The first people in Australia

The first peoples in Australia

Before the arrival of British colonizers in 1788, Australia was inhabited by the Indigenous peoples: Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders!

Aboriginal people inhabited the whole of Australia and Torres Strait Islanders lived on the islands between Australia and Papua New Guinea, in what is now called the Torres Strait.

Here you can see the flag of the aborigines and here the flag of Torres strait islanders

The different groups of aborigines in Australia

There are at least 400 Aboriginal groups across Australia.

Each group has its own name, its own language and often their own dialects.

Each group had its own myths, and the words and names of individual myths come these language groups.

A study has estimated more than 250 the number of languages spoken in Australia at the arrival of the British!

Zoom

in zoom we can better see the division of groups in Australia and we see that there are many

Examples of myths

• The Murrinh-Patha people live in the saltwater country inland from the town of Wadeye.
• They describe a Dreamtime in their myths which anthropologists believe is a religious belief but different from most of the world's other religious beliefs

The second example of myth is the shadow snake, the most famous

According to their beliefs, giant creatures, like the Rainbow Serpent, came out of the land, sea or sky and gave life to Australian landscapes.

Economy

• It is a hunter-gatherer people: men hunt and women gather.
• The tribes have deep ties to their lands. Clans are associated with an animal name.
• They hunt birds with boomerangs and kangaroos with javelins.
• They bring care to their weapons: decorations, paintings, and engravings that symbolize tribal affiliation. They know how to paint with natural fangs applied on a bark.

Leadership and social control

aboriginal groups don’t have a leader because they are all equal

However, there is evidence in some areas, such as northeast Arnhem Land, Bathurst and Melville islands, western Cape York Peninsula, and among the Aranda of central Australia, that strong leaders akin to the Melanesian “Big Man” existed and their preeminence in ritual matters carried over into the secular domain.

Culture

In their culture, each Aboriginal group performs dance and songs to tell the story of Aboriginal peoples and their beliefs.

...