Australian Aborigines

» Posted by Luísa

Australia’s Aboriginal people were thought to have arrived here by boat from South East Asia during the last Ice Age, at least 50,000 years ago.



Indigenous Australians are the first human inhabitants of the Australian continent and its nearby islands. They are distinguished as Aboriginal people or Torres Strait Islanders.

Today, the Aborigines represent only 1% of the Australian population. When the colonizers arrived, Australia had more than 300 thousand Aborigines, who inhabited the continent for more than 25 thousand years (this was proved through tests of carbon in paintings on rocks).



They were scattered in 300 clans and spoke 250 languages and 700 dialects. Each clan had a spiritual connection with a specific piece of land.

Curiosities:

• On the beginning of the colonization (1770), they were so primitives in technology that they didn’t know the metal.
• Their artifacts were made of wood, stone or bones.
• The boomerang, characteristic of Australia, was not primarily a tool for hunting, but a toy for fun in the village.

In 1806, the racism of the colonizers and soldiers came to a point to violate the holy places just for pleasure.

Later, Aborigines were recruited to work on farms. The payment was ridiculous compared to a white person and they were considered slow and insolent, because they accepted work for 2 pounds per week, while the whites didn’t accept less than 9.

In 1900, Australia was already independent from Britain, but the race discrimination against any person who was not an English descent still existed.

A few years later, a very serious thing happed. The fact is known as "The Stolen Generation", where Aboriginal children were taken from their villages and disappeared to never be seen again. The goal was break morally and psychologically any attempt of Aboriginal to intervene in politics.



In 1965, the population of pure Aborigines came to just over 40 thousand, because of the colonizers. They were literally massacred and expelled from the land, and they were forced to migrating to the desert regions of northern Australia, where the most part of English people would have difficulties in adapting to the heat of almost 50 degrees.



Recently, the ex-Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard deplored this, but didn’t apologize officially, because this would result in millions of dollars to pay to the families or their descendants.

Some several anti-discrimination laws were introduced by the government in Australia. Racial discrimination has become a serious crime. Although many Aborigines are highly integrated in society today, they have also the right to vote, but the majority still living in isolated areas far from land and large cities.

Sources:
- http://www.australia.com/about/history.aspx
- https://www.nassirimusic.com/wp-content/gallery/australia/australia-download-1.jpg
- http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abor%C3%ADgene_australiano
- http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficheiro:Bathurst_Island_men.jpg