Indigenous Australians
Encyclopedia
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent
and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago.
The Torres Strait Islanders are indigenous to the Torres Strait
Islands, which are at the northern-most tip of Queensland near Papua New Guinea
. The term "Aboriginal" has traditionally been applied to indigenous inhabitants of mainland Australia, Tasmania
, and some of the other adjacent islands.
The earliest definite human remains found to date are that of Mungo Man, which have been dated at about 40,000 years old, but the time of arrival of the ancestors of Indigenous Australians is a matter of debate among researchers, with estimates dating back as far as 125,000 years ago.
There is great diversity among different Indigenous communities and societies in Australia, each with its own unique mixture of cultures, customs and languages. In present day Australia these groups are further divided into local communities.
Although there were over 250–300 spoken languages with 600 dialects at the start of European settlement, fewer than 200 of these remain in use – and all but 20 are considered to be endangered. Aboriginal people today mostly speak English, with Aboriginal phrases and words being added to create Australian Aboriginal English
.
The population of Indigenous Australians at the time of permanent European settlement has been estimated at between 318,000 and 750,000, with the distribution being similar to that of the current Australian population, with the majority living in the south-east, centred along the Murray River
.
Though Indigenous Australians are seen as being broadly related as part of what has been called the Australoid race, there are significant differences in social, cultural and linguistic customs between the various Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups.
as early as 1789. It soon became capitalised and employed as the common name to refer to all Indigenous Australians.
The word has been in use in English since at least the 17th century, to mean "first or earliest known, indigenous". It comes from Latin, Aborigines, derived from ab (from) and origo (origin, beginning). Strictly speaking, Aborigine is the noun and Aboriginal the adjectival form; however the latter is often also employed to stand as a noun. Aboriginal(s) in this sense, i.e. as a noun, has acquired negative connotations in some sectors of the community, who regard it as insensitive, and even offensive.The more acceptable and correct expression is Aboriginal Australians or Aboriginal people, though even this is sometimes regarded as an expression to be avoided because of its historical associations with colonialism. Indigenous Australians has found increasing acceptance, particularly since the 1980s.
These larger groups may be further subdivided; for example, Anangu (meaning a person from Australia's central desert region) recognises localised subdivisions such as Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara, Ngaanyatjarra
, Luritja
and Antikirinya. It is estimated that, prior to the arrival of British settlers, the population of Indigenous Australians was approximately 318,000–750,000 across the continent.
The Torres Strait Islanders possess a heritage and cultural history distinct from Aboriginal traditions. The eastern Torres Strait Islanders in particular are related to the Papuan peoples of New Guinea
, and speak a Papuan language. Accordingly, they are not generally included under the designation "Aboriginal Australians." This has been another factor in the promotion of the more inclusive term "Indigenous Australians".
Six percent of Indigenous Australians identify themselves fully as Torres Strait
Islanders. A further 4% of Indigenous Australians identify themselves as having both Torres Strait
Islander and Aboriginal heritage.
The Torres Strait Islands
comprise over 100 islands which were annexed by Queensland in 1879. Many Indigenous organisations incorporate the phrase "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander" to highlight the distinctiveness and importance of Torres Strait Islanders in Australia's Indigenous population.
Eddie Mabo
was from Mer or Murray Island in the Torres Strait, which the famous Mabo decision
of 1992 involved.
than ethnology
, as it categorises Indigenous Australians among other black people
in Asia and Africa. In the 1970s, many Aboriginal activists, such as Gary Foley
proudly embraced the term "black", and writer Kevin Gilbert
's ground-breaking book from the time was entitled Living Black. The book included interviews with several members of the Aboriginal community including Robert Jabanungga
reflecting on contemporary Aboriginal culture.
, with only about fifteen languages still being spoken by all age groups.
Linguists classify mainland Australian languages into one large group, the Pama–Nyungan languages. The rest are sometimes lumped under the term "non-Pama–Nyungan". The Pama–Nyungan languages comprise the majority, covering most of Australia, and are generally thought to be a family of related languages. In the north, stretching from the Western Kimberley
to the Gulf of Carpentaria
, are found a number of non-Pama–Nyungan groups of languages which have not been shown to be related to the Pama–Nyungan family nor to each other.
While it has sometimes proven difficult to work out familial relationships within the Pama–Nyungan language family, many Australian linguists feel there has been substantial success. Against this some linguists, such as R. M. W. Dixon
, suggest that the Pama–Nyungan group – and indeed the entire Australian linguistic area – is rather a sprachbund
, or group of languages having very long and intimate contact, rather than a genetic linguistic phylum.
It has been suggested that, given their long presence in Australia, Aboriginal languages form one specific sub-grouping. The position of Tasmanian languages is unknown, and it is also unknown whether they comprised one or more than one specific language family.
Most scholars date the arrival of humans in Australia at 40,000 to 50,000 years ago, with a possible range of up to 125,000 years ago.
The earliest anatomically modern human remains found in Australia (and outside of Africa
) are those of Mungo Man which have been dated at 42,000 years old. Comparison of the mitochondrial DNA
from the skeleton known as Lake Mungo 3 (LM3) with that of ancient and modern Aborigines has indicated that Mungo Man is not related to Australian Aborigines. The results indicate that Mungo Man was an extinct subspecies that diverged before the most recent common ancestor of contemporary humans. The DNA of LM3 only survives in modern humans as a segment found in Chromosome 11
. These findings have been criticized as possibly being due to posthumous modification of the DNA.
It is generally believed that Aboriginal people are the descendants of a single migration into the continent, split from the first modern human populations to leave Africa, 64,000 to 75,000 years ago, although a minority propose that there were three waves of migration, most likely island hopping by boat during periods of low sea levels (see Prehistory of Australia
). Aboriginal people seem to have lived a long time in the same environment as the now extinct Australian megafauna
.
Aboriginal people mainly lived as hunter-gatherer
s. They hunted and foraged for food from the land. Aboriginal society was relatively mobile, or semi-nomadic, moving due to the changing food availability found across different areas as seasons changed. The mode of life and material cultures varied greatly from region to region. The greatest population density was to be found in the southern and eastern regions of the continent, the River Murray valley in particular.
It has been estimated that at the time of first European contact, the absolute minimum pre-1788 population was 315,000, while recent archaeological finds suggest that a population of 750,000 could have been sustained, with some academics estimating a population of a million people was possible. The population was split into 250 individual nations, many of which were in alliance with one another, and within each nation there existed several clans, from as few as 5 or 6 to as many as 30 or 40 members. Each nation had its own language and a few had several.
in Botany Bay
in 1788.
Controversy has arisen over one immediate consequence of British settlement, i.e. waves of European epidemic diseases such as measles
, smallpox
and tuberculosis
. Scholars such as Noel Butlin have attributed the 1789 outbreak of smallpox to European settlers. This has been contested on the basis that Macassan
fishermen from South Sulawesi
and nearby islands may have introduced smallpox to Australia prior to European settlement. For some time, a smallpox epidemic which some writers such as Judy Campbell associate with the Macassans, has also been attributed to white settlers. In the 19th century, smallpox was the principal cause of Aboriginal deaths. Smallpox is estimated to have killed up to 90% of the local Darug people
in 1789.
However after 2006, reviews by Christopher Warren (2007) and Craig Mear (2008), have shown that the 1789 outbreak of smallpox was most likely caused by British supplies of virus imported with the First Fleet
. This area is not yet settled with recent contributions in the ABC Radio Program Okham's Razor and in the populist magazine Quadrant continuing to probe the circumstances.
A consequence of British settlement was appropriation of land and water resources, which continued throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries as rural lands were converted for sheep and cattle grazing.
In 1834 there occurred the first recorded use of Aboriginal tracker
s, who proved very adept at navigating their way through the Australian landscape and finding people.
During the 1860s, Tasmanian Aboriginal skulls
were particularly sought internationally for studies into craniofacial anthropometry. Truganini
, the last Tasmanian Aborigine, had her skeleton exhumed within two years of her death in 1876 by the Royal Society of Tasmania
, and was later placed on display. Campaigns continue to have Aboriginal body parts returned to Australia for burial.
In 1868, a group of mostly Aboriginal cricketers toured England, becoming the first Australian cricket team to travel overseas.
s and cattle station
s.
Although, as British subjects, all Indigenous Australians were nominally entitled to vote, generally only those who "merged" into mainstream society did so. Only Western Australia and Queensland specifically excluded Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders from the electoral rolls. Despite the Commonwealth Franchise Act of 1902 that excluded "Aboriginal natives of Australia, Asia, Africa and Pacific Islands except New Zealand" from voting unless they were on the roll before 1901, South Australia insisted that all voters enfranchised within its borders would remain eligible to vote in the Commonwealth and Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders continued to be added to their rolls albeit haphazardly.
Despite efforts to bar their enlistment, around 500 Indigenous Australians fought for Australia in the First World War.
1934 saw the first appeal to the High Court
by an Aboriginal Australian and it succeeded. Dhakiyarr was found to have been wrongly convicted of the murder of a white policeman, for which he had been sentenced to death; the case focused national attention on Aboriginal rights
issues. Dhakiyarr disappeared upon release. In 1938, the 150th anniversary of the arrival of British First Fleet
was marked as a Day of Mourning
and Protest at an Aboriginal meeting in Sydney.
Hundreds of Indigenous Australians served in the Australian armed forces during World War Two – including with the Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion
and The Northern Territory Special Reconnaissance Unit, which were established to guard Australia's North
against the threat of Japanese invasion.
The 1960s was a pivotal decade in the assertion of Aboriginal rights and a time of growing collaboration between Aboriginal activists and white Australian activists. In 1962, Commonwealth legislation specifically gave Aboriginal people the right to vote in Commonwealth elections. A group of University of Sydney
students organised a bus tour of western and coastal New South Wales towns in 1965 to raise awareness of the state of Aboriginal health and living conditions. This Freedom Ride
also aimed to highlight the social discrimination faced by Aboriginal people and encourage Aboriginals themselves to resist discrimination. In 1966, Vincent Lingiari
led a famous walk-off of Indigenous employees of Wave Hill Station in protest against poor pay and conditions (later the subject of the Paul Kelly song "From Little Things Big Things Grow
"). The landmark 1967 referendum
called by Prime Minister Harold Holt
allowed the Commonwealth to make laws with respect to Aboriginal people, and for Aboriginal people to be included when the country does a count to determine electoral representation. The referendum passed with 90.77% voter support.
In the controversial 1971 Gove land rights case
, Justice Blackburn ruled that Australia had been terra nullius
before British settlement, and that no concept of native title
existed in Australian law. In 1971, Neville Bonner
joined the Australian Senate
as a Senator for Queensland for the Liberal Party
, becoming the first Indigenous Australian in the Federal Parliament. A year later, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy
was established on the steps of Parliament House
in Canberra
. In 1976, Sir Douglas Nicholls
was appointed as the 28th Governor of South Australia, the first Aboriginal person appointed to vice-regal office.
In sport Evonne Goolagong Cawley became the world number-one ranked tennis player in 1971 and won 14 Grand Slam titles during her career. In 1973 Arthur Beetson
became the first Indigenous Australian to captain his country in any sport when he first led the Australian National Rugby League team, the Kangaroos. In 1982, Mark Ella
became Captain of the Australian National Rugby Union
Team, the Wallabies. In 1984, a group of
Pintupi
people who were living a traditional hunter-gatherer
desert-dwelling life were tracked down in the Gibson Desert
in Western Australia and brought in to a settlement. They are believed to be the last uncontacted tribe
in Australia. In 1985, the Australian government returned ownership of Uluru
(formerly known as Ayers Rock) to the local Pitjantjatjara Aboriginal people.
