Aborigines

Aborigine history pre 1788

The Aboriginal people lived in Australia for about 50 000 years.

Before 1788, when the whites came to Australia, Aborigines lived near rivers and the coast, especially in the south of Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales, in the north of the Northern Territory and in the east of Queensland.

They got their food out of the ocean and the rivers, and were hunting, though they respected animals and nature.

Their land meant quite a lot to the Aboriginal people. The eldest man in each family, called dulma-da, was the protector of the whole families land, which was called nyarrawa, and he passed it on to his eldest son and if he had no sons to his brother or his eldest sister. The Aboriginal people believed that the spirits of their ancestors still lived in the land and it's features, so the dulma-da was also the protector of the ancestors spirits. During ceremonies the Aboriginal people had spiritual contact with their Dreaming ancestors. That's why taking away their land was like taking parts of themselves, their world and everything in it. It destroyed their ancestors.

The Aborigines had a high developed culture. Their religion was the dreaming, they did special dances, held ceremonies, had their own language and cohesiveness in groups. Aborigines had their own sports and social activities. Their judicial system was also high developed. If somebody didn't follow the rules he had to face consequences and punishments, which could go as far as death. Other Aborigines (or later on whites) were only allowed to stay with a group if they accepted their rules. The laws were not written down but passed on to the next generation through verbal music. The relationship between men and women was not unequal to the European one, they had girlfriends and boyfriends, and they could also get married.

Aborigines felt close to nature, they had certain places where Dreaming ancestors had stopped and created something, or held a ceremony. These places are called story places. There Aboriginal people had to behave in a special way, they had to be quietly and respectfully or they weren't supposed to look at various places. They drew pictures on stone, in caves and on wood, which told their stories.

The Aborigines believe that their ancestors have existed since time began and that they came directly out of the dreamtime. They believe that during the creation of the world their ancestors have moved across the land and have created everything on earth, the animals, the plants, the sun, the moon and the planets and the humans. They also believed that everything could transform into one of the other things and that everything was created from the same source and everything was created in their dreamtime.

As the world took shape and was filled with various different species the ancestors all transformed into one shape, like the sun, the sky, the clouds and all the creatures to live within all they created.

Aborigine history after 1788

In 1788 the first explorers arrived in Australia. It was a surprise for the Aboriginal population that people with white skin even existed, but they didn't bother at first. Then the white people started taking their land, and the Aborigines wanted to defend their families and tried to fight the whites. Some of them had to move further into Australians outback and to get used to living there, but the bigger part was murdered in intentional shootings and massacres in which whole families died out. One consequence of the explorers actions was that the Tasmanian Aborigines were completely wiped out. Another reason for the death of hundreds of Aborigines were diseases like small pox, the flu and other illnesses from Europe against which the Aborigines had no immunity.

Protection

The Aboriginal population decreased from 750 000 to 250 000 in less then 100 years, so the government thought that should be stopped and started to find new ways of being able to take the continent over. Missionaries set up missions and the government set up reserves to stop the Aborigines population from dying out.

Assimilation

Following the protection era was the assimilation era, which doesn't mean that the protection era ended, rather it can be seen as an extension. Assimilation means to integrate the Aboriginal people in the white society, to make them similar. Assimilation was an attempt by the non-Aboriginal authorities to integrate Aboriginal people into non-Aboriginal society.

The positive thing about the assimilation was that some Aboriginal people were able to gain a good education and a citizenship certificate.

The negative aspects were, that many children, especially 'mixed race' children were forcibly taken from their parents, because they didn't belong in either Aboriginal or white lifestyle. By the non- Aborigines a non- Aboriginal upbringing was more important than staying with their family.

About 100 000 children were taken away from their families without permission, they were put in institutions with horrible conditions and horrible people running them. There were no records kept from where these children came, so later they were unable to find their way back home. These 'stolen children' are called the 'lost generation' nowadays. Many of today's social problems involving Aboriginal people have been put down to this 'stolen children' regime, including a disproportionate amount of crime, problems with bringing up their own children for they haven't had a proper upbringing themselves, behaviour that doesn't display the benefits of love and over all a breakdown in the passing on of culture, which has traditionally been done from mouth to mouth.

Another point in the assimilation era was that the 'mixed race' or 'half castes' were not allowed to marry 'full blood' - Aborigines. They were 'given' to white Europeans to get Australia all white.

Self - determination / Self - Management

The Aboriginal people wanted to decide about their own future themselves and so the government let them do a self management from the year 1973 on. The Aborigines had the possibility to represent their own interests and to organise themselves.

Self-management was welcomed by the Aboriginal community though there were a few problems, especially in dealing with the government departments. The Aboriginal people had been totally controlled by missionaries until 1973, so they had no training to prepare them in management skills. The government still controlled funding and everything had to suit their guidelines and budgeting procedures. The Aboriginal people had to form their own organisation to represent their interests.