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The West Australian and South Australian education departments have made lists of appropriate and inappropriate words to describe Aboriginal people and culture, The Australian reports.

- Dreamtime is no longer an acceptable term to describe the collection of Aboriginal creation stories, and should be referred to as The Dreaming or The Dreamings.

- The structure of traditional Aboriginal society should not be described as primitive - but as complex and diverse

- The term native should be replaced by indigenous groups or language groups.

- Instead of saying myths and legends, teachers should say Dreaming stories, teaching from The Dreaming or creation stories.

- Aborigine should not be replaced by the term Aboriginal person.

- Rituals should be called ceremonies

- religion should be avoided in favour of spirituality

- tribal should be shunned for traditional.

- tribe should be replaced by Aboriginal people,

- horde should be replaced by language groups

- instead of clan the term family groups should be used

The list of terms was developed with input from a wide variety of sources, including departmental staff, Aboriginal organisations and academics.

>> read the whole story in The Australian

>> Download “Aboriginal Education for all Learners in South Australia” including the section on sensitive terms and issues (pdf)

SEE ALSO:

Anthropologists condemn the use of terms of “stone age” and “primitive”