Aborigeenid (Inglise keeles) (0)

Miina Härma Gümnaasium
“The aborigines of Australia
Student :Kärt Erikson
Teacher: Tiia Timma
Tartu 2010
contents

• Introduction – page 3
  

• History – page 3-4
  

• Religion – page 4-7
  

• Society - page 7-9
  

• The British – page 9-10
  

• Conclusion – page 10-11
  

• Resources – page 11
  

• Appendix – page 11-14
  

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Introduction
I selected this theme because it was the most interesting one for me. Aborigines have interested me for a long time now so doing this essay is really fun for me.
Australian Aboriginal culture is one of the world's longest surviving cultures . Australian Aborigines, also known as Indigenous Australians , are the native people of Australia . Many of them suffered when white people from Britain arrived in Australia, because of disease , the loss of their hunting lands, and unfair laws .
Australian Aborigines are those people regarded as indigenous to the Australian continent .
In the High Court of Australia, Australian Aborigines have been specifically identified as a group of people who share , in common, biological ancestry back to the original occupants of the continent.
History
The first people of Australia were nomadic people who came to Australia from south - east Asia . Scientists don't know exactly when they arrived but it is somewhere between 40000 and 60000 years ago. When British came to Australia in 1788, they called these native people “aboriginals”, meaning people who had lived there since the earliest times .
Captain James Cook set the colonization of Australia into motion by exploring and mapping the fertile eastern coast of Australia, but he was not the first to visit Australia. There is evidence suggesting Aborigines in northern Australia maintained trade with some of the Indonesian islands closest to the coast. Chinese and Arab 's may have had contact with the Aborigines in the 15th century .
When British people came to live in Australia, they decided that the land was empty, that there were no people living there. This was called " Terra nullius", Latin words for "empty land".Under British law, all land belongs to the king ,who is then able to sell it to other people. The sacred sites and other land which had belonged to aboriginal people for thousands of years were simply taken from them. If they did not leave peacefully then the new settlers used force to get them to leave. Many aboriginal people were killed during the settlement of Australia. The aborigines that were left were made to live on in special areas , reservations, that the government set aside for them. One of these was at Lake Tyers, Victoria. Many church groups set up missions , to both look after the aborigines, and to
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convert them to Christianity.
With the help of aboriginal lawyers, aboriginal Australians have battled to get some of their land back. In 1976, the Australian government agreed that aboriginal people have rights to their tribal territories, and some land was given back. On 3 June , 1992, the High Court of Australia said that the idea of "Terra nullius" was wrong , and the government brought in new laws, to set up Native Title. If aborigines can prove they have always used particular land, it has not been sold, or changed by government acts , then the land could be claimed as aboriginal land.
Religion
The Aboriginal religion is based heavily on the Dreaming. The Dreaming is the Aboriginal creation story. Aborigines believe that at the beginning of time the world was a shapeless mass of nothing , waiting to be transformed into what we see today . The mythic beings called the ancestors arrived, the ancestors took many shapes, although most commonly they were great serpants. The ancestors began to travel across the world shaping the landscape and creating new life as they went . Every major geographical feature in Australia has an aboriginal story to explain it. The Dreaming gets very abstract, it turns almost into another dimension. Aborigines believe that they are constantly living in the Dreaming and that every time they do something they leave an impression on the other reality. The Ancestor Spirits and their powers have not gone , they are present in the forms in to which they changed at the end of the 'Dreamtime' or 'Dreaming', as the stories tell . The stories have been handed down through the ages and are an integral part of an Indigenous person 's 'Dreaming'.
The ancestors of the aborigines come in all shapes and sizes, in some ways they are very similar to Greek Gods and Goddess ', in that they usually represent a certain theme. Such as the sky, or water. During the Dreaming the ancestors criss-crossed Australia shaping the land into its current state as the went. The Aborigines also consider certain constellations to be ancestors .
Death was always a time of sorrow and supernatural fear among traditional ATSI people(Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.) . Wailing or crying was a common occurrence among the mourners who often painted their bodies with pipe clay, red ochre, or charcoal when a relative or friend died. In some districts people wore a head covering made of feathers. Others beat their bodies with sticks or clubs , or cut themselves with shells or stone knives to cause bleeding. In these instances the period of sorrow or mourning, was considered to be at an end when their wounds were healed . Relatives and close friends often sat beside a grave of a deceased person, but this was related to their superstitious beliefs.
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Sitting beside a grave - sometimes shaded with a hut or covering to provide shelter for the mourner or mourners - involved ensuring that the deceased person's spirit had gone to the 'sky camp ' or to its spirit- place . Obviously it is impossible to say 'how' they knew or considered when this happened. However after the mourning period was completed, a deceased person's name was never mentioned again . This often involved inventing new words for totems but was based on their superstitious beliefs in a personal spirit and ghosts.
