The Australian Aborigines

1 ;The Australian Aborigines form together with the Bushmen and pygmies one of the oldest human race. They are one of the first human groups to have moved out of Africa perhaps 60,000 years ago. This group formed a race later known as Black Asians. 12,000 years ago, they were the main inhabitants of India, Indochina, Indonesia, New Guinea, Melanesia, and perhaps even eastern China. They make the most primitive form of this race, later types being represented by Papuans or Melanesians.

Aborigine mean : who comes from the country in which he lives and a person who lives in the land of his birth and his ancestors.

2;

According to the beliefs of the Aborigines, rocks, hills, lakes, the imprint left by the creative minds. The story of each creator ancestor inscribed in a geographical route that can cross others.

This religious philosophy is generally translated as "Dream Time". The ritual ceremonies of the aborigines, songs, dances and body paintings, maintain the link between the world of the living and that of the ancestors: it is a question of perpetuating the creative episodes and transmitting them to the young adults.
Among the outstanding features of Aboriginal culture, painting has an important place whether it is rock, on ground, on wood or, more recently, on cloth.

However, one concept is common: the Aboriginal tradition is based on a spirituality linked to the land, the landscape, the fauna and flora that refers to the dawn of the creation of the world.

3.

When British settlers landed at the end of the 18th century, London proclaimed the law of terra nullius: Australia is land without landlords.

The aboriginal population is estimated at between 300,000 and 750,000

With the arrival of Westerners, the aborigine population fell sharply: they were only 100,000 in 1900. The first plague for natives is the diseases brought by settlers, such as smallpox.

But the deadly conflicts are legion as and when the expansion of the Westerners. Some Aborigines are mobilizing and engaging in real guerrilla warfare to protect their land, attacking farms and livestock. The settlers retaliate with massacres like that of Myall Creek: in 1838, white settlers killed 28 aborigines.

4;

Until the late 1960s, Aborigines were virtually excluded from white society.

Militant movements are heard, however, including on a farm Wave Hill (Northern Territory) in 1966: underpaid, native employees, language Gurindji, go on strike to protest against their living conditions and work.
Their claim has a resounding echo throughout the country. In a positive way: in 1967, a referendum granted all Aborigines citizenship and the guarantee of a minimum wage.

This marked improvement in the status of the Aborigines has, however, eliminated neither their alarming living conditions nor the racism of some Australian whites. The situation of the minority, confined to the periphery of the cities, is always dramatic. Alcoholism, drugs, violence, delinquency, suicide, unemployment ... The life expectancy of white Australians exceeds that of indigenous people by seventeen years.

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