Aboriginal History and Culture Essay

Two types of Indigenous Australians are Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders,and have lived in Australia for 60,000 years before European settlement.Most of the population live in remote area besides non-remote area(Australian Bureau of Statistics 2014) and stand 2% of Australia’s total population

Aboriginal Australians have lived in Australia for over 40,000 years, however the arrival of Europeans in 1788 significantly changed the way Aboriginal people lived, their customs and their ways of life. Aboriginal Australians have been formally and informally discriminated against since.

For most of Australia’s history, non-Indigenous Australians have treated Indigenous Australians as animals, have stolen their land and ignored their culture. It is estimated that the Indigenous population of Australia was reduced by 90% from 1788 to 1900 (Australians Together, 2016). The Indigenous population Tasmania is now almost extinct and the few living descendants are of Indigenous women who were kidnapped by non-Indigenous people (Darlington et. Al, 2012). The main causes of this genocide were disease and violence. Indigenous populations were also partially wiped out by massacres. For example, the Coniston massacre in 1928 in which 31 Indigenous men, women, and children were killed (Barker, 2016). Since Invasion, non-Indigenous Australians have stolen 7.692 million square kilometers of land sacred to Indigenous Australians which they have had to work extremely hard to gain back. In 1976, the first land rights act was passed which recognised Indigenous Australians as the traditional owners of the land in the Northern Territory (Central Land Council, 2007). Indigenous activists fought long and hard for this act and today they are still currently fighting to have all of their land rights officially recognised by the government. In the past The Australian Government has also tried to control the Indigenous population. The

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are the oldest surviving culture in the world. They have occupied Australia for at least 65,000 years. Their cultures are complex and diverse.

Indigenous Australians hold the status of original peoples of this land. By the Australian Government, laws now state that Indigenous Australians have the rights to:

“In Australia, some Aboriginal art objects are celebrated as fine art of great cultural, aesthetic and economic value…” (Fisher 1). The original art from this culture is rock art which is estimated to be about 40,000 years old. This type of art was essential to the survival of the culture mainly because there was no such thing as a written language in those times. The Aboriginals used this rock art by incorporating symbols in order to tell stories and pass information down from generation to generation. The art taught survival and how to efficiently use the land. Before canvas painting they showcased their art with body painting, once they did start painting on canvases the use of ochre was very important. Ochre is a natural Earth pigment that is usually a brown color and the use of Ochre directly represents how the Aboriginal culture uses the land to their advantage. They live traditionally and can survive without anything but what the land gives them. If you look at contemporary art by the culture the use of symbols and icons are still present just like the original rock art. The same style is incorporated on the canvas where the artist attempts to tell a story. You can observe this style in Eddie Blitner’s Mimi Spirits and Rainbow Serpent where the painting represents spirits that “…taught many skills, including hunting, weaving, fishing, painting on rock and on bark, ceremonial songs and dances to old medicine men…” (Artlandish). You can usually recognize an aboriginal piece because it will include many symbols and use similar colors of brown which comes from

Pre-invasion in Australia, the aboriginal people had their own way of life, they had been living in Australia “Terra Nullis” for about 50,000 to 120,000 years. They were

In Australia before the late eighteenth century, the native Aboriginal people’s unique culture flourished, fostering a great sense of pride within its inhabitants. The Aborigines were able to familiarize themselves with their geographical surroundings, which in turn helped them to obtain food, while simultaneously upholding their many traditional spiritual and ancestral beliefs. Many native songs, dances, and collections of art were referenced by the Aborigines in their “Dreamtime”, a collection of cultural stories that connected the spiritual world to their modern world and its creation. These stories conveyed the importance of treating nature with respect, a view that starkly contrasted with European philosophy. The Aboriginal people thrived in the terrain of Australia for nearly 40,000 years before British colonization in 1788. Many distinct tribes lived throughout Australia, and the Aboriginal population peaked at 500,000 people in the 1780’s during the pre-colonization era. During the early stages of their colonization of Australia, European forces did not intend to harm the Aboriginals, but due to Europe’s unrelenting racism and Social Darwinism, the Aboriginal culture was eventually obliterated.

