Australian Aborigines
The Aborigine are the Indigenous Australians or Original Inhabitants of the Great South Land. The term “Aboriginal” in English means “first or earliest known indigenous peoples”. The term “Aboriginal” is seen by some of the communities as insensitive and offensive while accepted by others. The politically correct use is “Aboriginal Australians” or “Aboriginal people” or even more commonly accepted is “Indigenous Australians”. They were the first to habitate on Australia and its nearby islands. Those on Australia are usually referred to as “Aboriginal” or “Torres Strait Islanders”. They make up over 2.7% of Australia’s current population as many of them were wiped out during European contact and settlement. The “Torres Strait Islanders” are primarily indigenous to the Torres Strait Islands located near the norther tip of Queensland and Papua New Guinea. The first of their peoples to be discovered archaeologically was the remains of “Mungo Man” dating approximately 40,000 Before Present. The approximated date to the arrival of the Aborigine to Australia and its islands is believed to be as early as 125,000 B.P. The Aborigine make up numerous communities and societies, with a vast array of languages, cultures, beliefs, and customs. There are believed to have been over 300 spoken Aboriginal languages with over 600 dialects before Europeans made contact with less than 200 of those remaining in existence today. All of these languages but 20 are considered endangered as most Aborigine today speak English or the mutated form known as Australian Aboriginal English. Pre-contact, it is believed that over 750,000 Aborigine lived in Australia and the outlying Islands but that has diminshed to modern day to less than 98,000. Some of the regional groups are: Koori (or Koorie) in New South Wales and Victoria (Victorian Aborigines); Ngunnawal in the Australian Capital Territory and surrounding areas of New South Wales; Murri in Queensland; Murrdi in Southwest and Central Queensland; Nyungar in southern Western Australia; Yamatji in central Western Australia; Wangai in the Western Australian Goldfields; Nunga in southern South Australia; Anangu in northern South Australia, and neighbouring parts of Western Australia and Northern Territory; Yapa in western central Northern Territory; Yolngu in eastern Arnhem Land; Tiwi on Tiwi Islands off Arnhem Land; Anindilyakwa on Groote Eylandt off Arnhem Land; Palawah in Tasmania; Anangu (central desert region); Pitjantjatjara; Yankunytjatjara; Ngaanyatjarra; Luritja; and Antikirinya. The Torres Strait Islanders are rather distinct and different from the Aboriginal peoples of Australia, and are defined as such differently. Many un-educated visitors to Australia sometimes refer to the Indigenous as “Blacks” based on physiognomy instead of ethnology though some groups and individuals of Aborigines have welcomed the term. The early Australian Aborigine lived primarily as hunters and gatherers, foraging for food from the land, deserts, and forests. They were primarily a semi-nomadic people moving around due to changing food availability with the seasons. There were over 250 individual nations many of whom were in alliance with one another, composed of clans each with their own languages and customs. After European Contact, they were infected by epidemics brought by the whites such as measles, smallpox, and tuberculosis. The stories of contact, disease, and treatment of the original inhabitants were quite similar to what the Europeans did to the Native Americans in the Americas. After acculturation as British subjects, those who merged into mainstream society were nominally entitled to vote (except Western Australia and Queensland who excluded them from voting). Many Aborigine fought for Australia in the First and Second World Wars. 1934 began Aboriginal Australian rights after an Aborigine won in court. The 1960’s saw assertion of Aboriginal rights with a win in 1962 that had the Commonwealth legislation specifically give all Aboriginal people the right to vote in Commonwealth elections. A controversial 1971 Government land rights case ruled that Australia had been terra nullius before British settlement and no concept of native title existed in Australian law. That year, the first Indigenous Australian became part of the Federal Parliament. A year later, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy was established on the steps of Parliament House in Canberra. By 1976 Australia saw its first Aboriginal to become appointed vice-regal office. By 1992 the High Court of Australia declared the previous legal concept of terra nullius to be invalid. In 2008, the Prime Minister Kevid Rudd issued a formal public apology to members of the Stolen Generations on behalf of the Australian Government. Aboriginal art became prominent in Australian culture bringing world attention to art form, the music, and the culture. The original Aboriginal peoples prescribed to a animistic spiritual belief system with a formative epoch known as “The Dreamtime” even though today over 72 percent of the population is Christian. Early rock art and bark painting, dating to be thousands of years old, is found throughout the continent, some of which is comparible to that of Lascaux and Altamira in Europe. Today’s Aboriginal Art includes inclusion of modern materials within the art including watercolor paintings, acryllic, and wood carvings. As the original Aborigine did not have a system of writing, the first accounts of their history were from the journals of European explorers who described them as savage as well as friendly. Similiar to Native Americans, the Aborigine have a known intolerance for alcohol and the use of such has been catastrophic on their populations. Some communities use kava as a safer alternative to alcohol thereby reducing violent behaviors found after excessive drinking. Petrol sniffing is a major problem among some remote Indigenous communities.
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