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Indigenous Australians

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Australian Aborigines is a name used to collectively describe most of the indigenous peoples of the Australian continent and its nearby islands. The term encompasses a large number of diverse communities and societies, with notably different modes of subsistence, cultural practices, languages, technologies and inhabited environments. However, these peoples also share a broad set of traits, and are otherwise seen as being related.

Aboriginal people from different parts of Australia have their own names for themselves like Anangu, Koori, Yamaji, Noongar, Nunga, Murri, etc; these names are specific to various regions (see the note on nomenclature, below). Additionally, there are many more specific designations based on language, clan, community and location. By the late 18th century, there were anywhere between 350-750 distinct groupings and a similar number of languages and dialects. At the start of the 21st century, only some 200+ Australian Aboriginal languages were still in use, all but approximately 20 of which are endangered to a greater or lesser extent.

The most conservative widely-accepted timeline for first arrival of their ancestors is between 40,000 - 50,000 years BP; other archaeological data indicates possible earlier dates of up to 65,000 years, with a couple of studies reporting dates in excess of 100,000 years ago (this latter figure not widely accepted). It is believed that first human migration to Australia was achieved when this landmass earlier formed part of the Sahul continent, connected to the island of New Guinea via a land bridge.

Tasmanian Aborigines settled on the island of Tasmania approximately 40,000 years ago by migrating across a land bridge from the mainland that existed during the last ice age. After the seas rose, the inhabitants there were isolated from the mainland for 10,000 years until the arrival of European settlers.

Torres Strait Islanders are also an indigenous people within Australian territory, regarded as being distinct from Aboriginal peoples and hence generally not included under the designation "Aboriginal". Their traditional lands are centred on the Torres Strait Islands in the Strait of the same name (between northernmost Australia and the island of New Guinea), and are more closely related to Melanesian peoples.

A term used to embrace all groups is indigenous Australians.

As of June 2001, the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimated the total resident Indigenous population to be 458,500 (2.4% of Australia's total), 90% of whom identified as Aboriginal, 6% Torres Strait Islander and the remaining 4% being of dual Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander parentage.

History

Australian Aborigines is a name used to collectively describe most of the indigenous peoples of the Australian continent and its nearby islands. The term encompasses a large number of diverse communities and societies, with notably different modes of subsistence, cultural practices, languages, technologies and inhabited environments. However, these peoples also share a broad set of traits, and are otherwise seen as being related.

Aboriginal people from different parts of Australia have their own names for themselves like Anangu, Koori, Yamaji, Noongar, Nunga, Murri, Bardi etc; these names are specific to various regions (see the note on nomenclature, below). Additionally, there are many more specific designations based on language, clan, community and location. By the late 18th century, there were anywhere between 350-750 distinct groupings and a similar number of languages and dialects. At the start of the 21st century, only some 200+ Australian Aboriginal languages were still in use, all but approximately 20 of which are endangered to a greater or lesser extent.

The most conservative widely-accepted timeline for first arrival of their ancestors is between 40,000 - 50,000 years BP; other archaeological data indicates possible earlier dates of up to 65,000 years, with a couple of studies reporting dates in excess of 100,000 years ago (this latter figure not widely accepted). It is believed that first human migration to Australia was achieved when this landmass earlier formed part of the Sahul continent, connected to the island of New Guinea via a land bridge.

Tasmanian Aborigines settled on the island of Tasmania approximately 40,000 years ago by migrating across a land bridge from the mainland that existed during the last ice age. After the seas rose, the inhabitants there were isolated from the mainland for 10,000 years until the arrival of European settlers.

Torres Strait Islanders are also an indigenous people within Australian territory, regarded as being distinct from Aboriginal peoples and hence generally not included under the designation "Aboriginal". Their traditional lands are centred on the Torres Strait Islands in the Strait of the same name (between northernmost Australia and the island of New Guinea), and are more closely related to Melanesian peoples.

A term used to embrace all groups is indigenous Australians.

As of June 2001, the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimated the total resident Indigenous population to be 458,500 (2.4% of Australia's total), 90% of whom identified as Aboriginal, 6% Torres Strait Islander and the remaining 4% being of dual Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander parentage.

