Cirrus@Austlit

'The mysterious and unique Australian Aboriginal 'Dreaming' worldview embraces the ancient and complicated name taboo of the deceased people. Violating the taboo often causes miscommunication. By referring to the reports on the death of the Yothu Yindi lead singer Yunupingu, this paper expounds that while it is impoetant to stick to the physical facts about the reported Indigenous singer, it is more important for the media to respect the Indigenous people's culture by abiding by their Dreamtime worldview and reveal to the public the relationship between their name taboo inherent in their totemic worship, so as to achieve the purpose of mass communication. This paper thus proposes the approach to understanding Australian Indigenous Dreamtime worldviews as their cognitive models. This cognitive approach exceeds the conventional interpretation of unfamiliar culture phenomena as so-called 'primitive, superstitious, or weird', by exploring into their folk knowledge structure for their value systems, so as to understand the spiritual richness of the Australian Indigenous culture and behavior. (Publication abstract)