The belief in a personal spirit was based on the Dreamtime stories that told the people that birth was the result of a spirit- child entering a woman 's body . Or in some parts of the country , birth had been an act of the creators.
The Aborigines considered some places to be sacred. In some parts of Australia the tribes called the places where initiation ceremonies were held , bora grounds . They were called Buna grounds in other parts of the country, but the sites were not randomly chosen and were used for thousands of years by the tribe . The bora ground itself was identified by two circles that were drawn on the ground or were formed by rocks or pebbles. The circles were connected by a path and other symbols were drawn into the earth or carved into trees near the grounds. These symbols were highly significant in ceremonies and also warned people ( women and uninitiated youths and strangers), to stay away from the area.
The people also believed that a person's spirit could visit living people to harm or warn them of danger. This usually resulted in a ' inquiry ' about the death of a person who was considered to have died prematurely or in unusual circumstances. The inquiry - usually undertaken in consultation with an Elder or a Clever Man - looked for actions undertaken by some person that had caused the death of an individual . Any culprit was severely punished. The belief in a person spirit also led the people to take great precautions in the burial or cremation of the deceased.
Because Aboriginal society was very spiritual (in the sense that spirits were thought to have made the land and were responsible for birth and sometimes death),it is not surprising that Aboriginal people 'believed' in magic . It was practised in a number of ways. For example through the pointing of the bone ( “ singing someone ”) which was believed to cause death. People who had been 'pointed' often died, not as a result of the magic itself, but because of their belief that they would die, death through superstition or imagination. In the same way, people were 'cured' of sickness and illness through the use of magic stones and crystals.
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Aborigines held a corroboreein which there were elements of music, song and movement that imitated or replicated animal movements, hunting prowess, battles or ceremonies of initiation that had
been conducted for thousands of years. Corroborees are part of Aboriginal culture. They were not simply dances, but were highly significant events and belong to the Australian Aborigines. A corroboree is a ceremonial meeting of Australian Aborigines. The word was coined by the European settlers of Australia in imitation of the Aboriginal word caribberie. At a corroboree Aborigines interact with the Dreamtime through dance , music and costume. Many ceremonies act out events from the Dreamtime. Many of the ceremonies are sacred and people from outside a community are not permitted to participate or watch.
The Australian Aborigines used a limited variety of implements to make musical sounds. The didgeridoo (wind instrument a bit like trumpet) is probably the best known, but others included rattles, clapping sticks and two boomerangs clapped together. However they do not appear to have used drums, flutes and whistles. The melodies, tunes, harmonies and rhythms of Aboriginal music included traditional ceremonial songs that were handed down from generation to generation. It was very important in Aboriginal thinking, to replicate the songs that had been first played and sung by the ancestors in the Dreamtime. When the traditional music and songs were used, living men considered themselves to be in the Dreamtime. Particularly during initiation ceremonies. However 'new songs' were created from time to time. They told of important events in the history of the tribe. Events such as great battles or hunting expeditions. Other songs and music were for general amusement or entertainment and early European observations of the Aborigines included camp life where the people played games and sang songs around their camp fires.
Almost all of the Koori (preferred name of Australian aborigines) shaman are initiated within one large group, called "The Dreamers". This is due to the fact that Australia has some of the strongest, and chaotic magic, around. All of the shaman are needed to put a check on that chaos. A Koori shaman takes only a small penalty for some tasks when astrally perceiving. As a trade off they are unable to mask. Any magician ( full or adept) will notice this, whether or not he can assence. Mundanes even can tell when one of The Dreamers has entered the room . A Koori shaman will rarely travel outside of Australia, the need is too great in the outback for that.
White Australian shamans cannot join the dreamers, but some are associated with the koori group.
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The Australian aboriginal shamans - "clever men" or "men of high degree " - described "celestial ascents" to meet with the "sky gods". Many of the accounts of ritualistic initiation bare striking
parallels to modern day UFO contacted and abduction lore. The aboriginal shamanistic " experience of death and rising again" in the initiation of tribal "men of high degree" finds some fascinating parallels with modern day UFO abduction lore. The "chosen one" (either voluntarily or spontaneously) is set upon by "spirits", ritualistically "killed", and then experiences a wondrous journey (generally an aerial ascent to a strange realm) to met the "sky god." He is restored to life -- a new life as the tribal shaman.
Society