Aboriginal people have lived in this land for approximately 60000 years , but there are studies that suggests there could have been aboriginal people in Australia for up to 120000 years. By the time the British arrived in Australia in 1788 there were approximately 260 different aboriginal groups speaking around 500 different dialects. Aboriginals lived a semi-nomadic life, moving around an area according to the seasons, and because of this, material things weren’t too important for them, at least not as much as family, relationships, community and spirituality. According to their beliefs, land has a very important connection with their ancestors.

Aboriginals are the indigenous people of Australia. Australia was invaded by the British in 1788 and forced the Aboriginals off their land and into training camps and reserves (Murray, 2001). The Aboriginal population greatly declined due to diseases introduced by the British and the lack of nutrition; the invasion also disconnected nations from one another (Murry, 2001). There are over five hundred nations in Australia, and many of them are still hunter-gathers living in remote areas of Australia (Altman, 2007). All of the nations articulate through different languages (Riley, 2014). Every nation trades, marries, and shares resources with other nations; in order to communicate with the other nations, many aboriginals are able to speak multiple

There are approximately 900 Aboriginal nations which all have their distinct languages as well as songs, stories, dances, ceremonies and paintings that express their spirituality. Each nation has its own understanding of the Aboriginal spirituality, so each nation expresses their spirituality differently depending on their complex law. Even though they are different from each other, they share cultures, which are highly developed, deeply religious and closely associated with nature and the land. For example, Aboriginal art uses various symbols to express stories and convey meanings.

Aboriginal cultures are multifaceted and diverse. The Aboriginal cultures of Australia are the oldest living cultural history in the world - they go back at least 50,000 years and some dispute nearer to that of 65,000 years . One of the solitary reasons Aboriginal cultures have endured for so long is their ability to become accustomed to, and have the ability to change over time. It was this affinity with their surrounds that goes a long way to explaining how Aboriginal people survived for so many millennia. Land is fundamental to the security of Aboriginal people. The land is not just soil, rocks or minerals, but a whole setting that is maintained by people and culture. For the aboriginals, the land is the centre of all spirituality and this correlation and the spirit of 'country' is vital to the issues that are imperative to their people. Indigenous citizens worldwide have in no way been ceded their power. At the time of European ‘Discovery of the New World’ the aboriginal community were a superior body with utmost control over their own affairs. The aboriginal people did not rely on any outside sources of reign for influence. Divergence was inevitable, consequently so, when Europeans perceived to assert sovereignty over all the territories of the New World. The right to basic privileges was foreshadowed by the European reign. Aboriginal people have been attempting to regain control over their own affairs ever since.

Australian Aborigines are the native inhabitants of Australia. They are a dark-skinned people belonging to the Australoid group more closely related to Africans than to Asians and Europeans. They are believed to be descendants of the first group of humans to migrate out of Africa about 72,000 years ago.

The Indigenous people of Australia have resided there for over fifty thousand years [31], marking them as the oldest existing race of people on planet Earth [5]. One of their common nicknames, “Aborignal”, actually means “first” or “earliest known” [5]. During nearly all of their history Aboriginal Australians were abused and persecuted, particularly in the midst of wars such as WWII.

After first white settlers arrived in Australia in 1788, British colonization drastically reduced the population of Aborigines in Australia. This is what as known as the genocide toward Aborigines, implemented by the colonizers. There are several reasons why the genocides occurred. First of all, the early colonial governments sought to assimilate Aborigines into Western culture since they believe that the Aborigines were impossible to be civilized so if they didn’t save them, the whole ethnic group of Aborigines will vanish. The British officers then restricted their freedom, including civil rights of the aborigines, trying to absorb them into the British civilization from 1910-1970. As a result, the Aborigines responded by forming alliances