In 1992, the High Court of Australia
handed down its decision in the Mabo Case, declaring the previous legal concept of terra nullius to be invalid. A Constitutional Convention which selected a Republican model for the Referendum in 1998 included just six Indigenous participants, leading Monarchist delegate Neville Bonner
to end his contribution to the Convention with his Jagera Tribal Sorry Chant in sadness at the low number of Indigenous representatives. The Republican Model, as well as a proposal for a new Constitutional Preamble which would have included the "honouring" of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders, was put to referendum
but did not succeed.
In 1999 the Australian Parliament passed a Motion of Reconciliation
drafted by Prime Minister John Howard
in consultation with Aboriginal Senator Aden Ridgeway
naming mistreatment of Indigenous Australians as the most "blemished chapter in our national history".
In 2000, Aboriginal sprinter Cathy Freeman
lit the Olympic flame
at the opening ceremony of the 2000 Summer Olympics
in Sydney. In 2001, the Federal Government dedicated Reconciliation Place
in Canberra.
In 2004, the Australian Government abolished the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission
amidst allegations of corruption.
In 2007, Prime Minister John Howard
and Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough
launched the Northern Territory National Emergency Response
, in response to the Little Children are Sacred
Report into allegations of child abuse among indigenous communities. The government banned alcohol in prescribed communities in the Territory; quarantined a percentage of welfare payments for essential goods purchasing; dispatched additional police and medical personnel to the region; and suspended the permit system for access to indigenous communities. In 2010, a United Nations
Special Rapporteur, found the Emergency Response to be racially discriminatory, and said that aspects of it represented a limitation on "individual autonomy". Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin
disagreed, saying that her duty to protect the rights of children was paramount; the Opposition questioned whether Anaya had adequately consulted; and indigenous leaders like Warren Mundine
and Bess Price
criticised the UN findings. The Intervention has continued under the Rudd/Gillard Labor Government.
On 13 February 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
issued a public apology to members of the Stolen Generations on behalf of the Australian Government.
Ken Wyatt
of the Liberal Party
became the first indigenous Australian elected to the Australian House of Representatives
in the Australian Federal Election of 2010.
among the Indigenous Australian community. This growing community includes high-profile members such as the boxer Anthony Mundine
.
Aboriginal people traditionally adhered to animist spiritual frameworks. Within Aboriginal belief systems, a formative epoch known as 'the Dreamtime
' stretches back into the distant past when the creator ancestors known as the First Peoples travelled across the land, creating and naming as they went. Indigenous Australia's oral tradition
and religious values are based upon reverence for the land and a belief in this Dreamtime
.
The Dreaming is at once both the ancient time of creation and the present-day reality of Dreaming. There were a great many different groups, each with its own individual culture, belief structure, and language. These cultures overlapped to a greater or lesser extent, and evolved over time. Major ancestral spirits include the Rainbow Serpent
, Baiame
, Dirawong
and Bunjil
.
, which is widely thought to be a stereotypical instrument of Aboriginal people, was traditionally played by people of only the eastern Kimberley region and Arnhem Land
(such as the Yolngu), and then by only the men. Clapping sticks are probably the more ubiquitous musical instrument, especially because they help maintain rhythm for songs.
Contemporary Australian aboriginal music is predominantly of the country music
genre. Most Indigenous radio stations – particularly in metropolitan areas – serve a double purpose as the local country-music station. More recently, Indigenous Australian musicians have branched into rock and roll
, hip hop
and reggae
. One of the most well known modern bands is Yothu Yindi
playing in a style which has been called Aboriginal rock
. Another popular band was the Warumpi Band
formed by Neil Murray
and charismatic frontman, George Burarrwanga. In 1986, Midnight Oil
and the Warumpi Band embarked on the "Blackfella/Whitefella Tour".
Amongst young Australian Aboriginal peoples, African-American
and Aboriginal hip hop
music and clothing is popular. Aboriginal boxing champion and former rugby league player Anthony Mundine
identified US rapper Tupac Shakur
as a personal inspiration, after Mundine's release of his 2007 single, Platinum Ryder.
Listen to an excerpt of Indigenous tribal music from the Yirrkala district in far north-east Arnhem Land, recorded by AP Elkin on australianscreen online.
In 2000 Christine Anu sang the song "My Island Home" at the Sydney 2000 Olympics Closing Ceremony.
Australia has a tradition of Aboriginal art which is thousands of years old, the best known forms being rock art and bark painting
. Evidence of Aboriginal art in Australia can be traced back at least 30,000 years. Examples of ancient Aboriginal rock artworks can be found throughout the continent – notably in national parks such as those of the UNESCO
listed sites at Uluru
and Kakadu National Park
in the Northern Territory, but also within protected parks in urban areas such as at Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park
in Sydney. The Sydney rock engravings
are approximately 5000 to 200 years old. Murujuga
in Western Australia has the Friends of Australian Rock Art have advocated its preservation, and the numerous engravings there were heritage listed in 2007.
In terms of age and abundance, cave art in Australia is comparable to that of Lascaux
and Altamira in Europe, and Aboriginal art is believed to be the oldest continuing tradition of art in the world. There are three major regional styles: the geometric style found in Central Australia, Tasmania, the Kimberley and Victoria known for its concentric circles, arcs and dots; the simple figurative style found in Queensland
and the complex figurative style found in Arnhem Land which includes X-Ray art. These designs generally carry significance linked to the spirituality of the Dreamtime
. Paintings were usually created in earthy colours, from paint made from ochre. Such ochres were also used to paint their bodies for ceremonial purposes.
Modern Aboriginal artists continue the tradition, using modern materials in their artworks. Several styles of Aboriginal art have developed in modern times, including the watercolour paintings of the Hermannsburg School
, and the acrylic Papunya Tula
"dot art" movement. William Barak
(c.1824–1903) was one of the last traditionally educated of the Wurundjeri
-willam, people who come from the district now incorporating the city of Melbourne. He remains notable for his artworks which recorded traditional Aboriginal ways for the education of Westerners (which remain on permanent exhibition at the Ian Potter Centre
of the National Gallery of Victoria
and at the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery
. Margaret Preston
(1875–1963) was among the early non-indigenous painters to incorporate Aboriginal influences in her works. Albert Namatjira
(1902–1959) is one of the most famous Australian artists and an Arrernte
man. His landscapes inspired the Hermannsburg School
of art. The works of Elizabeth Durack
are notable for their fusion of Western and indigenous influences. Since the 1970s, indigenous artists have employed the use of acrylic paints – with styles such as that of the Western Desert Art Movement becoming globally renowned 20th century art movements.
The National Gallery of Australia
exhibits a great many indigenous art works, including those of the Torres Strait Islands
who are known for their traditional sculpture and headgear.
wrote of the "natives of New Holland
" as being "barbarous savages", but by the time of Captain James Cook
and First Fleet
marine Watkin Tench
(the era of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
), accounts of Aborigines were more sympathetic and romantic: "these people may truly be said to be in the pure state of nature, and may appear to some to be the most wretched upon the earth; but in reality they are far happier than ... we Europeans", wrote Cook in his journal on 23 August 1770.
Letters written by early Aboriginal leaders like Bennelong
and Sir Douglas Nicholls
are retained as treasures of Australian literature, as is the historic Yirrkala bark petitions
of 1963 which is the first traditional Aboriginal document recognised by the Australian Parliament. David Unaipon
(1872–1967) is credited as providing the first accounts of Aboriginal mythology written by an Aboriginal: Legendary Tales of the Aborigines; he is known as the first Aboriginal author. Oodgeroo Noonuccal
(1920–1995) was a famous Aboriginal poet, writer and rights activist credited with publishing the first Aboriginal book of verse: We Are Going (1964). Sally Morgan
's novel My Place
was considered a breakthrough memoir in terms of bringing indigenous stories to wider notice. Leading Aboriginal activists Marcia Langton
(First Australians
, 2008) and Noel Pearson ("Up From the Mission", 2009) are active contemporary contributors to Australian literature.
The voices of Indigenous Australians
are being increasingly noticed and include the playwright Jack Davis
and Kevin Gilbert
. Writers coming to prominence in the 21st century include Alexis Wright
, Tara June Winch
, in poetry Yvette Holt and in popular fiction Anita Heiss
. Australian Aboriginal poetry – ranging from sacred to everyday – is found throughout the continent.
Many notable works have been written by non-indigenous Australians on Aboriginal themes. Examples include the poems of Judith Wright
; The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith
by Thomas Keneally
and the short story by David Malouf
: "The Only Speaker of his Tongue".
Histories covering Indigenous themes include The Native Tribes of Central Australia by Spencer
and Gillen, 1899; the diaries of Donald Thompson
on the subject of the Yolngu
people of Arnhem Land
(c.1935–1943); Geoffrey Blainey
(Triumph of the Nomads, 1975); Henry Reynolds
(The Other Side of the Frontier
, 1981); and Marcia Langton
(First Australians, 2008). Differing interpretations of Aboriginal history are also the subject of contemporary debate in Australia, notably between the essayists Robert Manne
and Keith Windshuttle.
AustLit's BlackWords project provides a comprehensive listing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Writers and Storytellers.
Australian cinema has a long history and the ceremonies of Indigenous Australians were among the first subjects to be filmed in Australia – notably a film of Aboriginal dancers in Central Australia, shot by the anthropologist Baldwin Spencer
in 1900.
1955's Jedda
was the first Australian feature film to be shot in colour, the first to star Aboriginal actors in lead roles, and the first to be entered at the Cannes Film Festival
. 1971's Walkabout
was a British film set in Australia; it was a forerunner to many Australian films related to indigenous themes and introduced David Gulpilil
to cinematic audiences. 1976's The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith
, directed by Fred Schepisi, was an award-winning historical drama from a book by Thomas Keneally
about the tragic story of an Aboriginal bushranger
. The canon of films related to Indigenous Australians also increased over the period of the 1990s and early 21st Century, with Nick Parson's 1996 film Dead Heart
featuring Ernie Dingo
and Bryan Brown
; Rolf de Heer
's The Tracker
, starring Gary Sweet
and David Gulpilil; and Phillip Noyce
's Rabbit-Proof Fence
in 2002. In 2006, Rolf de Heer's Ten Canoes
became the first major feature film to be shot in an indigenous language and the film was recognised at Cannes and elsewhere.
Woggabaliri
is recognised by the Australian Sports Commission
as the oldest Indigenous game and is the earliest depicted by Europeans. Played mainly by the Wiradjuri
people of central NSW before European arrival, Woggabaliri is a non-competitive "co-operative kicking volley game" played with a ball made of possum
hide, using soccer type skills of teamwork and ball control.
The Djab wurrung
and Jardwadjali
people of western Victoria once participated in the traditional game of Marn Grook
, a type of football played with a ball made of possum hide.
The game is believed by some who? to have contributed to the development of the code of Australian rules football
. The Wills family is believed by somewho? to have had strong links to Indigenous people and Wills for a few weeks coached an Indigenous cricket team which toured Eastern Australia in 1866–67.
, blood quantum
, birth and self-determination
. From 1869 until well into the 1970s, Indigenous children under 12 years of age, with 25% or less Aboriginal blood were considered "white" and were often removed from their families by the Australian Federal and State government agencies and church missions
, under acts
of their respective parliaments in order that they would have "a reasonable chance of absorption into the white community to which they rightly belong". Grey areas in determination of ethnicity led to people of mixed ancestry being caught in the middle of a devisive policies which often led to absurd situations:
In 1983 the High Court of Australia
defined an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander as "a person of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent who identifies as an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander and is accepted as such by the community in which he or she lives".
The ruling was a three-part definition comprising descent, self-identification and community identification. The first part – descent – was genetic descent and unambiguous, but led to cases where a lack of records to prove ancestry excluded some. Self- and community identification were more problematic as they meant that an Indigenous person separated from her or his community due to a family dispute could no longer identify as Aboriginal.