Aboriginal Australians were social beings who lived in a number of social groups sometimes called bands, clans, sub-tribes and tribes, but essentially in a family or kinship group who were 1) of the same blood-line and 2) were related to other people through totems. The larger social unit known as a tribe, was made up of a number of smaller social units (clans and bands). A clan was a family group made up of a grandfather and his wife or wives, his sons and their wife or wives and their children . A number of these groups formed a tribe. The exact number of clans which comprised a tribe cannot be said precisely, as this varied. The clans which formed a tribe were those who believed in the same Dreamtime creation stories, spoke the same language and celebrated the same customs such as initiation rites.
Each family group had a headman or Elder who was the leader of the unit. He decided when to move camp and settled disputes. Every tribe in Australia was divided into a number of small social groups, but for marriage purposes, into two main groups sometimes called marriage moieties. People didn't marry outside of their group. Marriage arrangements were made when children were very young and sometimes before they were born.
Elders (who were usually males ), were people who were considered to be wise in tribal knowledge and worldly matters . They were leaders of family or kinship groups who made decisions about moving camp, when boys would be initiated, when girls would be married and settled disputes among other members of the social unit. Senior females were not considered to be Elders in traditional Aboriginal society. However they did play important roles in tribal matters. For example they decided when girls would undergo rituals in preparation for marriage, conducted or organized ceremonies including those that males and children participated in (but not initiation ceremonies).
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They also acted as midwives and story-tellers.
Aboriginal lore(the facts and stories about a particular subject or topic) was an important and vital aspect of community life. For example Aboriginal people learned their 'laws' from those Dreamtime stories that informed the listeners about acceptable and unacceptable behaviour together with the punishment offenders received . It also taught and guided the people to survive . Some stories informed them about the life cycle of birds , animals and insects . Others (often called Song lines) were like oral road maps and identified tracks that the people followed when moving around their tribal territory or when visiting other tribes.
Aboriginal lore / law required a person who did not 'belong' to a particular area, to be invited or granted permission , to enter into the territory of a tribe. In other words, he or she could not simply wander into the land of another tribe. To do so invited hostility that could result in the death of the individual(for trespassing).
When someone wanted to visit another tribe, they carried a message stick - a piece of bark or timber that was decorated with symbols. These symbols have sometimes been said to have been a written form of language. This is not correct . But they were a form of passport that identified the intent or authority of the bearer and ' communication ' took place verbally (or by sign language), between the ' stranger ' and those whom she/he wanted to visit. "The passing of a boundary line by the blacks of another territory was considered as an act of hostility against the denizens of the invaded grounds, and wars were frequently the sequence of such transgressions."
Because of their believes there were never any wars of conquest between Aboriginal tribes. They were too superstitious to do this and living in the land of another tribe would have involved them in living among strange and no doubt hostile spirits.
Indigenous Aborigines understood and cared for their different environments and adapted to them. It is the intimate knowledge of the land, its creatures and plants that sits at the core of traditional Aboriginal culture. From this deep and intricate understanding of their environment, Aboriginal Australians have developed many plant and animal based medicines. Land was spiritual, but also an economic resource as it provided the people with food, sources of wood , fibre and glue for making spears, utensils and other implements. However the people respected these aspects of their land and were environmentalists in the sense of ' taking care' of the land through their practices of performing increase ceremonies,
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singing 'Song lines' and relationships with flora and fauna through a system of totemic relationships. Aboriginal people were social beings as they lived and gathered together in family groups . Their camps were comprised of a number of gunyas (bark huts), but the people also lived in caves or in the open air. Some camps were comprised of as few as 6 to 10 people while in others there were up to 400 people. No doubt the availability of food was a factor in the size of a camp. The Elder or Elders gunyah (hut) were situated in the centre of the camp and others spanned out in circles around the central hut. However, the people often slept in the open and in caves, so it is likely that the Elder decided where he wanted to sleep with his wife or wives and everyone one else spread -out from the spot he had chosen. No doubt some people were more important than others and the most important ones camped near the Elders.
The Aborigines 'decorated' their bodies with personal decorations that included pipe-clay and other e symbols that conveyed messages designs or patterns on their arms, legs and upper body - particularly at ceremonial times. The patters were not random . In other words they were symbols that conveyed messages e.g., they represented the totems of individuals or denoted information about the tribe itself. The Aborigines often used the fat of animals to cover their bodies to protect them from insects such as mosquitoes. Some of the early Europeans considered that this practice ' gave them a most unpleasant odour'. No doubt it did, but it also provided effective protection against insect stings.
