Aboriginal Australians

Aboriginal are Native Australians. They settled 42,000 years before in Australia. Totally hidden from the rest of the world, they lived by hunting and food gathering around green foliage. In 18th century, European’s colonization suppressed Aboriginal from their fields. However, even today most of them still live in the interior parts of Australia & keep their tribal identity.

A long back, during the Ice Age of earth, Aboriginals reached the Australia from South-East Asia. During the Ice age, they used Ice Bridges of the water for their Migrations. These Ice bridges existed because of low sea level at that period. When Ice melted down into water, the Australia becomes a continent.

The settlers initially kept the seaside area and rivers. Then they slowly started going deep inside the land. There were approximately 450 groups of tribes when Europeans set up their colonization here.

Aboriginal lived their life by hunting animals and gathering vegetation. They were mobile from place to place through large stretches of the landscape. These groups set up temporary camps when there were a food supply and move on when supplies were exhausted. Sometimes, they stayed on the settlement and trade with other groups exchanging goods like spears and stones for Food.

Aboriginal hunted Kangaroos for food. They also gathered it from Large plants and nuts offered by the landscape. They used blades made-up of stones and boomerangs. Boomerangs are special weapon which flies in air and come back to it thrower.

Aboriginals handed over their traditions generation by generation. This can be seen in Corroborees even today. Corroboree is a ceremony of Aboriginals. In this ceremonial gathering they convey Australia’s past through dances, Musics and Songs. Through Corroboree they are keeping their culture still alive.

The aboriginal trusts that their Ancestral Beings made all the humans & species. They call the period in which these creatures were formed as Dreamtime. Aboriginals thought that these Ancestral Beings lived in sprit form. Lightning Man is one of their Dreamtime Sprit and can be found in the cliffs and caves of the tribal areas. Lightning Man was believed as the maker of the thunder and lightning. Aboriginals also call Lightning Man as ‘Namargon’ and his wife is ‘Barrkinj’.

Uluru in Central Australia is seen as sacred place and it has the carvings & paints that shows the Aboriginal’s beliefs. Early Australian Government called this place as Ayers Rock.

Today there are 260,000 Aboriginals living in Australia and many of them lives in urban areas. Apart from some discrimination they started getting their civil rights and government aids. Australian Government also set up bilingual education programme (In 1972) and through which they train many children in their tribal languages before going to English. Radios and television shows also available in Aboriginal Languages.