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Essay on aboriginal history
Essay on aboriginal history
Impact of european settlement on aboriginal
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The Australian Aboriginals arrived on the North west coast of Australia some 50,000 years ago, crossing on land bridges caused by changing sea levels (ACME, 2008). They have stayed in Australia to this day, once expanding to about 600 different groups all over the country (though in particular concentration around littoral regions and other large water sources, as demonstrated in Figure 1). When European colonisation began in the 1780s (australia.gov, 2008), a fundamental difference in the two cultures, and cause of much dispute and damage, was a fundamental difference in opinions of surplus. This void of understanding between the native hunter-gatherer culture for which surplus was unnecessary, and the settling, largely agriculturally and pastorally based culture in which surplus was vital, can be said to account for a large part of cultural difference and disagreement.
It can be generally assumed that in terms of sustainability the Aboriginal style of living was superior. One simply has to look at the rapid environmental degradation and depletion of resources since European colonisation to see that in order to survive for 50,000 years the Aboriginal people must have used far more sustainable techniques, and this observation is supported by masses of records and research. While the Aboriginal peoples manipulated the environment, it was done in such a way that naturally occurring processes were not changed, but rather enhanced. Fire was used as a sophisticated tool to create a series of diverse environments, increasing the variety of plants and animals available (Aboriginal Heritage Tasmania, 2012). While this changed the landscape—notably opening up forest canopies and thus allowing for undergrowth germination, and transforming ...
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...Aboriginal Heritage Tasmania, 2012. Burning Regimes. [Online] Available at: http://www.aboriginalheritage.tas.gov.au/firestick-farming [Accessed 29 March 2014].
ACME, 2008. Australian Indigenous cultural heritage. [Online] Available at: http://australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/austn-indigenous-cultural-heritage [Accessed 29 March 2014].
Cairns Museum, n.d. The War for the land: A Short History" of Aboriginal-European relations in Cairns.. [Online] Available at: http://www.cairnsmuseum.org.au/aboriginal.htm [Accessed 29 March 2014].
Heritage History, 2007-2012. British Empire—Australia and New Zealand. [Online] Available at: http://www.heritage-history.com/maps/philips/phil065b.jpg [Accessed 29 March 2014].
Wolfram Alpha LLC, 2014. Wolfram Alpha: Australia. [Online] Available at: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=australia [Accessed 29 March 2014].
Dr. Marcia Langton, an anthropologist from Australia of Australian Aborigines descent, spoke at the Berndt’s lecture in 2011. Her article, Anthropology, Politics and the Changing World of Aboriginal Australians, focuses primarily on the works of an anthropologist couple Robert and Catherine Berndt. They had completed many ethnographic studies in various areas around Australia. Langton states that their work has been crucial in order to have a complete understanding of the Australian Aborigines’ society. The indigenous Australian’s society has been thoroughly researched by many social sciences through the decades. Artworks, religion, rituals, economy, politics, and even claims of UFO sightings have been recorded by a multitude of scholars. It could be argued that the Australian Aborigines’ culture has been better documented than any other non-western society. I would like to capture the movement of Australian Aboriginal tradition to a more modern society by incorporating Dr.Langton’s works as well as the work of National Geographic Journalist, Michael Finkel. By researching the society as it is today in the 21st century, I will to analyze how they relate to Australians of European descent.
Within the Hornsby Shire there are more than 900 landmarks and indicators of the occurrence of an Aboriginal settlement as a result from the local tribe, the Guringai people. A major place of significance is through the up keeping and findings within the ‘Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park.’ “Sir Henry Copeland (Australian Politician) named this location after the Aboriginal tribe whilst chase is an English word meaning an enclose land where animals were kept for hunting” (Hornsby Shire Council, n.d.) Throughout the landmark Aboriginal paintings, carvings, engravings, middens...
...kins , T. (2012). History Alive 10 for the Australian Curriculum. Milton, Qld, Australia. Retrieved March 28, 2014
Struggles by Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people for recognition of their rights and interests have been long and arduous (Choo & Hollobach: 2003:5). The ‘watershed’ decision made by the High Court of Australia in 1992 (Mabo v Queensland) paved the way for Indigenous Australians to obtain what was ‘stolen’ from them in 1788 when the British ‘invaded’ (ATSIC:1988). The focus o...
As European domination began, the way in which the European’s chose to deal with the Aborigines was through the policy of segregation. This policy included the establishment of a reserve system. The government reserves were set up to take aboriginals out of their known habitat and culture, while in turn, encouraging them to adapt the European way of life. The Aboriginal Protection Act of 1909 established strict controls for aborigines living on the reserves . In exchange for food, shelter and a little education, aborigines were subjected to the discipline of police and reserve managers. They had to follow the rules of the reserve and tolerate searchers of their homes and themselves. Their children could be taken away at any time and ‘apprenticed” out as cheap labour for Europeans. “The old ways of the Aborigines were attacked by regimented efforts to make them European” . Their identities were threatened by giving them European names and clothes, and by removing them from their tra...
