Australia
Summary Of The Given Information
The Arrival Of The Aborigines
- Population was small and people lived in family groups, hunting, fishing and food gathering (30,000 years ago)
- No cultivated crops, animals herds or metal working
- Aborigines ancestors came with water crafts from land to the north because sea passages were narrower (100-160km from Australia to land in the north)
- As the Ice began to melt the sea level rose and isolated the Aborigines from the land in the north
- 10,000 years ago Tasmania became separated from the main land
- Aborigines reached Australia more than 40,000 years ago
A Perfect Environment
- Aboriginals had settled throughout the entire continent
- Aboriginals lived in harmony with the environment, and that satisfied their needs
- Aboriginals were not able to "borrow" techniques, to trade goods, to acquire crop seeds because they were isolated by the rest of the world
- Aboriginals learned to understand the environment and gained the maximum from it
- Each clan lived on a well-defined territory with which they had close and dependent (abhängig) relationship
- The group belonged with, or to, the land - like the animals and plants of the area
Gatherers
- Aboriginals had to be satisfied by the food they could find in their territory
- Food was not easy to get, so the Aboriginals spend from half to thirds of each day hunting or foraging for food
- Inland the quest for water was very important. The Aboriginals exactly knew where to find the water holes, also they squeezed frogs and got water from special trees and roots
- Inland the groups travel around for food, depending on the season
- In the coastal and fertile areas the Aboriginals mostly stay at one place because food was easier to find
- Aboriginals only got possessions they really need
Hunters
- Men carried their weapons and the women carried the utensils and the babies
- String, cord and hair were woven into nets, baskets, mats and fishing lines
- Wood and bark were used to make dishes, shields, spears, and boomerangs, to make dugout canoes, and other types of watercraft, such as rafts
- Large animals were speared or clubbed, smaller ones caught in pits and nets
- Aboriginals had very good skills in stalking in the near of their prey by using mud for camouflage
- Women collected the larger part of the group's daily needs, and their skill in finding food, even in the poorest conditions, often kept the group alive (little animals, plant food)
- Huts were made of bark and boughs, sometimes flimsy and sometimes more substantial, depending on the climate, the time of the year, and the length of time the group stay at the place
Colonisation
- 1788 first English settlers arrived Australia
- British thought they were superior and they took over the country of the Aboriginals because they thought the A. are inferior because they weren't Christians and did not agriculture the land
- British were not able to understand the Aboriginal's lifestyle. So they forced the Aboriginals to gave up their useless lifestyle
- British created a kind of hate against the Aboriginals
- Aboriginals thought that land is not something to be bought and sold. British thought that land has to be bought and sold and it should be used to do agriculture
- With going inland the British take the Aboriginal's living ground. The Aboriginals in fact got diseases and they suffered from the effects of alcohol
- Aboriginals tried to fight against the British but the British with their superior weapons sometimes killed whole groups of Aboriginals
Dreamtime
- Dreamtime describes the time before time or the time of the creation of all things
- Dreaming are individual beliefs of some groups. Ancestor Spirits came to earth in human or other forms. They created plants and animals. At places where they rested they created rivers and hills. At the end of the Dreaming the Ancestor Spirit became for example a hill like Ayas Rock.
Two Histories And The Process Of Reconciliation
- British Australian History began with the Captain Cook's visit in 1770
- In British history is not mentioned that the Aborigines try to resist the arrival of the Europeans and that they suffered because of the effects from British land overtaking
- Aboriginal children were taken away from their families in hope that they will lose their Aboriginality
