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However, there is a much deeper connection with the land
seldo
Il
understood by white people, found in the particular
identification of the Aborigine with the land and with sacred
*
places.
Land is not merely a possession, an idential securing identity.
It is a component of identity itself. People at Strelley define
identity: ’’That's my country where all my kinsfolk sit down. That’s
identity*!.
The connection of tradition-oriented people with the land has been
lost by urban people along with the Law and the education into the
Law that together form part of the complex, integrated whole at
Strelley.
Claims being made currently (1982) for tribal land at Pt. Augusta
by non-traditional people must be seen, not as rooted in ownership
of the land and identity contexted into the land, but as a
construction of identity that seeks to adapt the traditional reality
to the urban Aborigines, a further indication of the parallel nature
of the model of the world the Aboriginal people see evolving.
For the metropolitan urban people of Adelaide, the claim to land,
identity with the land, is a vicarious experience. The people join
in Land Rights marches, Land Rights demonstrations on behalf of others
for whom this is a reality.
18.54 Religion
The religion of traditional Aboriginal people has been lost by
urban people.
Early missionary activity niħilated the Law.
Current missionary activity,, in the form of fundamentalist
V
Christian movements, furthers this process.
The fundamentalist missionaries in the eighties are achieving
a spectacular wave of conversions in the city, at Pt. Augusta and