Reynolds, H. (1976). The Other Side of The Frontier: Aboriginal resistance to the European invasion of Australia. Queensland, Australia: James Cook University
The indigenous Australian culture is one of the world’s oldest living cultures. Despite the negligence and the misunderstanding from the Europeans, Aboriginals were able to keep their culture alive by passing their knowledge by arts, rituals, performances and stories from one generation to another. Each tribe has its own language and way of using certain tools; however the sharing of knowledge with other tribes helps them survive with a bit easier with the usage of efficient yet primitive tools which helps a culture stay alive. Speaking and teaching the language as well as the protection of sacred sites and objects helps the culture stay...
Bourke, E and Edwards, B. 1994. Aboriginal Australia. St Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland Press.
Initially, relations between the explorers and the Aboriginal inhabitants were generally hospitable and based a relationship on an understanding the terms of trading for food, water, axes, cloth and artefacts. These relations however, became hostile as Aborigines realised that the land and resources upon which they depended and the order of their life were seriously disrupted by the on-going presence of the colonisers. (Australia.gov.au
Australia’s Indigenous people are thought to have reached the continent between 60 000 and 80 000 years ago. Over the thousands of years since then, a complex customary legal system have developed, strongly linked to the notion of kinship and based on oral tradition. The indigenous people were not seen as have a political culture or system for law. They were denied the access to basic human right e.g., the right to land ownership. Their cultural values of indigenous people became lost. They lost their traditional lifestyle and became disconnected socially. This means that they were unable to pass down their heritage and also were disconnected from the new occupants of the land.
However, once policy makers realized that not all Indigenous Australians wished to conform to their ways of being, policies began to shift. In 1967, a national referendum granted citizenship to Aboriginal Australians. Despite this referendum, the Aboriginal Australians sought to establish their own identity outside of European notions of Aboriginality. In looking at how the Indigenous Australians have come to define themselves, the author describes two modes of Aboriginal identity: local and pan-Aboriginal. According to European classifications, Indigenous populations were seen as a homogenous group. However, defining the Indigenous Australians in this way diminishes geographic, linguistic, and cultural diversity that existed among these populations. According to Tonkinson, “despite many cultural similarities between groups, it is the differences that are most conspicuous and significant from the Aboriginal viewpoint…[Aboriginal] people often invoke their uniqueness of language, traditional territory, and kinship in asserting their [local] identity” (193). Pan-Aboriginality, is the “construction of a common culture out of a situation of cultural diversity,” and this, according to Tonkinson, is “essential in building solidarity among a minority population and endowing it with a political force in the Australian nation” (215). In uniting themselves under a common struggle, Aboriginals have
The Aboriginal people of Australia were here thousands of years before European settlement and we forced them to adapt to the changes of environment around them. This change might be for better or worse, but we will never find out. But with the European settlement came the birth of industry, agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, manufacture, electricity, gas and water just to name a few.
Since the British settled in Australia, Indigenous Australians have had cultural conflict. The Europeans believed that Aboriginal people were lower than the settlers and that their culture was more primitive to the culture of the British settlers. An example of this is how the Aboriginal people had a very strong spiritual connection to the land. Land could not be owned by a single person but had to be looked after by all of the community. When British settlers saw that the land had no fences they took the land for themselves to be used for farming. Many Aboriginals were losing their land. It made it worse when the Aboriginal believed that to make it fair the Europeans shared their products made from the farm. The Aboriginals then took food from the farm without consulting the British which resulted in violent conflicts between the two. Over time the government began to give the Aboriginals more rights, although still not many. They were given a certain amount of land but were not allowed to leave without permission.
The history of Australia is intertwined with the cultural practices of Aboriginal communities. Indigenous communities such as the Wurundjeri are considered the original inhabitants of Australia (West and Murphy, 2010). Their role and contribution was thus significant in the social, economic and political growth and development of Australia. The Wurundjeri people once inhabited present day Melbourne (Wheeler, 2008). Aboriginal communities such as the Wurundjeri have little participation in the running of modern day Australia. This essay examines the plight of the Wurundjeri people in contemporary Australian society, as representatives of the Aboriginal communities. The discussion focuses on the level of their social, economic and political participation
Indigenous practices in terms of fire management were almost completely abolished at the arrival of European settlers due to concerns about damage to European infrastructure. However, due to the decline of Aboriginal practices fires (especially north) began to grow in size and danger, causing a significant increase in uncontrolled fires and greenhouse gas emissions. To solve these increasing problems Aboriginal people have been offered jobs as fire managers, managing the burning of fires in an attempt to decrease use of excessive resources and amounts of greenhouse gases that are emitted. Since the reintroduction of Indigenous knowledge, a significant positive trend has been portrayed in the effects of burning. Since considering the Aboriginal burning management methods around 500,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions have been avoided in 2017. (Creative Spirits, 2017). There is a continuous increase in the amount in which indigenous knowledge is used to improve upon methods that are used today around the world. There is not only ecological benefit, however, there is also a cultural benefit to the aboriginal