As a result there arose court cases throughout the 1990s where excluded people demanded that their Aboriginality be recognised. In 1995, Justice Drummond ruled "..either genuine self-identification as Aboriginal alone or Aboriginal communal recognition as such by itself may suffice, according to the circumstances." This contributed to an increase of 31% in the number of people identifying as Indigenous Australians in the 1996 census when compared to the 1991 census.
Judge Merkel in 1998 defined Aboriginal descent as technical rather than real – thereby eliminating a genetic requirement. This decision established that anyone can classify him or herself legally as an Aboriginal, provided he or she is accepted as such by his or her community.
Until 1967 official Australian population statistics excluded "full-blood aboriginal natives" in accordance with section 127 of the Australian Constitution
, even though many such people were actually counted. The size of the excluded population was generally separately estimated. "Half-caste aboriginal natives" were shown separately up to the 1966 census, but since 1971 there has been no provision on the forms to differentiate 'full' from 'part' Indigenous or to identify non-Indigenous persons who are accepted by Indigenous communities but have no genetic descent.
2005 snapshot
of Australia showed that the Indigenous population had grown at twice the rate of the overall population since 1996 when the Indigenous population stood at 283,000. As of June 2001, the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimated the total resident Indigenous population to be 458,520 (2.4% of Australia's total), 90% of whom identified as Aboriginal, 6% Torres Strait Islander and the remaining 4% being of dual Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander parentage. Much of the increase since 1996 can be attributed to greater numbers of people identifying themselves as Aboriginal or of Aboriginal descent. Changed definitions of aboriginality and positive discrimination via material benefits have been cited as contributing to a movement to indigenous identification.
In the 2006 Census, 407,700 respondents declared they were Aboriginal, 29,512 declared they were Torres Strait Islander, and a further 17,811 declared they were both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders
. After adjustments for undercount, the indigenous population as of end June 2006 was estimated to be 517,200, representing about 2.5% of the population.
Based on Census data at 30 June 2006, the preliminary estimate of Indigenous resident population of Australia was 517,200, broken down as follows:
The State with the largest total Indigenous population is New South Wales. Indigenous Australians constitute 2.2% of the overall population of the State. The Northern Territory
has the largest Indigenous population in percentage terms for a State or Territory, with 31.6% of the population being Indigenous.
All the other States and Territories have less than 4% of their total populations identifying as Indigenous; Victoria has the lowest percentage at 0.6%.
As of 2006 about 31% of the Indigenous population was living in 'major cities' (as defined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics/Australian Standard Geographical Classification) and another 45% in 'regional Australia', with the remaining 24% in remote areas. The populations in Victoria, South Australia, and New South Wales are more likely to be urbanised.
The proportion of Aboriginal adults married (de facto or de jure) to non-Aboriginal spouses was 69% according to the 2001 census, up from 64% in 1996, 51% in 1991 and 46% in 1986. The census figures show there were more intermixed Aboriginal couples in capital cities: 87% in 2001 compared to 60% in rural and regional Australia. It is reported that up to 88% of the offspring of mixed marriages subsequently self identify as Indigenous Australians.
, culture, and belief structure.
At the time of British settlement, there were over 200 distinct languages.
There are an indeterminate number of Indigenous communities, comprising several hundred groupings. Some communities, cultures or groups may be inclusive of others and alter or overlap; significant changes have occurred in the generations after colonisation.
The word 'community' is often used to describe groups identifying by kinship, language or belonging to a particular place or 'country'. A community may draw on separate cultural values and individuals can conceivably belong to a number of communities within Australia; identification within them may be adopted or rejected.
An individual community may identify itself by many names, each of which can have alternate English spellings. The largest Aboriginal communities – the Pitjantjatjara, the Arrernte
, the Luritja
and the Warlpiri
– are all from Central Australia.
Indigenous 'communities' in remote Australia are typically small, isolated towns with basic facilities, on traditionally owned land. These communities have between 20 – 300 inhabitants and are often closed to outsiders for cultural reasons. The long term viability and resiliance of Indigenous communities has been debated by scholars and continues to be a political issue receiving fluctuating media attention.
Tasmania
The Tasmanian Aboriginal population are thought to have first crossed into Tasmania
approximately 40,000 years ago via a land bridge between the island and the rest of mainland Australia during the last glacial period. Estimates of the population of the Aboriginal people of Tasmania, before European arrival, are in the range of 3,000 to 15,000 people although genetic studies have suggested significantly higher figures which is supported by Indigenous oral traditions that indicates a reduction in population from diseases introduced by British and American sealers before settlement. The original population was further reduced to around 300 between 1803 and 1833 due to disease, warfare and other actions of British settlers. Despite over 170 years of debate over who or what was responsible for this near-extinction, no consensus exists on its origins, process, or whether or not it was genocide however, using the "U.N.
definition, sufficient evidence exists to designate the Tasmanian catastrophe genocide."
A woman named Trugernanner (often rendered as Truganini
) who died in 1876, was, and still is, widely believed to be the very last of the full blooded Aborigines. However, in 1889 Parliament recognized Fanny Cochrane Smith
(d:1905) as the last surviving full blooded Tasmanian Aborigine. The 2006 census showed that there were nearly 17,000 Indigenous Australians in the State.
. The health and economic difficulties facing both groups are substantial. Both the remote and urban populations have adverse ratings on a number of social indicators, including health, education, unemployment, poverty and crime.
In 2004, Prime Minister John Howard
initiated contracts with Aboriginal communities, where substantial financial benefits are available in return for commitments such as ensuring children attend school. These contracts are known as Shared Responsibility Agreements. This saw a political shift from 'self determination' for Aboriginal communities to 'mutual obligation', which has been criticised as a "paternalistic and dictatorial arrangement".
s, under acts of their respective parliaments
. The removals occurred in the period between approximately 1869 and 1969, although, in some places, children were still being taken in the 1970s.
On 13 February 2008, the federal government of Australia, led by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
, issued a formal apology to the Indigenous Australians over the Stolen Generations.
, Aboriginal Australians always had the legal right to vote in Australian Commonwealth elections if their State granted them that right. This meant that all Aboriginal peoples outside Queensland and Western Australia had a legal right to vote. The right of Indigenous ex-servicemen to vote was affirmed in 1949 and all Indigenous Australians gained the unqualified right to vote in Federal elections in 1962. Unlike other Australians, however, voting was not made compulsory for Indigenous people.
It was not until the repeal of Section 127 of the Australian Constitution
in 1967 that Indigenous Australians were counted in the population for the purposes of distribution of electoral seats. Only two Indigenous Australians have been elected to the Australian Senate
: Neville Bonner
(Liberal, 1971–1983) and Aden Ridgeway
(Democrat, 1999–2005). Following the 2010 Australian Federal Election, Ken Wyatt
of the Liberal Party won the West Australian seat of Hasluck, becoming the first Indigenous person elected to the Australian House of Representatives
.
A number of Indigenous people represent electorates at State and Territorial level, and South Australia has had an Aboriginal Governor, Sir Douglas Nicholls
. The first Indigenous Australian to serve as a minister in any government was Ernie Bridge
, who entered the Western Australian Parliament in 1980. Carol Martin
was the first Aboriginal woman elected to an Australian parliament (the Western Australian Legislative Assembly
) in 2001, and the first woman minister was Marion Scrymgour
, who was appointed to the Northern Territory ministry in 2002 (she became Deputy Chief Minister in 2008).
ATSIC, a representative body of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, was set up in 1990 under the Hawke
government. In 2004, the Howard government
disbanded ATSIC and replaced it with an appointed network of 30 Indigenous Coordination Centres that administer Shared Responsibility Agreements and Regional Partnership Agreements with Aboriginal communities at a local level.
In October 2007, just prior to the calling of a federal election, the then Prime Minister, John Howard, revisited the idea of bringing a referendum to seek recognition of Indigenous Australians in the Constitution (his government first sought to include recognition of Aboriginal peoples in the Preamble to the Constitution in a 1999 referendum). His 2007 announcement was seen by some as a surprising adoption of the importance of the symbolic aspects of the reconciliation process, and reaction was mixed. The ALP initially supported the idea, however Kevin Rudd
withdrew this support just prior to the election – earning stern rebuke from activist Noel Pearson. Critical sections of the Australian public and media meanwhile suggested that Howard's raising of the issue was a "cynical" attempt in the lead-up to an election to "whitewash" his handling of this issue during his term in office. David Ross of the Central Land Council was sceptical, saying "its a new skin for an old snake", while former Chairman of the Reconciliation Council Patrick Dodson
gave qualified support, saying: "I think it's a positive contribution to the process of national reconciliation...It's obviously got to be well discussed and considered and weighed, and it's got to be about meaningful and proper negotiations that can lead to the achievement of constitutional reconciliation."
is often used when comparing Indigenous and non-Indigenous statistics.
In some regions the median age at death was identified in 1973 to be as low as 47 years and the life expectancy gap between Aboriginals and the rest of the Australian population as a whole, to be 25 years. Since 1996, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) had used indirect methods for its calculations, because census results were deemed to be unreliable.
Figures published in 2005 (59.4 years for males and 64.8 years for females) indicated a widely quoted gap of 17 years between indigenous and non-indigenous life expectancy, though the ABS does not now consider the 2005 figures to be reliable. Using a new method based on tracing the deaths of people identified as Indigenous at the 2006 census, in 2009 the ABS estimated life expectancy at 67.2 years for Indigenous men (11.5 years less than for non-Indigenous) and 72.9 years for Indigenous women (9.7 years less than for non-Indigenous). Estimated life expectancy of Indigenous males ranges from 61.5 years for those living in the Northern Territory to a high of 69.9 years for those living in New South Wales, and for Indigenous females, 69.2 years for those living in the Northern Territory to a high of 75.0 years for those living in New South Wales.
The performance of indigenous students in national literacy and numeracy tests conducted in school years three, five, and seven is also inferior to that of their peers. The following table displays the performance of indigenous students against the general Australian student population as reported in the National Report on Schooling in Australia 2004.
In response to this problem, the Commonwealth Government formulated a National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Policy
. A number of government initiatives have resulted, some of which are listed at the Commonwealth Government's website.
As of 2002, the average household income for Indigenous Australian adults (adjusted for household size and composition) was 60% of the non-Indigenous average.
Health problems with the highest disparity (compared with the non-Indigenous population) in incidence are outlined in the table below:
Each of these indicators is expected to underestimate the true prevalence of disease in the population due to reduced levels of diagnosis.
In addition, the following factors have been at least partially implicated in the inequality in life expectancy:
Successive Federal Governments have responded to these issues by implementing programs such as the Office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health (OATSIH). Which effected by bringing health services into indigenous communities, but on the whole the problem still remains challenging.
In 2000, Indigenous Australians were more likely per capita to be both victims of and perpetrators of reported crimes in New South Wales.
In 2002, Indigenous Australians were twice as likely as their non-Indigenous peers to be a victim of violent aggression, with 24% of Indigenous Australians reported as being a victim of violence in 2001.
In 2004, Indigenous Australians were 11 times more likely to be in prison (age-standardised figures).
In June 2004, 21% of prisoners in Australia were Indigenous.
There are frequent reports of domestic violence and community disturbances.
Many Indigenous communities suffer from a range of health, social and legal problems associated with substance abuse
of both legal and illegal drugs.
The 2004–05 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey (NATSIHS) by the ABS
found that the proportion of the Indigenous adult population engaged in 'risky' and 'high-risk' alcohol consumption (15%) was comparable with that of the non-Indigenous population (14%), based on age-standardised data. The definition of "risky" and "high-risk" consumption used is four or more standard drinks per day average for males, two or more for females.