Aborigines had initiations. Boys began a period of initiation from when they were 7 or 8 years of age. The first initiation ceremonies they attended were designed to make them independent on their mothers and other females. At other ceremonies and meetings with older males they were informed about the history and customs of the tribe and were taught how to survive and to be dependent on other males. Initiation continued over a number of years and boys gradually acquired knowledge through learning stories, attending ceremonies and through education by initiated males. Girls did not participate in initiation ceremonies. At puberty they were married and went to live with their husband . However, their mothers and other women prepared them in knowledge about their bodies and sexual intercourse. Ceremonies included ritual bathing, separation from the main tribal group for varying periods of time and food taboos.
The British
In 1770, the Australian Aboriginals culture and way of life dramatically changed when Lieutenant James Cook took possession of the east coast of Australia and named it New South Wales .
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The British colonisation of Australia began 18 years later , which was a catastrophic event for indigenous Australians. The Europeans spread epidemic diseases such as chickenpox, smallpox, influenza and measles . The British settlement then appropriated land and water resources from the Australian Aborigine, and were ignorant in their assumption that the semi-nomadic Aborigines could be driven off and made to live somewhere else. In fact, the loss of 'traditional lands,' food sources and water resources was a fatal blow to the Aboriginal communities, who already weakened by disease, were then forced to relinquish their deep spiritual and cultural connection to their land. As a direct consequence of the 'invasion,' the enforced move away from traditional areas adversely impacted upon Aboriginal cultural and the spiritual practices which had been necessary for maintaining the cohesion and well-being of the tribal group. Settlers also brought venereal disease (which reduced indigenous fertility and birthrates) and introduced alcohol to the indigenous Aborigine and to which the Aborigine had no tolerance and the Aboriginal community had no prior experience in dealing with such issues. Substance abuse has remained a chronic problem for indigenous communities ever since. The combination of disease, loss of land and direct violence culled the Aboriginal population by an estimated 90% between 1788 and 1900.
The Australian Aborigines went through stages of being conquered through an 'invasion' and taking of their lands. Many adapted to the new lifestyle (when many became reliant on alcohol, tobacco and handouts of food and clothing ). However the settlers were often contemptuous of the Aborigines and separated them from their society and the people became the fringe dwellers of society. Others were removed from their families and placed into institutions . From the late 1830s the remnants of the tribes in the settled areas were moved onto Reserves and Missions where they were ' managed ' by Whitemen and were forbidden from teaching their children their language and custom .
Today the Aborigines are in trouble. Many have left the their traditional lifestyle, and have moved to suburbs. There is a 40% unemployment rate in many Aborigines populations, in part because Aborigines are widely discriminated against which causes some people not to hire them. Even the police and government discriminate against aborigines. In many places bars are segregated into different parts for Aborigines or Aborigines aren 't served at all. Some progress was made recently when an Aboriginal woman was voted into Australia parliament.
Conclusion
In the end we can say that aboriginal culture being one of the world's longest surviving cultures
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is really interesting . It ´s original believes and traditions makes it one of the world´s unconventional culture. Their “dreamtimes”, dances and music is very original and different from other cultures. Aborigines took good care of their land and land was spiritual and an economic resource . They also had good knowledge of the land, its creatures and plants. Because of that they had developed many plant and animal based medicines. There were no wars for territory because of their strong believes that by going into other peoples land they might make the spirits angry. They also believed in magic and sometimes people were cured or made sick throw magic. When the British colonisation began the aborigines lost their land and many of them got killed by new people and illnesses. Nowadays some aborigines have got their old family land back but sadly so many of them probably will never get their old family land back. This interesting culture is fading but hopefully there will be enough aborigines who want to continue those old traditions.
Doing this was really fun and interesting to me. I found out a lot of new things about aborigines and their traditions. There were a lot of information about this theme and the hardest part was selecting the usable important facts out of other facts. If I would have had made this report using all the information about aborigines that I could find this report would have been about twice as long as it is now, but every thing have it ´s limits . Thanks to this report I have learned a lot of new about aborigines and I will probably bee looking for new facts about them.
Resources

