The impact of British colonisation on Aboriginal peoples belief systems and spirituality has been detrimentally irreversible. Through the British colonists attitude of ethnocentrism or Social Darwinism in 1788, Australia was declared `terra-nullius' `land belonging to no-one' and Aboriginal peoples were subject to policies of dispossession and protectionism in a bid to the eventual demise of all facets of their traditional culture. Today, as a result of these policies, currently 5% of indigenous people in Australia today practise their traditional beliefs and approximately 70% of Aboriginals acknowledge themselves as Christians. Hayward, P (1995 p.131) However, for many Aboriginal people there has been a successful integration of Christian and indigenous belief systems and spirituality.

The policy of `terra nullius' saw many Aboriginal peoples driven off their land as squatters, pastoralists, settlers and farmers occupied traditional Aboriginal land for agricultural purposes. This produced conflict between the colonists and Aborigines and for the next 100 years, extinction...