The 2007 National Drug Strategy Household Survey reported that Indigenous peoples were "more likely than other Australians to abstain from alcohol consumption (23.4% versus 16.8%) and also more likely to consume alcohol at risky or high-risk levels for harm in the short term (27.4% versus 20.1%)". These NDSHS comparisons are non-age-standardised; the paper notes that Indigenous figures are based on a sample of 372 people and care should be exercised when using Indigenous figures.
NATSIHS 2004/5 also found that, after adjusting for age differences between the two populations, Indigenous adults were more than twice as likely as non-Indigenous adults to be current daily smokers of tobacco.
To combat the problem, a number of programs to prevent or mitigate alcohol abuse have been attempted in different regions, many initiated from within the communities themselves. These strategies include such actions as the declaration of "Dry Zones" within indigenous communities, prohibition and restriction on point-of-sale access, and community policing and licensing.
Some communities (particularly in the Northern Territory) introduced kava
as a safer alternative to alcohol, as over-indulgence in kava produces sleepiness, in contrast to the violence that can result from over-indulgence in alcohol. These and other measures met with variable success, and while a number of communities have seen decreases in associated social problems caused by excessive drinking, others continue to struggle with the issue and it remains an ongoing concern.
The ANCD study notes that in order to be effective, programs in general need also to address "...the underlying structural determinants that have a significant impact on alcohol and drug misuse" (Op. cit., p. 26). In 2007, Kava
was banned in the Northern Territory.
Petrol sniffing is also a problem among some remote Indigenous communities. Petrol vapour produces euphoria and dulling effect in those who inhale it, and due to its previously low price and widespread availability, is an increasingly popular substance of abuse.
Proposed solutions to the problem are a topic of heated debate among politicians and the community at large. In 2005 this problem among remote indigenous communities was considered so serious that a new, low aromatic petrol Opal
was distributed across the Northern Territory to combat it.
, who eventually adopted European dress and customs and travelled to England where he was presented to King George III. Others, such as Pemulwuy
, Yagan
, and Windradyne
, became famous for armed resistance to the European settlers.
During the twentieth century, as social attitudes shifted and interest in Indigenous culture increased, there were more opportunities for Indigenous Australians to gain recognition. Albert Namatjira
became one of Australia's best-known painters, and actors such as David Gulpilil
, Ernie Dingo
, and Deborah Mailman
became well known. Bands such as Yothu Yindi
, and singers Christine Anu
, Jessica Mauboy
and Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu
, have successfully combined Indigenous musical styles and instruments with pop/rock, gaining wide appreciation amongst non-Indigenous audiences. Polymath David Unaipon
is commemorated on the Australian $50 note
.
Indigenous Australians have also been prominent in sport. Lionel Rose
earned a world title in boxing. Evonne Goolagong
became the world number-one ranked tennis player with 14 Grand Slam titles. Arthur Beetson
, Laurie Daley
and Gorden Tallis
captained Australia in Rugby League. Mark Ella
captained Australia in Rugby Union
. Prominent Australian athletes include Cathy Freeman
earned gold medals in the Olympics, World Championships, and Commonwealth Games
. In Australian Football, an increasing number of Indigenous Australians are playing at the highest level, the Australian Football League
. Graham Farmer
is said to have revolutionised the game in the ruck and handball areas, and Brownlow Medal
lists and Indigenous Team of the Century
members Gavin Wanganeen
and Adam Goodes
.
While relatively few Indigenous Australians have been elected to political office (Neville Bonner
, Aden Ridgeway
and Ken Wyatt
remain the only ATSI people to have been elected to the Australian Federal Parliament), Aboriginal rights campaigner Sir Douglas Nicholls
was appointed Governor of the State of South Australia in 1976, and many others have become famous through political activism – for instance, Charles Perkins' involvement in the Freedom Ride
of 1965 and subsequent work; or Torres Strait Islander Eddie Mabo
's part in the landmark native title
decision that bears his name. The voices of Cape York activist Noel Pearson; and academics Marcia Langton
and Mick Dodson
today loom large in national debates. Some Indigenous people who initially became famous in other spheres – for instance, poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal
– have used their celebrity to draw attention to Indigenous issues.
In health services, Kelvin Kong became the first Indigenous surgeon in 2006 and is an advocate of Indigenous health issues.
Aboriginal Australia has been represented in various sporting teams. Notable teams include the Indigenous All-Stars, Flying Boomerangs
and Indigenous Team of the Century
(Australian rules football
) and the Indigenous All Stars (rugby league
) . The first organised trip of Australian cricketers to travel overseas was principally made up of Aboriginal members embarked on a tour of England in 1868. Charles Lawrence
accompanied them as captain and coach.
Australia (continent)
Australia is the world's smallest continent, comprising the mainland of Australia and proximate islands including Tasmania, New Guinea, the Aru Islands and Raja Ampat Islands...
and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago.
The Torres Strait Islanders are indigenous to the Torres Strait
Torres Strait
The Torres Strait is a body of water which lies between Australia and the Melanesian island of New Guinea. It is approximately wide at its narrowest extent. To the south is Cape York Peninsula, the northernmost continental extremity of the Australian state of Queensland...
Islands, which are at the northern-most tip of Queensland near Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
. The term "Aboriginal" has traditionally been applied to indigenous inhabitants of mainland Australia, Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
, and some of the other adjacent islands.
The earliest definite human remains found to date are that of Mungo Man, which have been dated at about 40,000 years old, but the time of arrival of the ancestors of Indigenous Australians is a matter of debate among researchers, with estimates dating back as far as 125,000 years ago.
There is great diversity among different Indigenous communities and societies in Australia, each with its own unique mixture of cultures, customs and languages. In present day Australia these groups are further divided into local communities.
Although there were over 250–300 spoken languages with 600 dialects at the start of European settlement, fewer than 200 of these remain in use – and all but 20 are considered to be endangered. Aboriginal people today mostly speak English, with Aboriginal phrases and words being added to create Australian Aboriginal English
Australian Aboriginal English
Australian Aboriginal English is the name given to a dialect of Australian English used by a large section of the Indigenous Australian population. It is made up of a number of varieties which developed differently in different parts of Australia...
.
The population of Indigenous Australians at the time of permanent European settlement has been estimated at between 318,000 and 750,000, with the distribution being similar to that of the current Australian population, with the majority living in the south-east, centred along the Murray River
Murray River
The Murray River is Australia's longest river. At in length, the Murray rises in the Australian Alps, draining the western side of Australia's highest mountains and, for most of its length, meanders across Australia's inland plains, forming the border between New South Wales and Victoria as it...
.
Indigenous Australians
Aboriginal Australians
The word aboriginal was used in Australia to describe its Indigenous peoplesIndigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples are ethnic groups that are defined as indigenous according to one of the various definitions of the term, there is no universally accepted definition but most of which carry connotations of being the "original inhabitants" of a territory....
as early as 1789. It soon became capitalised and employed as the common name to refer to all Indigenous Australians.
The word has been in use in English since at least the 17th century, to mean "first or earliest known, indigenous". It comes from Latin, Aborigines, derived from ab (from) and origo (origin, beginning). Strictly speaking, Aborigine is the noun and Aboriginal the adjectival form; however the latter is often also employed to stand as a noun. Aboriginal(s) in this sense, i.e. as a noun, has acquired negative connotations in some sectors of the community, who regard it as insensitive, and even offensive.The more acceptable and correct expression is Aboriginal Australians or Aboriginal people, though even this is sometimes regarded as an expression to be avoided because of its historical associations with colonialism. Indigenous Australians has found increasing acceptance, particularly since the 1980s.
Regional groups
The broad term Aboriginal Australians includes many regional groups that often identify under names from local Indigenous languages. These include:- KooriKooriThe Koori are the indigenous Australians that traditionally occupied modern day New South Wales and Victoria....
(or Koorie) in New South WalesNew South WalesNew South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
and VictoriaVictoria (Australia)Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
(Victorian AboriginesVictorian AboriginesThe Indigenous Australians of Victoria, Australia occupied the land for tens of thousands of years prior to European settlement. According to Gary Presland Aborigines have lived in Victoria for about 40,000 years living a semi-nomadic existence of fishing, hunting and gathering, and farming...
) - NgunnawalNgunnawal peopleThe Ngunnawal people are the Indigenous Australian inhabitants whose traditional lands encompass much of the area now occupied by the city of Canberra, Australia and the surrounding Australian Capital Territory...
in the Australian Capital TerritoryAustralian Capital TerritoryThe Australian Capital Territory, often abbreviated ACT, is the capital territory of the Commonwealth of Australia and is the smallest self-governing internal territory...
and surrounding areas of New South Wales - Murri in Queensland and some parts of northern New South Wales
- Murrdi in Southwest and Central Queensland
- Nyungar in southern Western Australia
- YamatjiYamatjiYamatji is a name commonly used by Aboriginal people in the Murchison and Gascoyne regions of Western Australia to refer to themselves, and sometimes also to Aboriginal people generally, when speaking English. The word comes from the Wajarri language where it has the meaning 'man' or 'human being'...
in central Western Australia - WangaiWangaiWangai, Wongai or Wankai is the name given by themselves to the 26 Aboriginal groups of the Goldfields of Western Australia. It comes from the word meaning "Speaker"...
in the Western Australian GoldfieldsGold miningGold mining is the removal of gold from the ground. There are several techniques and processes by which gold may be extracted from the earth.-History:... - NungaNungaNunga is a term of self-reference for many of the Aboriginal peoples of southern South Australia.-Other names used by Australian Aboriginal people:There are a number of names from Aboriginal languages commonly used to identify groups based on geography:...
in southern South Australia - AnanguAnanguAnangu, more accurately "Aṉaŋu" or "Arnangu" is a word found in a number of eastern varieties of the Western Desert Language , an Australian Aboriginal language of the Pama–Nyungan family, spoken in the desert regions of western and central Australia. Before the arrival of non-Aboriginal people in...
in northern South Australia, and neighbouring parts of Western Australia and Northern TerritoryNorthern TerritoryThe Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions... - Yapa in western central Northern Territory
- YolnguYolnguThe Yolngu or Yolŋu are an Indigenous Australian people inhabiting north-eastern Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia. Yolngu means “person” in the Yolŋu languages.-Yolŋu law:...
in eastern Arnhem LandArnhem LandThe Arnhem Land Region is one of the five regions of the Northern Territory of Australia. It is located in the north-eastern corner of the territory and is around 500 km from the territory capital Darwin. The region has an area of 97,000 km² which also covers the area of Kakadu National...
(NT) - TiwiTiwi peopleThe Tiwi people are one of the many Indigenous groups of Australia. Nearly 2,500 Tiwi live in the Bathurst and Melville Islands, which make up the Tiwi Islands....
on Tiwi IslandsTiwi IslandsThe Tiwi Islands are part of Australia's Northern Territory, north of Darwin where the Arafura Sea joins the Timor Sea. They comprise Melville Island and Bathurst Island, with a combined area of ....
off Arnhem LandArnhem LandThe Arnhem Land Region is one of the five regions of the Northern Territory of Australia. It is located in the north-eastern corner of the territory and is around 500 km from the territory capital Darwin. The region has an area of 97,000 km² which also covers the area of Kakadu National...
. - AnindilyakwaEnindhilyagwa languageEnindhilyagwa is an Australian language isolate spoken by the Warnindhilyagwa people on Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentaria in northern Australia. A 2001 Australian government identified more than one thousand speakers of the language, although there are reports of as many as three thousand...
on Groote EylandtGroote EylandtGroote Eylandt is the largest island in the Gulf of Carpentaria in northeastern Australia. It is the homeland of, and is owned by, the Anindilyakwa people who speak the isolated Anindilyakwa language)....
off Arnhem LandArnhem LandThe Arnhem Land Region is one of the five regions of the Northern Territory of Australia. It is located in the north-eastern corner of the territory and is around 500 km from the territory capital Darwin. The region has an area of 97,000 km² which also covers the area of Kakadu National... - PalawahPalawahPalawah or Pallawah is a term of self-reference for Tasmanian Aborigines.-Other names used by Australian Aboriginal people:There are a number of names from Aboriginal languages commonly used to identify groups based on geography:...