• http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australians
  
• http://siekman.tripod.com/index.html
  
• http://www.crystalinks.com/aboriginals.html
  
• http://www.aboriginalarts.co.uk/aboriginal_culture.ht m
  
• http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/indigenous/
  
• http://www.localhistories.org/aborigines.html
  

Appendix
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http://www.google.ee/imgres?imgurl=http://remotetribes.com/images/tribe/aboriginals.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.remotetribes.com/aborigines-tribe/&usg=__IOOG0EUR6esRpLVt8MWRAzz0P9E=&h=357&w=283&sz=44&hl=et&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=XkT2keypRCYBWM:&tbnh=125&tbnw=115&prev=/images%3Fq%3Daborigines%2Bof%2Baustralia%26um%3D1%26hl%3Det%26biw%3D1248%26bih%3D839%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=126&vpy=54&dur=2874&hovh=252&hovw=200&tx=150&ty=163&ei=JEkOTb7kGcW38gO0gumEBw&oei=JEkOTb7kGcW38gO0gumEBw&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=32&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0
http://www.google.ee/imgres?imgurl=http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-an8957137-v&imgrefurl=http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-an8957137&usg=__vYNxwF9rTTQz91-94QmDl_F6qpQ=&h=411&w=540&sz=60&hl=et&start=192&zoom=1&tbnid=TYqF4wWzRV6JhM:&tbnh=159&tbnw=212&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dthe%2Baustralian%2Baborigines%26hl%3Det%26sa%3DX%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D844%26tbs%3Disch:10,5935&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=650&ei=bPoQTevPOMuZOu6V3LoJ&oei=NPkQTfDALdO38QPh85WEBw&esq=9&page=9&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:14,s:192&tx=70&ty=117&biw=1280&bih=844
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http://www.google.ee/imgres?imgurl=http://www.janesoceania.com/australian_aboriginal_anthropology/aa1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.janesoceania.com/australian_aboriginal_anthropology/index1.htm&usg=__7HKwum48LfROj_0eNW61Kc27D8Y=&h=474&w=480&sz=80&hl=et&start=140&zoom=1&tbnid=IjhVbD6-VFccvM:&tbnh=152&tbnw=154&prev=/images%3Fq%3Daborigines%2Bof%2Baustralia%26um%3D1%26hl%3Det%26biw%3D1248%26bih%3D839%26tbs%3Disch:10,4446&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=132&vpy=348&dur=2083&hovh=223&hovw=226&tx=97&ty=96&ei=EUoOTcvgCMmgOvyBueEI&oei=JEkOTb7kGcW38gO0gumEBw&esq=4&page=7&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:10,s:140&biw=1248&bih=839
http://www.google.ee/imgres?imgurl=http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g276/eddieraws/-1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://epidermic.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_archive.html&usg=__FXJBZ4QwpyCSbyVX_uP4aU6GuAA=&h=295&w=450&sz=16&hl=et&start=594&zoom=1&tbnid=a5vw62r-deGFbM:&tbnh=128&tbnw=196&prev=/images%3Fq%3Daborigines%2Bof%2Baustralia%26start%3D246%26um%3D1%26hl%3Det%26biw%3D1248%26bih%3D839%26output%3Dimages_json%26tbs%3Disch:11,19353&um=1&itbs=1&ei=oU0OTc7CL8idOvX9oIQJ&iact=hc&vpx=147&vpy=336&dur=94&hovh=156&hovw=238&tx=88&ty=59&oei=U00OTZCIJoWW8QPexuCEBw&esq=14&page=28&ndsp=22&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:594&biw=1248&bih=839
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http://www.google.ee/imgres?imgurl=http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/512668/512668,1289233970,34/stock-photo-kuranda-australia-march-unidentified-aborigines-musician-does-a-didgeridoo-performance-in-64671910.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-64671910/stock-photo-kuranda-australia-march-unidentified-aborigines-musician-does-a-didgeridoo-performance-in.html&usg=__RCAVoVwvkuGDTmej7X1ELjWbdb8=&h=470&w=300&sz=91&hl=et&start=353&zoom=1&tbnid=HkA-XDCvEEMB8M:&tbnh=168&tbnw=113&prev=/images%3Fq%3Daborigines%2Bof%2Baustralia%26um%3D1%26hl%3Det%26biw%3D1248%26bih%3D839%26tbs%3Disch:11,11526&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=484&vpy=153&dur=1362&hovh=177&hovw=113&tx=77&ty=164&ei=jkwOTb_8E4WcOvevob8J&oei=akwOTc36O8G38QOAkLWDBw&esq=6&page=17&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:353&biw=1248&bih=839
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