Pre-colonisation

See History of Australia before 1901

File:Australian aboriginal flag.png
Aboriginal Flag

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are the indigenous (native) people of Australia. At the time of first contact with the European colonists in the late 18th century, most Aboriginal people were hunter-gatherers with a complex oral tradition and spiritual values based upon reverence for the land and a belief in the Dreamtime. The Dreamtime is at once the ancient time of creation and the present day reality of Dreaming. (Also see Aboriginal mythology).

The exact timing of the arrival of the ancestors of Aboriginal people has been a matter of dispute among archaeologists. The most common view is that the first humans in Australia arrived via insular southeast Asia more than 50,000 years ago. This means there have been more than 1250 generations in Australia. The 48,000 BC date is based on a few sites in northern Australia dated using thermoluminescence. A large number of sites have been radiocarbon dated to around 38,000 BC, leading some researchers to doubt the accuracy of the thermoluminescence technique. Thermoluminescence dating of the Jinmium site in the Northern Territory suggested a date of 198,000 BC. Although this result received wide press coverage, it has been questioned by most archaeologists.

The Aboriginal people lived through many climatic changes and adapted successfully to the different environments. There is much debate about the degree to which Aboriginal people modified their environment. One controversy revolves around the role of Aboriginal people in the extinction of the marsupial megafauna (also see Australian megafauna). Some argue that natural climate change killed the megafauna. Others claim that, because the megafauna were large and slow, they were easy prey for Aboriginal hunters. A third possibility is that Aboriginal modification of the environment, particularly through the use of fire, indirectly led to their extinction.

It is well known that Aboriginal people used fire for a variety of purposes: to encourage the growth of edible plants and fodder for prey; to reduce the risk of catastrophic bushfires; to make travel easier; to eliminate pests; for ceremonial purposes; and just to "clean up country." There is disagreement, however, about the extent to which Aboriginal burning led to large-scale changes in vegetation patterns.

There is evidence of substantial change in Aboriginal culture over time. Rock painting at several locations in northern Australia has been shown to consist of a sequence of different styles linked to different historical periods. Harry Lourandos has been the leading proponent of the theory that a period of hunter-gatherer intensification occurred between 3000 and 1000 BC. Intensification involved an increase in human manipulation of the environment (for example, the construction of fish traps in Victoria), population growth, an increase in trade between groups, a more elaborate social structure, and other cultural changes. A shift in stone tool technology, involving the development of smaller and more intricate points and scrapers, occurred around this time.

There were a great many different Aboriginal groups, each with their own individual culture, belief structure, and language (approximately 300 different languages existed at the time of European settlement). These cultures overlapped to a greater or lesser extent, and evolved over time.

Lifestyles varied a great deal. The idea that Aborigines were primarily desert-dwellers is in fact false: the regions of heaviest population were the same temperate coastal regions that are currently the most heavily populated. These coastal populations were quickly absorbed or forced off their land, however, so the traditional aspects of Aboriginal life survive most strongly in areas such as the Western Desert where European settlement has until recently been sparse. In all instances, technologies, diets and hunting practices varied according to the local environment. In present-day Victoria, for example, there were two separate communities with an economy based on fish-farming in complex and extensive irrigated pond systems; one on the Murray River in the state's north, the other in the south-west near Hamilton, which traded with other groups from as far away as the Melbourne area.

British colonisation

In 1770, Captain James Cook took possession of the east coast of Australia and named it New South Wales in the name of Great Britain. The Aboriginal population was decimated by British colonisation which began in 1788, when news of the land's fertility spread to Europeans causing them to begin settling in the Aboriginal land. A combination of disease, loss of land (and thus food resources) and direct violence reduced the Aboriginal population by an estimated 90% during the 19th century and early 20th century. A wave of massacres and resistance followed the frontier. The last recorded massacre was at Coniston in the Northern Territory in 1928. Poisoning of food and water has been recorded on several different occasions.

The number of violent deaths at the hands of whites is still the subject of a vigorous and politically-loaded debate, with some figures—notably Prime Minister John Howard—rejecting what Howard terms "the black-armband" view of Australian history. Figures of around 10,000 deaths have been advanced by historians such as Henry Reynolds. Historian Keith Windschuttle claims such numbers are not backed up by documentary evidence, finding evidence existing only for a much smaller number. Reynolds attacks Windschuttle's interpretation of the existing evidence, points out that documented proof that Windschuttle requires is unlikely to be available, and questions Windschuttle's rejection of other forms of evidence such as oral history.