(or Pallawah) in TasmaniaTasmaniaTasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
.
These larger groups may be further subdivided; for example, Anangu (meaning a person from Australia's central desert region) recognises localised subdivisions such as Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara, Ngaanyatjarra
Ngaanyatjarra
Ngaanyatjarra is an Indigenous Australian cultural group in the Western Desert, Central Australia.-Meaning and origin of the name:Ngaanya literally means 'this' and -tjarra means 'with/having' ; the compound term means 'those that use "ngaanya" to say "this"'...
, Luritja
Luritja
Luritja is a name used to refer to several dialects of the Indigenous Australian Western Desert Language, and thereby also to the people who speak these varieties, and their traditional lands.-Origin and meaning of Luritja:...
and Antikirinya. It is estimated that, prior to the arrival of British settlers, the population of Indigenous Australians was approximately 318,000–750,000 across the continent.
Torres Strait Islanders
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
, and speak a Papuan language. Accordingly, they are not generally included under the designation "Aboriginal Australians." This has been another factor in the promotion of the more inclusive term "Indigenous Australians".
Six percent of Indigenous Australians identify themselves fully as Torres Strait
Torres Strait
The Torres Strait is a body of water which lies between Australia and the Melanesian island of New Guinea. It is approximately wide at its narrowest extent. To the south is Cape York Peninsula, the northernmost continental extremity of the Australian state of Queensland...
Islanders. A further 4% of Indigenous Australians identify themselves as having both Torres Strait
Torres Strait
The Torres Strait is a body of water which lies between Australia and the Melanesian island of New Guinea. It is approximately wide at its narrowest extent. To the south is Cape York Peninsula, the northernmost continental extremity of the Australian state of Queensland...
Islander and Aboriginal heritage.
The Torres Strait Islands
Torres Strait Islands
The Torres Strait Islands are a group of at least 274 small islands which lie in Torres Strait, the waterway separating far northern continental Australia's Cape York Peninsula and the island of New Guinea but Torres Strait Island known and Recognize as Nyumaria.The islands are mostly part of...
comprise over 100 islands which were annexed by Queensland in 1879. Many Indigenous organisations incorporate the phrase "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander" to highlight the distinctiveness and importance of Torres Strait Islanders in Australia's Indigenous population.
Eddie Mabo
Eddie Mabo
Eddie Koiki Mabo was a Torres Strait Islander who is known for his role in campaigning for Indigenous land rights and for his role in a landmark decision of the High Court of Australia that overturned the legal fiction of terra nullius which characterised Australian law with regards to land and...
was from Mer or Murray Island in the Torres Strait, which the famous Mabo decision
Mabo v Queensland
Mabo v Queensland was a landmark High Court of Australia decision recognising native title in Australia for the first time...
of 1992 involved.
Black
The term "blacks" has often been applied to Indigenous Australians. This owes more to superficial physiognomyPhysiognomy
Physiognomy is the assessment of a person's character or personality from their outer appearance, especially the face...
than ethnology
Ethnology
Ethnology is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity.-Scientific discipline:Compared to ethnography, the study of single groups through direct...
, as it categorises Indigenous Australians among other black people
Black people
The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...
in Asia and Africa. In the 1970s, many Aboriginal activists, such as Gary Foley
Gary Foley
Gary Foley is an Australian Aboriginal Gumbainggir activist, academic, writer and actor . He is best known for his role in establishing the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra in 1972 and for establishing an Aboriginal Legal Service in Redfern in the 1970s...
proudly embraced the term "black", and writer Kevin Gilbert
Kevin Gilbert (author)
Kevin Gilbert was a 20th century Indigenous Australian activist, artist, poet, playwright and printmaker. He is also a past winner of the National Book Council prize for writers.- Life :...
's ground-breaking book from the time was entitled Living Black. The book included interviews with several members of the Aboriginal community including Robert Jabanungga
Robert Jabanungga
Robert Mellor Granites Jabanungga AKA Robert Kantilla, Robert Japanangka, Robert Japananga, Robert Jabanunga Kantilla was a TV actor, Aboriginal dancer and musician best known for playing the didgeridoo at many Canberra festivals as well as national and international events. Jabanungga Avenue in...
reflecting on contemporary Aboriginal culture.
Languages
There were more than 250 languages spoken by Indigenous Australians prior to the arrival of Europeans. Most of these are now either extinct or moribundLanguage death
In linguistics, language death is a process that affects speech communities where the level of linguistic competence that speakers possess of a given language variety is decreased, eventually resulting in no native and/or fluent speakers of the variety...
, with only about fifteen languages still being spoken by all age groups.
Linguists classify mainland Australian languages into one large group, the Pama–Nyungan languages. The rest are sometimes lumped under the term "non-Pama–Nyungan". The Pama–Nyungan languages comprise the majority, covering most of Australia, and are generally thought to be a family of related languages. In the north, stretching from the Western Kimberley
Kimberley region of Western Australia
The Kimberley is one of the nine regions of Western Australia. It is located in the northern part of Western Australia, bordered on the west by the Indian Ocean, on the north by the Timor Sea, on the south by the Great Sandy and Tanami Deserts, and on the east by the Northern Territory.The region...
to the Gulf of Carpentaria
Gulf of Carpentaria
The Gulf of Carpentaria is a large, shallow sea enclosed on three sides by northern Australia and bounded on the north by the Arafura Sea...
, are found a number of non-Pama–Nyungan groups of languages which have not been shown to be related to the Pama–Nyungan family nor to each other.
While it has sometimes proven difficult to work out familial relationships within the Pama–Nyungan language family, many Australian linguists feel there has been substantial success. Against this some linguists, such as R. M. W. Dixon
R. M. W. Dixon
Robert Malcolm Ward Dixon is a Professor of Linguistics at The Cairns Institute, James Cook University, Queensland, and formerly Director of the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.In 1996, Dixon and another linguist, Alexandra Aikhenvald,...
, suggest that the Pama–Nyungan group – and indeed the entire Australian linguistic area – is rather a sprachbund
Sprachbund
A Sprachbund – also known as a linguistic area, convergence area, diffusion area or language crossroads – is a group of languages that have become similar in some way because of geographical proximity and language contact. They may be genetically unrelated, or only distantly related...
, or group of languages having very long and intimate contact, rather than a genetic linguistic phylum.
It has been suggested that, given their long presence in Australia, Aboriginal languages form one specific sub-grouping. The position of Tasmanian languages is unknown, and it is also unknown whether they comprised one or more than one specific language family.
History
Arrival and occupation of Australia
The earliest anatomically modern human remains found in Australia (and outside of Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
) are those of Mungo Man which have been dated at 42,000 years old. Comparison of the mitochondrial DNA
Mitochondrial DNA
Mitochondrial DNA is the DNA located in organelles called mitochondria, structures within eukaryotic cells that convert the chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, adenosine triphosphate...
from the skeleton known as Lake Mungo 3 (LM3) with that of ancient and modern Aborigines has indicated that Mungo Man is not related to Australian Aborigines. The results indicate that Mungo Man was an extinct subspecies that diverged before the most recent common ancestor of contemporary humans. The DNA of LM3 only survives in modern humans as a segment found in Chromosome 11
Chromosome 11 (human)
thumb|right|Chromosome 11 ChartChromosome 11 is one of the 23 pairs of chromosomes in humans. Humans normally have two copies of this chromosome. Chromosome 11 spans about 134.5 million base pairs and represents between 4 and 4.5 percent of the total DNA in cells...
. These findings have been criticized as possibly being due to posthumous modification of the DNA.
It is generally believed that Aboriginal people are the descendants of a single migration into the continent, split from the first modern human populations to leave Africa, 64,000 to 75,000 years ago, although a minority propose that there were three waves of migration, most likely island hopping by boat during periods of low sea levels (see Prehistory of Australia
Prehistory of Australia
The prehistory of Australia is the period between the first human habitation of the Australian continent and the first definitive sighting of Australia by Europeans in 1606, which may be taken as the beginning of the recent history of Australia...
). Aboriginal people seem to have lived a long time in the same environment as the now extinct Australian megafauna
Australian megafauna
Australian megafauna are a number of large animal species in Australia, often defined as species with body mass estimates of greater than 30 kilograms, or equal to or greater than 30% greater body mass than their closest living relatives...
.
Aboriginal people mainly lived as hunter-gatherer
Hunter-gatherer
A hunter-gatherer or forage society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were...
s. They hunted and foraged for food from the land. Aboriginal society was relatively mobile, or semi-nomadic, moving due to the changing food availability found across different areas as seasons changed. The mode of life and material cultures varied greatly from region to region. The greatest population density was to be found in the southern and eastern regions of the continent, the River Murray valley in particular.
It has been estimated that at the time of first European contact, the absolute minimum pre-1788 population was 315,000, while recent archaeological finds suggest that a population of 750,000 could have been sustained, with some academics estimating a population of a million people was possible. The population was split into 250 individual nations, many of which were in alliance with one another, and within each nation there existed several clans, from as few as 5 or 6 to as many as 30 or 40 members. Each nation had its own language and a few had several.
Since British settlement
British colonisation of Australia began with the arrival of the First FleetFirst Fleet
The First Fleet is the name given to the eleven ships which sailed from Great Britain on 13 May 1787 with about 1,487 people, including 778 convicts , to establish the first European colony in Australia, in the region which Captain Cook had named New South Wales. The fleet was led by Captain ...
in Botany Bay
Botany Bay
Botany Bay is a bay in Sydney, New South Wales, a few kilometres south of the Sydney central business district. The Cooks River and the Georges River are the two major tributaries that flow into the bay...
in 1788.
Controversy has arisen over one immediate consequence of British settlement, i.e. waves of European epidemic diseases such as measles
Measles
Measles, also known as rubeola or morbilli, is an infection of the respiratory system caused by a virus, specifically a paramyxovirus of the genus Morbillivirus. Morbilliviruses, like other paramyxoviruses, are enveloped, single-stranded, negative-sense RNA viruses...
, smallpox
Smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...
and tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
. Scholars such as Noel Butlin have attributed the 1789 outbreak of smallpox to European settlers. This has been contested on the basis that Macassan
Makassar
Makassar, is the provincial capital of South Sulawesi, Indonesia, and the largest city on Sulawesi Island. From 1971 to 1999, the city was named Ujung Pandang, after a precolonial fort in the city, and the two names are often used interchangeably...
fishermen from South Sulawesi
South Sulawesi
South Sulawesi is a province of Indonesia, located on the western southern peninsula of Sulawesi Island. The province is bordered by Central Sulawesi province to the north, South East Sulawesi province to the east and West Sulawesi province to the west...
and nearby islands may have introduced smallpox to Australia prior to European settlement. For some time, a smallpox epidemic which some writers such as Judy Campbell associate with the Macassans, has also been attributed to white settlers. In the 19th century, smallpox was the principal cause of Aboriginal deaths. Smallpox is estimated to have killed up to 90% of the local Darug people
Darug people
The Darug people are a language group of Indigenous Australians, who are traditional custodians of much of what is modern day Sydney. There is some dispute about the extent of the Darug nation. Some historians believe the coastal Eora people were a separate tribe to the Darug...
in 1789.
However after 2006, reviews by Christopher Warren (2007) and Craig Mear (2008), have shown that the 1789 outbreak of smallpox was most likely caused by British supplies of virus imported with the First Fleet
First Fleet
The First Fleet is the name given to the eleven ships which sailed from Great Britain on 13 May 1787 with about 1,487 people, including 778 convicts , to establish the first European colony in Australia, in the region which Captain Cook had named New South Wales. The fleet was led by Captain ...
