

didjeridu

A number of Indigenous Australians have achieved mainstream prominence, such as Jimmy Little (pop), Yothu Yindi (Australian aboriginal rock), Troy Cassar-Daley (country), Jessica Mauboy (pop, R&B), NoKTuRNL (rap metal) and the Warumpi Band (alternative or world music).

All are orally passed down from generation to generation, often through performance. Thus, in Aboriginal culture, song and dance become the means of the transmission of history, allowing a complex system of laws and identities to be passed through generations, and thus to survive.

Clapsticks, also spelt clap sticks and also known as bilma, bimli, clappers, musicstick or just stick, are a traditional Australian Aboriginal instrument. They serve to maintain rhythm in voice chants, often as part of an Aboriginal ceremony.

The Dreamtime This knowledge is passed down through generations through different stories, songs, dances and ceremonies. This forms part of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and provides a vital context for ongoing relationships, kinship responsibilities and looking after country.

Aboriginal people ate a large variety of plant foods such as fruits, nuts, roots, vegetables, grasses and seeds, as well as different meats such as kangaroos, ‘porcupine’7, emus, possums, goannas, turtles, shellfish and fish.

Their plant menu included fruits such as the native cherry, native currant and kangaroo apple, and vegetables such as the native potato and native carrot. (The adjective ‘native’ emphasises that these were quite different species from their European namesakes.)

Among the native fruits, eleven prominent native species have been commercially produced in Australia including bush tomato, Davidson’s plum, desert lime, finger lime, Kakadu plum, lemon aspen, muntries, quandong, Tasmanian pepper berry, and Illawarra plum.

Aboriginal origins Humans are thought to have migrated to Northern Australia from Asia using primitive boats. A current theory holds that those early migrants themselves came out of Africa about 70,000 years ago, which would make Aboriginal Australians the oldest population of humans living outside Africa.