Despite the prominence of the direct violence debate, loss of land was probably more significant as a killer, and there is no doubt that by far the major factor in the decline of Australia's Aboriginal population was disease.

In particular, chickenpox, smallpox, influenza, venereal diseases, and measles spread in waves throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. Aboriginal people had no understanding of European diseases, and very little of the genetic resistance that Europeans had evolved over the centuries. It is estimated that about 90% of the Aboriginal population decline was the result of disease spreading in advance of the European colonists. As always with infectious diseases, the worst-hit communities were the ones with the greatest population densities where disease could spread more readily. Entire communities in the moderately fertile southern part of the continent simply vanished without trace, often before European settlers arrived or recorded their existence. The large fish-farming economy in south-west Victoria, for example, was entirely unknown to science until the turn of the 21st century, when investigations by a team of archaeologists working with and guided by surviving members of a local Aboriginal community began to unearth the foundations of houses and rediscover the irrigation system.

In the arid centre of the continent, where small communities were spread over a vast area, the population decline was less marked, and Aboriginal communities were able to continue in an approximation of their traditional lifestyle for considerably longer—in many cases, until the late 19th century and in a few instances well into the 20th.

Nevertheless, European settlers gradually made their way into the interior, appropriating small but vital parts of the land for their own exclusive use (waterholes and soaks in particular), and introducing sheep, rabbits and cattle, all three of which ate out previously fertile areas and degraded the ability of the land to carry the native animals that were vital to Aboriginal economies.

In general, the first European colonisers were welcomed, or at least not opposed, but there were violent conflicts from time to time frequently culminating in killings. In the Northern Territory, both isolated Europeans (usually travellers) and visiting Japanese fishermen continued to be speared to death on a semi-regular basis until the start of the Second World War in 1939. It is known that some European settlers in the centre and north of the country shot Aboriginal people during this period.

The 20th century

Australian independence from Britain changed little in the relationship between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. As the European pastoral industries developed, several economic changes came about. The appropriation of prime land and the spread of European livestock over vast areas made a traditional Aboriginal lifestyle less viable, but also provided a ready alternative supply of fresh meat for those prepared to risk taking advantage of it.

As large sheep and cattle stations came to dominate outback Australia, Aboriginal women, men and children became a significant source of labour (primarily as domestic servants or station-hands), sometimes on a voluntary basis, but often under conditions that amounted to virtual slavery. For European workers, life in the outback was harsh, dangerous and ill-paid; for Aboriginal workers it was usually worse yet. Most indigenous labour was unpaid, instead indigenous workers received rations in the form of food, clothing and other basic necessities. However many indigenous workers were never paid for their work. Thousands of Aboriginal workers across several generations lost an estimated $500 million because of the Queensland Government's negligence, through diverting withheld wages to raise government revenue, and through misuse of Trust monies. There has been a similar scandal in New South Wales, where 'stolen wages' have been estimated at between $64 and $80 million dollars.

(Several other northern industries, notably pearling, also employed Aboriginal workers.)

During the first half of the 20th century, native welfare boards were established in the various states. These instituted a policy of separating children from their parents based upon racial stereotyping. Pale-skinned Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their families, so that they could be brought up in a European manner. Aboriginal parents often darkened up their children to keep them. This aspect of Aboriginal history is also open to considerable debate. See Stolen Generation.

The Australian Constitution originally did not permit indigenous people to be counted in the census (except under the category, 'Flora and Fauna'), thereby effectively denying their right to vote. In 1967, a referendum was held to allow indigenous Australians to be counted in the census and to allow the Federal Government to make laws for the benefit of indigenous Australians. This referendum was successful with a huge majority (90.77%, the largest majority ever obtained by a referendum on any question in Australian history[1] [2]) favouring the constitutional amendments.