. This area is not yet settled with recent contributions in the ABC Radio Program Okham's Razor and in the populist magazine Quadrant continuing to probe the circumstances.
In 1834 there occurred the first recorded use of Aboriginal tracker
Aboriginal tracker
In the years following British settlement in Australia, aboriginal trackers or black trackers, as they became known, were enlisted by settlers to assist them in navigating their way through the Australian landscape...
s, who proved very adept at navigating their way through the Australian landscape and finding people.
During the 1860s, Tasmanian Aboriginal skulls
Human skull
The human skull is a bony structure, skeleton, that is in the human head and which supports the structures of the face and forms a cavity for the brain.In humans, the adult skull is normally made up of 22 bones...
were particularly sought internationally for studies into craniofacial anthropometry. Truganini
Truganini
Trugernanner , often referred to as Truganini, was a woman widely considered to be the last "full blood" Palawa ....
, the last Tasmanian Aborigine, had her skeleton exhumed within two years of her death in 1876 by the Royal Society of Tasmania
Royal Society of Tasmania
The Royal Society of Tasmania was formed in 1844.The RST was the first Royal Society outside the United Kingdom. It started as the "Tasmanian Society" formed by Sir John Franklin assisted by Ronald Campbell Gunn....
, and was later placed on display. Campaigns continue to have Aboriginal body parts returned to Australia for burial.
In 1868, a group of mostly Aboriginal cricketers toured England, becoming the first Australian cricket team to travel overseas.
20th and 21st centuries
By 1900 the recorded Indigenous population of Australia had declined to approximately 93,000 although this was only a partial count as both mainstream and tribal Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders were poorly covered with desert Aboriginal peoples not counted at all until the 1930s. During the first half of the 20th century, many Indigenous Australians worked as stockmen on sheep stationSheep station
A sheep station is a large property in Australia or New Zealand whose main activity is the raising of sheep for their wool and meat. In Australia, sheep stations are usually in the south-east or south-west of the country. In New Zealand the Merinos are usually in the high country of the South...
s and cattle station
Cattle station
Cattle station is an Australian term for a large farm , whose main activity is the rearing of cattle. In Australia, the owner of a cattle station is called a grazier...
s.
Although, as British subjects, all Indigenous Australians were nominally entitled to vote, generally only those who "merged" into mainstream society did so. Only Western Australia and Queensland specifically excluded Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders from the electoral rolls. Despite the Commonwealth Franchise Act of 1902 that excluded "Aboriginal natives of Australia, Asia, Africa and Pacific Islands except New Zealand" from voting unless they were on the roll before 1901, South Australia insisted that all voters enfranchised within its borders would remain eligible to vote in the Commonwealth and Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders continued to be added to their rolls albeit haphazardly.
Despite efforts to bar their enlistment, around 500 Indigenous Australians fought for Australia in the First World War.
1934 saw the first appeal to the High Court
High Court of Australia
The High Court of Australia is the supreme court in the Australian court hierarchy and the final court of appeal in Australia. It has both original and appellate jurisdiction, has the power of judicial review over laws passed by the Parliament of Australia and the parliaments of the States, and...
by an Aboriginal Australian and it succeeded. Dhakiyarr was found to have been wrongly convicted of the murder of a white policeman, for which he had been sentenced to death; the case focused national attention on Aboriginal rights
Indigenous rights
Indigenous rights are those rights that exist in recognition of the specific condition of the indigenous peoples. This includes not only the most basic human rights of physical survival and integrity, but also the preservation of their land, language, religion and other elements of cultural...
issues. Dhakiyarr disappeared upon release. In 1938, the 150th anniversary of the arrival of British First Fleet
First Fleet
The First Fleet is the name given to the eleven ships which sailed from Great Britain on 13 May 1787 with about 1,487 people, including 778 convicts , to establish the first European colony in Australia, in the region which Captain Cook had named New South Wales. The fleet was led by Captain ...
was marked as a Day of Mourning
Day of Mourning
The Day of Mourning was a day of protest held by Aboriginal Australians on 26 January 1938, the sesquicentenary of British colonisation of Australia...
and Protest at an Aboriginal meeting in Sydney.
Hundreds of Indigenous Australians served in the Australian armed forces during World War Two – including with the Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion
Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion
The Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion was an infantry battalion of the Australian Army during the Second World War. Initially raised as a company-sized unit in 1941, it was expanded to a full battalion in 1942 and was unique in that almost all of its enlisted men were Torres Strait Islanders,...
and The Northern Territory Special Reconnaissance Unit, which were established to guard Australia's North
Northern Australia
The term northern Australia is generally known to include two State and Territories, being Queensland and the Northern Territory . The part of Western Australia north of latitude 26° south—a definition widely used in law and State government policy—is also usually included...
against the threat of Japanese invasion.
The 1960s was a pivotal decade in the assertion of Aboriginal rights and a time of growing collaboration between Aboriginal activists and white Australian activists. In 1962, Commonwealth legislation specifically gave Aboriginal people the right to vote in Commonwealth elections. A group of University of Sydney
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...
students organised a bus tour of western and coastal New South Wales towns in 1965 to raise awareness of the state of Aboriginal health and living conditions. This Freedom Ride
Freedom Ride (Australia)
The Freedom Ride of 1964 and 1965 was a significant event in the history of civil rights for Indigenous Australians.Inspired by the Freedom Riders of the American Civil Rights Movement, students from Sydney University formed a group called the Student Action for Aboriginals, led by Charles Perkins...
also aimed to highlight the social discrimination faced by Aboriginal people and encourage Aboriginals themselves to resist discrimination. In 1966, Vincent Lingiari
Vincent Lingiari
Vincent Lingiarri, AM , was an Aboriginal rights activist who was appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia for his services to the Aboriginal people. Lingiarri was a member of the Gurindji people. In Vincent's earlier life he worked as a stockman at Wave Hill Cattle Station. He also played...
led a famous walk-off of Indigenous employees of Wave Hill Station in protest against poor pay and conditions (later the subject of the Paul Kelly song "From Little Things Big Things Grow
From Little Things Big Things Grow
"From Little Things Big Things Grow" is a rock protest song recorded by Australian artists Paul Kelly & The Messengers on their 1991 album Comedy, and by Kev Carmody on his 1993 album Bloodlines. It was released as a CD single by Carmody and Kelly in 1993 but failed to chart...
"). The landmark 1967 referendum
Australian referendum, 1967 (Aboriginals)
The referendum of 27 May 1967 approved two amendments to the Australian constitution relating to Indigenous Australians. Technically it was a vote on the Constitution Alteration 1967, which became law on 10 August 1967 following the results of the referendum...
called by Prime Minister Harold Holt
Harold Holt
Harold Edward Holt, CH was an Australian politician and the 17th Prime Minister of Australia.His term as Prime Minister was brought to an early and dramatic end in December 1967 when he disappeared while swimming at Cheviot Beach near Portsea, Victoria, and was presumed drowned.Holt spent 32 years...
allowed the Commonwealth to make laws with respect to Aboriginal people, and for Aboriginal people to be included when the country does a count to determine electoral representation. The referendum passed with 90.77% voter support.
In the controversial 1971 Gove land rights case
Gove land rights case
Milirrpum v Nabalco Pty Ltd, 17 FLR 141 , was the first litigation on native title in Australia. The decision of Justice Richard Blackburn ruled against the claimants on a number of issues of law and fact, rejecting the doctrine of aboriginal title in favor of terra nullius.Although Milirrpum was...
, Justice Blackburn ruled that Australia had been terra nullius
Terra nullius
Terra nullius is a Latin expression deriving from Roman law meaning "land belonging to no one" , which is used in international law to describe territory which has never been subject to the sovereignty of any state, or over which any prior sovereign has expressly or implicitly relinquished...
before British settlement, and that no concept of native title
Native title
Native title is the Australian version of the common law doctrine of aboriginal title.Native title is "the recognition by Australian law that some Indigenous people have rights and interests to their land that come from their traditional laws and customs"...
existed in Australian law. In 1971, Neville Bonner
Neville Bonner
Neville Thomas Bonner AO was an Australian politician, and the first indigenous Australian to become a member of the Parliament of Australia...
joined the Australian Senate
Australian Senate
The Senate is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the House of Representatives. Senators are popularly elected under a system of proportional representation. Senators are elected for a term that is usually six years; after a double dissolution, however,...
as a Senator for Queensland for the Liberal Party
Liberal Party of Australia
The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...
, becoming the first Indigenous Australian in the Federal Parliament. A year later, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy
Aboriginal Tent Embassy
The Aboriginal Tent Embassy is a controversial semi-permanent assemblage claiming to represent the political rights of Australian Aborigines. It is made of a large group of activists, signs, and tents that reside on the lawn of Old Parliament House in Canberra, the Australian capital...
was established on the steps of Parliament House
Politics of Australia
The Politics of Australia take place within the framework of a parliamentary democracy, with electoral procedures appropriate to a two-party system. Australia is governed as a federation and as a constitutional monarchy, with an adversarial legislature based upon the Westminster system...
in Canberra
Canberra
Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...
. In 1976, Sir Douglas Nicholls
Douglas Nicholls
Sir Douglas Ralph "Doug" Nicholls KCVO, OBE, was a prominent Aboriginal Australian from the Yorta Yorta people. He was a professional athlete, Churches of Christ pastor and church planter, ceremonial officer and a pioneering campaigner for reconciliation.Nicholls was the first Aboriginal person to...
was appointed as the 28th Governor of South Australia, the first Aboriginal person appointed to vice-regal office.
In sport Evonne Goolagong Cawley became the world number-one ranked tennis player in 1971 and won 14 Grand Slam titles during her career. In 1973 Arthur Beetson
Arthur Beetson
Arthur Henry "Artie" Beetson, OAM , was an Australian rugby league footballer and coach. He represented Australia and Queensland from 1964 to 1981. His position was at prop. Beetson became the first Indigenous Australian to captain his country in any sport. and is frequently cited as the best...
became the first Indigenous Australian to captain his country in any sport when he first led the Australian National Rugby League team, the Kangaroos. In 1982, Mark Ella
Mark Ella
Mark Gordon Ella is an Indigenous Australian former rugby union player, often considered as one of his country's all-time greats in that sport. In a relatively short career , Mark Ella established himself as one of the all-time greats in world rugby union...
became Captain of the Australian National Rugby Union
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
Team, the Wallabies. In 1984, a group of
Pintupi Nine
The Pintupi Nine is a group of nine Pintupi people who lived a traditional hunter-gatherer desert-dwelling life in Australia's Gibson Desert until 1984, when they made contact with their relatives near Kiwirrkurra. They are sometimes also referred to as "the lost tribe".They are believed to be the...
Pintupi
Pintupi
Pintupi refers to an Australian Aboriginal group who are part of the Western Desert cultural group and whose homeland is in the area west of Lake MacDonald and Lake Mackay in Western Australia. These people moved into the Aboriginal communities of Papunya and Haasts Bluff in the west of the...
people who were living a traditional hunter-gatherer
Hunter-gatherer
A hunter-gatherer or forage society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were...
desert-dwelling life were tracked down in the Gibson Desert
Gibson Desert
The Gibson Desert covers a large dry area in the state of Western Australia and is still largely in an almost "pristine" state. It is about in size, making it the 5th largest desert in Australia, after the Great Sandy, Great Victoria, Tanami and Simpson deserts.-Location and description:The Gibson...
in Western Australia and brought in to a settlement. They are believed to be the last uncontacted tribe
Uncontacted peoples
Uncontacted people, also referred to as isolated people or lost tribes, are communities who live, or have lived, either by choice or by circumstance, without significant contact with globalized civilisation....
in Australia. In 1985, the Australian government returned ownership of Uluru
Uluru
Uluru , also known as Ayers Rock, is a large sandstone rock formation in the southern part of the Northern Territory, central Australia. It lies south west of the nearest large town, Alice Springs; by road. Kata Tjuta and Uluru are the two major features of the Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa National Park....
