Aborigines

Australia: The homeland of the Aborigines

Australia is not only a country - it's a whole continent. One can find it in the southern hemisphere. Australia is a young country. Until 200 years ago, the Aborigines lived there and were the original inhabitants. There was no state then. The Europeans only came 200 years ago. Initially, the country was used by Great Britain as a penal colony. The Europeans drove out the natives, took their land away, and changed their living conditions.

The country's name is derived from "Terra Australis," which means "southern country." Of all the continents, Australia is the flattest. By the way, the seasons are the other way around in Australia. When we have winter, it is summer in Australia, and vice versa. Australia is a dry country, with almost no rain falling in the middle of the country all year round. By the way, the capital of Australia is called Canberra and is not that well known. Much better known are the cities of Sydney and Melbourne.

Size	7,692,024 km²
Population	24.99 million
Language	English and Aboriginal languages
Capital	Canberra
Longest River	Murray (2575 km)
Highest Mountain	Mont Kosciusko (2229 m)
Currency	Australian Dollar

The History of the Aborigines

The Aborigines lived among themselves for thousands of years and were very close to nature. The history of the Aborigines took a sudden turn with the arrival of the Europeans, the consequences of which they still suffer today.

Early History

The history of the Aborigines begins approximately 40,000 to 60,000 years ago. At that time, the ancestors of today's Aborigines from the north began to settle the continent of Sahul. There is now the territory of Australia, New Guinea and Tasmania. About 25,000 years after the first arrival, the whole continent was populated. It is estimated that at most 900,000 Aborigines lived there at the time. For millennia, the Aborigines maintained their nomadic lifestyle, without writing, farming or tools. The tribes lived in communities without hierarchies and were hunter-gatherers.

Arrival of the Europeans

The Europeans discovered Australia for the first time in 1606 and shaped the history of the Aborigines with their settlement. On January 18, 1788, the English captain Arthur Phillip docked with the "First Fleet" on the southeast coast of Australia, near present-day Sydney. He wanted to populate the continent with criminals from England's overflowing prisons. Over the next 80 years, more than 160,000 people were trafficked from Europe to Australia. Initially, the coexistence between settlers and natives was peaceful.

• Grocery trading took place between the groups.
• Captain Phillip had given instructions not to use force if possible.
• But as the settlers spread across the country, more conflicts arose.

The settlers killed the Aborigines to claim their land. The Aborigines suffered massively and the Tasmanians were even exterminated in the course of their pushing back. In addition, Europeans brought with them foreign diseases such as cholera and influenza, which killed many Aborigines. Sexual slavery and prostitution among the Aborigines also spread numerous venereal diseases.

The British "Protectors of the Aborigines"

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Aboriginal life today

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The Culture of the Aborigines

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The Language

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The Art

It is imperative to pass on information to preserve their culture. Indigenous art is centered on story telling. It is used as a chronical to convey knowledge of the land, events and beliefs of the Aboriginal people. When being told to children it would take on a simpler form highlighting the educational and behavioural aspect. There can be a combination of information and moral teachings behind the story. The children are taught right from wrong and the consequences of good and bad behaviour. The stories, however would be interpreted at a very different and higher level form when teaching to initiated elders.The use of symbols is an alternate way to writing down stories of cultural significance, teaching survival and use of the land. The interpretations of the iconography differ depending on the audience.Although Australian Aboriginals have been using ochres as body paint, on bark and rocks for tens of thousands of years it was not until the 1930’s that the first paintings were done. These were not done in ochre or in dot art but in water colour at the Hermannsburg mission near Alice Springs. They illustrated desert landscapes. The first exhibition was in 1937 by the most famous of the first aboriginal watercolour painters, Albert Namatjira. His exhibition was held in Adelaide. Up until the early 1970s artists mainly used watercolours. Ochre and bark paintings were starting to become available to non-indigenous admirers and at Ernabella mission in 1948 an art and craft centre was founded. Traditionally paintings by Aboriginals were drawn on rock walls, ceremonial articles, as body paint and most significantly drawn in dirt or sand together with songs or stories. Artwork we see today on canvas and board commenced merely 50 years ago.

The Religion

Aboriginal religion, like other religions, is characterised by having a god or gods who created people and the surrounding environment during a particular creation period at the beginning of time. Aboriginal people are very religious and spiritual, but rather than praying to a single god they cannot see, each group generally believes in a number of different deities, whose image is often depicted in some tangible, recognisable form. This form may be that of a particular landscape feature, an image in a rock art shelter, or in a plant or animal form. Landscape features may be the embodiment of the deity itself, such as a particular rock representing a specific figure, or they may be the result of something the deity did or that happened to the deity in the Creation Period, such as a river having formed when the Rainbow Serpent passed through the area in the Creation Period, or a depression in a rock or in the ground representing the footprint or sitting place of an Ancestral Being. Aboriginal people do not believe in animism. This is the belief that all natural objects possess a soul. They do not believe that a rock possesses a soul, but they might believe that a particular rock outcrop was created by a particular deity in the creation period, or that it represents a deity from the Creation Period. They believe that many animals and plants are interchangeable with human life through re-incarnation of the spirit or soul, and that this relates back to the Creation Period when these animals and plants were once people. There is no one deity covering all of Australia. Each tribe has its own deities with an overlap of beliefs, just as there is an overlap of words between language groups. Thus, for example, the Wandjina spirits in the northern Kimberley of Western Australia belong to the Ngarinyin, Worora and Wunambal tribes. These Wandjina are responsible for bringing the Wet Season rains, as well as laying down many of the laws for the people. As one travels east, this function is taken over by Yagjagbula and Jabirringgi, The Lightning Brothers of the Wardaman tribe in the Victoria River District of the Northern Territory, then by Nargorkun, also known as Bula, in the upper Katherine River area, and by Namarrgun, the Lighning Man in the Kakadu and western Arnhem Land regions.

Frequently asked questions about Aboriginal people

How do the Aborigines live?

• About half of the Aborigines now live in cities, often in slums. Another large part lives in self-managed reservations.

Who are the Aborigines?

• The Aborigines are the indigenous people of Australia. They are also called Aboriginal People.

How many Aborigines are there today?

• Today there are around 500,000 Aborigines left.

What happened to the Aborigines?

• After the arrival of the white Europeans, the Aborigines mainly experienced oppression. Their culture was destroyed, land was taken from them, they were expelled or killed.

Do Aborigines still exist today?

• Yes, there are still around 500,000 Aborigines today.