Recent history

File:Torres Strait Islander flag.png
Torres Strait Islander Flag

The Australian Aboriginal population is for the most part urbanised, but a substantial number live in settlements (often located on the site of former church missions) in what are considered remote areas. The health and economic difficulties facing both groups are substantial. For example, life expectancy of Aboriginal people is 20 years shorter than the wider Australian population. Aboriginal people, particularly youths, are substantially more likely to be imprisoned than the general population, and the rate of suicides in police custody remains quite high. Rates of unemployment, health problems and poverty are likewise higher than the general population; and school retention rate and university attendance is lower.

The Australian government has begun a process it calls "Reconciliation". Some notable former Prime Ministers, such as Bob Hawke and Malcolm Fraser have made many symbolic gestures and speeches in support of respect for Aboriginal culture. Many Aboriginal leaders such as Isabell Coe reject such moves, demanding actual sovereignty instead.

In 1972, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy was established on the steps of Parliament House in Canberra, the Australian capital. The continuous protest has remained in place for over thirty years to demand sovereignty for the Aboriginal peoples.

In 1992, the Australian High Court handed down its decision in the Mabo Case, declaring the previous legal concept of terra nullius to be invalid. This decision legally recognised the presence of indigenous Australians in Australia prior to British Settlement. Legislation was subsequently enacted and later amended to recognise Native Title claims over land in Australia.

In 1999 a referendum was held to change the Australian Constitution to include a preamble that, amongst other topics, recognised the occupation of Australia by indigenous Australians prior to British Settlement. This referendum was defeated by a huge majority, though the recognition of indigenous Australians in the preamble was not a major issue in the preamble referendum discussion, and the preamble question attracted secondary attention compared to the question of becoming a republic (see republicanism in Australia) for more details on the 1999 referendum).

Most recently, in 2004, the Australian Government has abolished The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), which had been Australia's peak indigenous organisation. The Commonwealth cited corruption and in particular, has made allegations concerning the misuse of public funds, as the principal reason. Indigeous specific programs have been mainstreamed, that is, reintegrated and transferred to departments and agencies serving the general population. The Office of Indigenous Policy Coordination has been established within the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs to coordinate whole of government effort.

In June 2005, Richard Frankland, founder of the 'Your Voice' political party, in an open letter to Prime Minister John Howard, advocated that the eighteenth-century conflicts between indigenous and colonial Australians "be recognised as wars and be given the same attention as the other wars receive within the Australian War Memorial”. In its editorial on 20 June 2005 the Melbourne Age newspaper, said that “Frankland has raised an important question” and asks whether moving “work commemorating Aborigines who lost their lives defending their land … to the War Memorial [would] change the way we regard Aboriginal history”.

Terminology controversy

The names used for the indigenous inhabitants of Australia and its surrounding islands is sometimes controversial. Various words are considered politically charged or derogatory by some.

The word aboriginal, in use in English since the 17th century to mean "first or earliest known, indigenous", was used in Australia as early as 1789; it was soon capitalised and became the standard name for indigenous Australians.

Strictly speaking Aboriginal is an adjective and Aborigine is a noun.

Some indigenous Australians consider the term "Aborigine" derogatory, linking it to negative aspects of Australia's colonial history. The once-common abbreviation Abo is generally considered highly offensive. Today the preferred usages are Aboriginal People (as in "This is what Aboriginal people want") or Indigenous Australians (which also includes Torres Strait Islanders).

There are also names from Aboriginal languages commonly used to identify groups based on geography, including Koori (or Koorie) in New South Wales and Victoria, Murri in southern Queensland, Noongar in southern Western Australia, Nunga in southern South Australia, Anangu in northern South Australia, and neighbouring parts of Western Australia and Northern Territory and Palawah (or Pallawah) in Tasmania.

These large groups are further subdivided, for example, Anangu, meaning a person from Australia's central desert area, consists of Yankunytjatjara, Pitjantjatjara, Ngaanyatjara, Luritja and Antikirinya.

Prominent Aboriginal Australians

Main page: Category:Indigenous peoples of Australia

Note: some Aboriginal cultures consider the mentioning of deceased persons, whether in name or in image, to be taboo. In such cases there may be a special word such as 'Kumantjayi' (IPA /kumencai/), used by the Warlpiri) which will be used to refer to the deceased instead of their name. It is common for Australian media to give warnings prior to mentioning by name or displaying images of deceased Aboriginal persons.

See also

Listed alphabetically:

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