(formerly known as Ayers Rock) to the local Pitjantjatjara Aboriginal people.
In 1992, the High Court of Australia
High Court of Australia
The High Court of Australia is the supreme court in the Australian court hierarchy and the final court of appeal in Australia. It has both original and appellate jurisdiction, has the power of judicial review over laws passed by the Parliament of Australia and the parliaments of the States, and...
handed down its decision in the Mabo Case, declaring the previous legal concept of terra nullius to be invalid. A Constitutional Convention which selected a Republican model for the Referendum in 1998 included just six Indigenous participants, leading Monarchist delegate Neville Bonner
Neville Bonner
Neville Thomas Bonner AO was an Australian politician, and the first indigenous Australian to become a member of the Parliament of Australia...
to end his contribution to the Convention with his Jagera Tribal Sorry Chant in sadness at the low number of Indigenous representatives. The Republican Model, as well as a proposal for a new Constitutional Preamble which would have included the "honouring" of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders, was put to referendum
Australian referendum, 1967 (Aboriginals)
The referendum of 27 May 1967 approved two amendments to the Australian constitution relating to Indigenous Australians. Technically it was a vote on the Constitution Alteration 1967, which became law on 10 August 1967 following the results of the referendum...
but did not succeed.
In 1999 the Australian Parliament passed a Motion of Reconciliation
Motion of Reconciliation
The Motion of Reconciliation was a motion to the Australian Parliament introduced on 26 August 1999. Drafted by Prime Minister John Howard in consulation with Aboriginal Senator Aden Ridgeway , it dedicated the Parliament to the "cause of reconciliation" and recognised historic maltreatment of...
drafted by Prime Minister John Howard
John Howard
John Winston Howard AC, SSI, was the 25th Prime Minister of Australia, from 11 March 1996 to 3 December 2007. He was the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies....
in consultation with Aboriginal Senator Aden Ridgeway
Aden Ridgeway
Aden Derek Ridgeway , Australian politician, was a member of the Australian Senate for New South Wales, from 1999 to 2005, representing the Australian Democrats. During his term he was the only Aboriginal member of the Australian Parliament.-Early history:Ridgeway was born in Macksville, New South...
naming mistreatment of Indigenous Australians as the most "blemished chapter in our national history".
In 2000, Aboriginal sprinter Cathy Freeman
Cathy Freeman
Catherine Astrid Salome "Cathy" Freeman, OAM is former Australian sprinter, who specialised in the 400 metres event. She became the Olympic champion for the women's 400 metres at the 2000 Summer Olympics, at which she lit the Olympic Flame.Freeman was the first ever Aboriginal...
lit the Olympic flame
Olympic Flame
The Olympic Flame or Olympic Torch is a symbol of the Olympic Games. Commemorating the theft of fire from the Greek god Zeus by Prometheus, its origins lie in ancient Greece, where a fire was kept burning throughout the celebration of the ancient Olympics. The fire was reintroduced at the 1928...
at the opening ceremony of the 2000 Summer Olympics
2000 Summer Olympics
The Sydney 2000 Summer Olympic Games or the Millennium Games/Games of the New Millennium, officially known as the Games of the XXVII Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was celebrated between 15 September and 1 October 2000 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...
in Sydney. In 2001, the Federal Government dedicated Reconciliation Place
Reconciliation Place
Reconciliation Place is an urban landscape design in the Parliamentary Triangle Canberra, Australia, commenced in 2001 as a monument to reconciliation between Australia’s Indigenous people and settler population....
in Canberra.
In 2004, the Australian Government abolished the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission was the Australian Government body through which Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders were formally involved in the processes of government affecting their lives...
amidst allegations of corruption.
In 2007, Prime Minister John Howard
John Howard
John Winston Howard AC, SSI, was the 25th Prime Minister of Australia, from 11 March 1996 to 3 December 2007. He was the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies....
and Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough
Mal Brough
Malcolm Thomas "Mal" Brough is a former Australian politician and Liberal member of the Australian House of Representatives from March 1996 to November 2007, representing the Division of Longman, Queensland...
launched the Northern Territory National Emergency Response
Northern Territory National Emergency Response
The Northern Territory National Emergency Response was a package of changes to welfare provision, law enforcement, land tenure and other measures, introduced by the Australian federal government under John Howard in 2007 to address claims of rampant child sexual abuse and neglect in Northern...
, in response to the Little Children are Sacred
Little Children are Sacred
Little Children are Sacred is the report of a Board of Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse commissioned by the government of the Northern Territory, Australia, was publicly released on 15 June 2007...
Report into allegations of child abuse among indigenous communities. The government banned alcohol in prescribed communities in the Territory; quarantined a percentage of welfare payments for essential goods purchasing; dispatched additional police and medical personnel to the region; and suspended the permit system for access to indigenous communities. In 2010, a United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
Special Rapporteur, found the Emergency Response to be racially discriminatory, and said that aspects of it represented a limitation on "individual autonomy". Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin
Jenny Macklin
Jennifer Louise Macklin , is an Australian politician. She is Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs in the Gillard Ministry...
disagreed, saying that her duty to protect the rights of children was paramount; the Opposition questioned whether Anaya had adequately consulted; and indigenous leaders like Warren Mundine
Warren Mundine
Warren Stephen Mundine is an Australian Aboriginal leader and the former National President of the Australian Labor Party . He is a member of the Bundjalung people....
and Bess Price
Bess Price
Bess Nungarrayi Price is an Australian indigenous activist and chair of the Northern Territory Indigenous Affairs Advisory Council.Born in Yuendumu, her first language is Warlpiri. She also knows Luritja, Western Arrernte and Anmatyerre...
criticised the UN findings. The Intervention has continued under the Rudd/Gillard Labor Government.
On 13 February 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
Kevin Rudd
Kevin Michael Rudd is an Australian politician who was the 26th Prime Minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010. He has been Minister for Foreign Affairs since 2010...
issued a public apology to members of the Stolen Generations on behalf of the Australian Government.
Ken Wyatt
Ken Wyatt
Kenneth George Wyatt AM is a member of the Australian House of Representatives representing the electoral division of Hasluck in Western Australia for the Liberal Party of Australia...
of the Liberal Party
Liberal Party of Australia
The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...
became the first indigenous Australian elected to the Australian House of Representatives
Australian House of Representatives
The House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the Parliament of Australia; it is the lower house; the upper house is the Senate. Members of Parliament serve for terms of approximately three years....
in the Australian Federal Election of 2010.
Culture
There are a large number of tribal divisions and language groups in Aboriginal Australia, and, correspondingly, a wide variety of diversity exists within cultural practices. However, there are some similarities between cultures.Belief systems
Religious demography among Indigenous Australians is not conclusive because the methodology of the census is not always well-suited to obtaining accurate information on Aboriginal people. The 1996 census reported that almost 72 percent of Aboriginals practised some form of Christianity; 16 percent listed no religion. The 2001 census contained no comparable updated data. There has also been an increase in the number of followers of IslamIslam in Australia
Islam in Australia is a small minority religious grouping, but fourth largest after all forms of Christianity , irreligion and Buddhism , excluding 11.2% who failed to answer at the last census...
among the Indigenous Australian community. This growing community includes high-profile members such as the boxer Anthony Mundine
Anthony Mundine
Anthony Mundine is an Australian professional boxer and former rugby league footballer.He is the current interim WBA Light Middleweight Champion boxer, former two-time WBA Super Middleweight Champion, former IBO Middleweight Champion and New South Wales State of Origin representative footballer....
.
Aboriginal people traditionally adhered to animist spiritual frameworks. Within Aboriginal belief systems, a formative epoch known as 'the Dreamtime
Dreamtime
In the animist framework of Australian Aboriginal mythology, The Dreaming is a sacred era in which ancestral Totemic Spirit Beings formed The Creation.-The Dreaming of the Aboriginal times:...
' stretches back into the distant past when the creator ancestors known as the First Peoples travelled across the land, creating and naming as they went. Indigenous Australia's oral tradition
Oral tradition
Oral tradition and oral lore is cultural material and traditions transmitted orally from one generation to another. The messages or testimony are verbally transmitted in speech or song and may take the form, for example, of folktales, sayings, ballads, songs, or chants...
and religious values are based upon reverence for the land and a belief in this Dreamtime
Dreamtime
In the animist framework of Australian Aboriginal mythology, The Dreaming is a sacred era in which ancestral Totemic Spirit Beings formed The Creation.-The Dreaming of the Aboriginal times:...
.
The Dreaming is at once both the ancient time of creation and the present-day reality of Dreaming. There were a great many different groups, each with its own individual culture, belief structure, and language. These cultures overlapped to a greater or lesser extent, and evolved over time. Major ancestral spirits include the Rainbow Serpent
Rainbow Serpent
The Rainbow Serpent is a common motif in the art and mythology of Aboriginal Australia. It is named for the snake-like meandering of water across a landscape and the colour spectrum caused when sunlight strikes water at an appropriate angle relative to the observer.The Rainbow Serpent is seen as...
, Baiame
Baiame
In Australian Aboriginal mythology Baiame was the Creator God and Sky Father in the dreaming of several language groups , of Indigenous Australians of South-East Australia....
, Dirawong
Dirawong
In the mythology of Bundjalung Nation , the Dirawong is the Creator Being that taught the people the Aboriginal astronomy, body designs, bullroarers, bush cosmetics, bush foods, bush medicines, cave paintings and designs cut into trees, ceremonial headgear, ceremonial poles, cultural...
and Bunjil
Bunjil
In Australian Aboriginal mythology, Bunjil the eagle is a creator deity, culture hero and ancestral being. In the Kulin nation in central Victoria he was regarded as one of two moiety ancestors, the other being the trickster Crow. Bunjil has two wives and a son, Binbeal the rainbow. His brother...
.
Music
The various Indigenous Australian communities developed unique musical instruments and folk styles. The didgeridooDidgeridoo
The didgeridoo is a wind instrument developed by Indigenous Australians of northern Australia around 1,500 years ago and still in widespread usage today both in Australia and around the world. It is sometimes described as a natural wooden trumpet or "drone pipe"...
, which is widely thought to be a stereotypical instrument of Aboriginal people, was traditionally played by people of only the eastern Kimberley region and Arnhem Land
Arnhem Land
The Arnhem Land Region is one of the five regions of the Northern Territory of Australia. It is located in the north-eastern corner of the territory and is around 500 km from the territory capital Darwin. The region has an area of 97,000 km² which also covers the area of Kakadu National...
(such as the Yolngu), and then by only the men. Clapping sticks are probably the more ubiquitous musical instrument, especially because they help maintain rhythm for songs.
Contemporary Australian aboriginal music is predominantly of the country music
Australian country music
Australian country music is a part of the music of Australia. There is a broad range of styles, from bluegrass, to yodelling to folk to the more popular. The genre has been influenced by Celtic and English folk music, by the traditions of Australian bush balladeers, as well as by popular American...
genre. Most Indigenous radio stations – particularly in metropolitan areas – serve a double purpose as the local country-music station. More recently, Indigenous Australian musicians have branched into rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
, hip hop
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
and reggae
Reggae
Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...
