Dieri And Bavenda Similarities

When studying two religions along with their cultures for comparison and contrast it is always more interesting to pick two that may seem less familiar. The two that will be discussed in this paper are the Dieri of Southeast Australia, and the BaVenda of South Africa. It does not matter that these peoples were divided by where they lived, their culture, or by any other differences. They still in ways, some more vague than others, had inevitable differing aspects in their practices and even shared some similarities.
Since I find the opposing or differing parts more interesting that is where this will start. Being that food is a life necessity, I noted, when reading from the textbook, the two cultures that one, the Dieri, were food-gatherers and that the second, the
This brought to light their first difference. It seemed interesting that the Dieri, being a gathering type people, were so concerned with rain and being able to call it down. Although it may have been more their surroundings that brought this ritual about, for them it became part of their religious practices because it was a request they were sending up to the “Mura-Muras, who live on the elevated plain that is the sky” (David S. Noss). Another difference I found interesting was the death rituals. The Dieri I thought had a more hands off, so to speak, type of burial because the deceased person was not talked of after their burial. This may be total guessing but I could not help but wonder if they did not talk of or refer to the deceased because of their beliefs of the afterlife. In the reading of the