Dave Pellowe has done fine research on the issue of the meaning of "country" in the Welcome and Acknowledgement of country ceremonies. Most people, even those opposed to this seeing it as a woke arbitrary convention that serves the purposes of delegitimising the Australian nation, think that country means "land mass." It does not, and has a clear political and Aboriginal religious meaning.
The traditional Aboriginal spiritual meaning was exhibited in the Uluru Statement from the Heart, a religious manifesto that was the foundation of the Voice Yes side in the referendum:
"Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the first sovereign Nations of the Australian continent and its adjacent islands, and possessed it under our own laws and customs.
This sovereignty is a spiritual notion: the ancestral tie between the land, or 'mother nature', and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who were born therefrom, remain attached thereto, and must one day return thither to be united with our ancestors. This link is the basis of the ownership of the soil, or better, of sovereignty."
Dave Pellowe then goes on in the extract below to raise the point that should Christians then implicitly accept the doctrine of animism that is the metaphysics behind this? He rightly argues, No, they should not. But the issues are even wider. Should these spiritual claims be accepted uncritically by a culture based upon Enlightenment reason and science? The government is wanting Aboriginal knowledge to be part of the country's science drive, and I have no problem with that, if the knowledge claims are assessed like everything else is, for empirical validity and logical coherence. So, by this measure, the Welcome to Country ideology will itself need to be critically evaluated in the light of Enlightenment standards of reason. After all, Christianity gets this treatment in philosophical theology, so why not traditional Aboriginal beliefs? How can they be exempt from the same sort of examination?
To this the woke will say "racism, wah, wah." Ok, but that means that reason itself is "racist," and since the woke use "reason," they must be contaminated by racism too!
https://goodsauce.news/what-do-you-mean-by-country/
"When you hear someone else talk about welcome to "Country" or acknowledgment of "Country," what do you think they mean by "Country"? It's fair to say many may be blissfully ignorant of the full meaning imported to a sentence by that word, and others wilfully so.
But it does have a meaning, and meanings matter, for without them, we cannot communicate or understand others. The meaning of "Country" as used in communicating aboriginal beliefs is loaded with religious truth claims; claims which Christianity contradicts.
When I was at the National Museum in Canberra recently, I had the fresh controversy of demolishing idols of false religion brought to front of mind when I saw an installation offering to define the word for all visitors to the nation's capital. It explained:
"Country" is the name this continent's first peoples give the land and everything in it. They see the earth, sea and sky, all living things and the past, present and future as a vast, united whole.
More and more people are using the word "Country" to express recognition for indigenous people's connection with their land, and for the interrelationship all human beings have with the rest of nature.
The first question we must then ask (if the answer isn't immediately obvious) is, what interrelationship? Everything eternally united as a vast whole, how?
The building right next door to the National Museum is the home of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS). AIATSIS was established in 1964 by the Menzies government to record material culture and ceremonial life of Aborigines and are regarded as the premier information resource on indigenous Australians.
The AIATSIS website asserts:
"Country" is the term often used by aboriginal peoples to describe the lands, waterways and seas to which they are connected. The term contains complex ideas about law, place, custom, language, spiritual belief, cultural practice, material sustenance, family and identity.
It's clearly not a simple reference to location or region or mere land, as whites may be forgiven for thinking. It's much, much more, and certainly includes religious truth claims. Ngunnawal Elder Jude Barlow talks about what "Country" and the welcome or acknowledgement means to her in a series of videos on that website:
Being welcomed to "Country" means that you are talking to your spiritual ancestors and you're saying, just let this person come through – we trust them. We trust they're not going to do any harm on this "Country" and so do not harm them. So for me, the significance of being welcomed to "Country" is about ensuring your spiritual safety. Ancestors…are still present on "Country" 'cause they're still with us. They're in the animals, they're in the trees. So when I walk onto another… "Country" I look to be welcomed so that I feel a sense of – that the spirits are okay with me being there.
It's a connection with my ancestors.
We can welcome, as traditional owners, someone to the "Country", to quiet the spirits.
And then we have confirmation of this religious importance by the widely acclaimed Uluru Statement from the Heart. This religious manifesto was the Albanese government's agenda, the headline promise of his election night victory speech. Few people realise exactly how close we came to the Commonwealth establishing pagan religion in our constitution.
Here's what it claims authority to teach us about "Country":
Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the first sovereign Nations of the Australian continent and its adjacent islands, and possessed it under our own laws and customs.
This sovereignty is a spiritual notion: the ancestral tie between the land, or 'mother nature', and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who were born therefrom, remain attached thereto, and must one day return thither to be united with our ancestors. This link is the basis of the ownership of the soil, or better, of sovereignty.
False religious claims being asserted here include the land, "Country", as the place babies' spirits come from, are spiritually connected to and as the eternal destiny of people's spirits after this life.
That's exactly what we're assumed to be acknowledging if merely present for the ceremony called acknowledgment of "Country". …
Do you believe dead ancestors are in the animals and trees and give Aborigines a valid spiritual claim to eternal sovereignty, ownership of everything?
It is reckless animism and idolatry for any Christian to believe such things, or to even be associated with such statements, ceremonies or symbols. Changing the words to remove obvious false religion doesn't diminish the inherent nature of what we're perceived to be approving.
If you're not pagan, don't let any corporation or government impose false religious observances of "Country" upon you."