. One of the most well known modern bands is Yothu Yindi
Yothu Yindi
Yothu Yindi are an Australian band with Aboriginal and balanda members formed in 1986. Aboriginal members come from Yolngu homelands near Yirrkala on the Gove Peninsula in Northern Territory's Arnhem Land...
playing in a style which has been called Aboriginal rock
Aboriginal rock
Aboriginal rock refers to a style of music which mixes rock music with the instrumentation and singing styles of Aboriginal people. Two countries with prominent Aboriginal rock scenes are Australia and Canada.-Australia:...
. Another popular band was the Warumpi Band
Warumpi Band
The Warumpi Band is an Australian band from the bush, coming from Papunya, Northern Territory, Australia.The band was formed in 1980 by Neil Murray, a Victorian "whitefella" working in the region as a schoolteacher and labourer, George Burarrwanga, from Elcho Island, and local boys Gordon and...
formed by Neil Murray
Neil Murray (Australian musician)
Neil Murray is an Australian musician and writer. He was a founding member of the Warumpi Band that formed in the early 1980s, the first major Aboriginal rock group and influential Aboriginal rock band.-Biography:...
and charismatic frontman, George Burarrwanga. In 1986, Midnight Oil
Midnight Oil
Midnight Oil , were an Australian rock band from Sydney originally performing as Farm from 1972 with drummer Rob Hirst, bass guitarist Andrew James and keyboard player/lead guitarist Jim Moginie...
and the Warumpi Band embarked on the "Blackfella/Whitefella Tour".
Amongst young Australian Aboriginal peoples, African-American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
and Aboriginal hip hop
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
music and clothing is popular. Aboriginal boxing champion and former rugby league player Anthony Mundine
Anthony Mundine
Anthony Mundine is an Australian professional boxer and former rugby league footballer.He is the current interim WBA Light Middleweight Champion boxer, former two-time WBA Super Middleweight Champion, former IBO Middleweight Champion and New South Wales State of Origin representative footballer....
identified US rapper Tupac Shakur
Tupac Shakur
Tupac Amaru Shakur , known by his stage names 2Pac and Makaveli, was an American rapper and actor. Shakur has sold over 75 million albums worldwide as of 2007, making him one of the best-selling music artists in the world...
as a personal inspiration, after Mundine's release of his 2007 single, Platinum Ryder.
Listen to an excerpt of Indigenous tribal music from the Yirrkala district in far north-east Arnhem Land, recorded by AP Elkin on australianscreen online.
In 2000 Christine Anu sang the song "My Island Home" at the Sydney 2000 Olympics Closing Ceremony.
Art
Australia has a tradition of Aboriginal art which is thousands of years old, the best known forms being rock art and bark painting
Bark painting
Bark painting is an Australian Aboriginal art form, involving painting on the interior of a strip of tree bark. This is a continuing form of artistic expression in Arnhem Land and other regions in the Top End of Australia including parts of the Kimberley region of Western Australia...
. Evidence of Aboriginal art in Australia can be traced back at least 30,000 years. Examples of ancient Aboriginal rock artworks can be found throughout the continent – notably in national parks such as those of the UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
listed sites at Uluru
Uluru
Uluru , also known as Ayers Rock, is a large sandstone rock formation in the southern part of the Northern Territory, central Australia. It lies south west of the nearest large town, Alice Springs; by road. Kata Tjuta and Uluru are the two major features of the Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa National Park....
and Kakadu National Park
Kakadu National Park
Kakadu National Park is in the Northern Territory of Australia, 171 km southeast of Darwin.Kakadu National Park is located within the Alligator Rivers Region of the Northern Territory of Australia. It covers an area of , extending nearly 200 kilometres from north to south and over 100 kilometres...
in the Northern Territory, but also within protected parks in urban areas such as at Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park
Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park
Ku-ring-gai Chase is a national park in New South Wales, Australia, 25 km north of Sydney located largely within the Ku-ring-gai, Hornsby, Warringah and Pittwater municipal areas. Ku-ring-gai Chase is also officially classed as a suburb by the Geographical Names Board of New South Wales...
in Sydney. The Sydney rock engravings
Sydney rock engravings
Sydney rock engravings are a form of Australian Aboriginal Rock Art consisting of carefully drawn images of people, animals, or symbols, in the sandstone around Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...
are approximately 5000 to 200 years old. Murujuga
Murujuga
Murujuga , is a peninsula often known as Burrup Peninsula in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, adjoining the Dampier Archipelago and near the town of Dampier...
in Western Australia has the Friends of Australian Rock Art have advocated its preservation, and the numerous engravings there were heritage listed in 2007.
Lascaux
Lascaux is the setting of a complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its Paleolithic cave paintings. The original caves are located near the village of Montignac, in the department of Dordogne. They contain some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art. These paintings are estimated to be...
and Altamira in Europe, and Aboriginal art is believed to be the oldest continuing tradition of art in the world. There are three major regional styles: the geometric style found in Central Australia, Tasmania, the Kimberley and Victoria known for its concentric circles, arcs and dots; the simple figurative style found in Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
and the complex figurative style found in Arnhem Land which includes X-Ray art. These designs generally carry significance linked to the spirituality of the Dreamtime
Dreamtime
In the animist framework of Australian Aboriginal mythology, The Dreaming is a sacred era in which ancestral Totemic Spirit Beings formed The Creation.-The Dreaming of the Aboriginal times:...
. Paintings were usually created in earthy colours, from paint made from ochre. Such ochres were also used to paint their bodies for ceremonial purposes.
Modern Aboriginal artists continue the tradition, using modern materials in their artworks. Several styles of Aboriginal art have developed in modern times, including the watercolour paintings of the Hermannsburg School
Hermannsburg School
The Hermannsburg School is an art movement, or art style, which began at the Hermannsburg Mission in the 1930s. The most well known artist of the style is Albert Namatjira...
, and the acrylic Papunya Tula
Papunya Tula
Papunya Tula, or Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd, is an artist cooperative formed in 1972 that is owned and operated by Aboriginal people from the Western Desert of Australia. The group is known for its innovative work with the Western Desert Art Movement, popularly referred to as "dot painting"...
"dot art" movement. William Barak
William Barak
William Barak , was the last traditional ngurungaeta of the Wurundjeri-willam clan, based around the area of present-day Melbourne, Australia...
(c.1824–1903) was one of the last traditionally educated of the Wurundjeri
Wurundjeri
The Wurundjeri are a people of the Indigenous Australian nation of the Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin alliance, who occupy the Birrarung Valley, its tributaries and the present location of Melbourne, Australia...
-willam, people who come from the district now incorporating the city of Melbourne. He remains notable for his artworks which recorded traditional Aboriginal ways for the education of Westerners (which remain on permanent exhibition at the Ian Potter Centre
Ian Potter Centre
The Ian Potter Centre houses the Australian part of the art collection of the National Gallery of Victoria , and is located at Federation Square in Melbourne, Australia...
of the National Gallery of Victoria
National Gallery of Victoria
The National Gallery of Victoria is an art gallery and museum in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is the oldest and the largest public art gallery in Australia. Since December 2003, NGV has operated across two sites...
and at the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery
Ballarat Fine Art Gallery
Art Gallery of Ballarat is the oldest and largest regional art gallery in Australia. Established in 1884 as the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery by the citizens of Ballarat both the building and part of its collection is listed on the Victorian Heritage Registerand by the National Trust of Victoria.The...
. Margaret Preston
Margaret Preston
Margaret Preston was a well-known Australian artist. She was highly influential during the 1920s to 1940s for her modernist works as a painter and printmaker and for introducing Aboriginal motifs into contemporary art.-Early life:...
(1875–1963) was among the early non-indigenous painters to incorporate Aboriginal influences in her works. Albert Namatjira
Albert Namatjira
Albert Namatjira , born Elea Namatjira, was an Australian artist. He was a Western Arrernte man, an Indigenous Australian of the Western MacDonnell Ranges area...
(1902–1959) is one of the most famous Australian artists and an Arrernte
Arrernte people
The Arrernte people , known in English as the Aranda or Arunta, are those Indigenous Australians who are the original custodians of Arrernte lands in the central area of Australia around Mparntwe or Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. The Arrernte tribe has lived there for more than 20,000 years...
man. His landscapes inspired the Hermannsburg School
Hermannsburg School
The Hermannsburg School is an art movement, or art style, which began at the Hermannsburg Mission in the 1930s. The most well known artist of the style is Albert Namatjira...
of art. The works of Elizabeth Durack
Elizabeth Durack
Elizabeth Durack Clancy CMG, OBE was a Western Australian artist and writer.-Early life:Born in the Perth suburb of Claremont on 6 July 1915, she was a daughter of noted Kimberley pioneer, Michael Patrick Durack and his wife, Bessie Johnstone Durack. She was the younger sister of writer and...
are notable for their fusion of Western and indigenous influences. Since the 1970s, indigenous artists have employed the use of acrylic paints – with styles such as that of the Western Desert Art Movement becoming globally renowned 20th century art movements.
The National Gallery of Australia
National Gallery of Australia
The National Gallery of Australia is the national art gallery of Australia, holding more than 120,000 works of art. It was established in 1967 by the Australian government as a national public art gallery.- Establishment :...
exhibits a great many indigenous art works, including those of the Torres Strait Islands
Torres Strait Islands
The Torres Strait Islands are a group of at least 274 small islands which lie in Torres Strait, the waterway separating far northern continental Australia's Cape York Peninsula and the island of New Guinea but Torres Strait Island known and Recognize as Nyumaria.The islands are mostly part of...
who are known for their traditional sculpture and headgear.
Literature
By 1788, Indigenous Australians had not developed a system of writing, so the first literary accounts of Aborigines come from the journals of early European explorers, which contain descriptions of first contact, both violent and friendly. Early accounts by Dutch explorers and the English bucaneer William DampierWilliam Dampier
William Dampier was an English buccaneer, sea captain, author and scientific observer...
wrote of the "natives of New Holland
New Holland (Australia)
New Holland is a historic name for the island continent of Australia. The name was first applied to Australia in 1644 by the Dutch seafarer Abel Tasman as Nova Hollandia, naming it after the Dutch province of Holland, and remained in use for 180 years....
" as being "barbarous savages", but by the time of Captain James Cook
James Cook
Captain James Cook, FRS, RN was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer who ultimately rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy...
and First Fleet
First Fleet
The First Fleet is the name given to the eleven ships which sailed from Great Britain on 13 May 1787 with about 1,487 people, including 778 convicts , to establish the first European colony in Australia, in the region which Captain Cook had named New South Wales. The fleet was led by Captain ...
marine Watkin Tench
Watkin Tench
Lieutenant-General Watkin Tench was a British Marine officer who is best known for publishing two books describing his experiences in the First Fleet, which established the first settlement in Australia in 1788...
(the era of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...
), accounts of Aborigines were more sympathetic and romantic: "these people may truly be said to be in the pure state of nature, and may appear to some to be the most wretched upon the earth; but in reality they are far happier than ... we Europeans", wrote Cook in his journal on 23 August 1770.
Letters written by early Aboriginal leaders like Bennelong
Bennelong
Woollarawarre Bennelong was a senior man of the Eora, an Aboriginal people of the Port Jackson area, at the time of the first British settlement in Australia, in 1788...
and Sir Douglas Nicholls
Douglas Nicholls
Sir Douglas Ralph "Doug" Nicholls KCVO, OBE, was a prominent Aboriginal Australian from the Yorta Yorta people. He was a professional athlete, Churches of Christ pastor and church planter, ceremonial officer and a pioneering campaigner for reconciliation.Nicholls was the first Aboriginal person to...
are retained as treasures of Australian literature, as is the historic Yirrkala bark petitions
Yirrkala bark petitions
The Yirrkala bark petitions 1963 are historic Australian documents that were the first traditional documents prepared by Indigenous Australians that were recognised by the Australian Parliament, and are thus the first documentary recognition of Indigenous people in Australian law.Wali Wunungmurra,...
of 1963 which is the first traditional Aboriginal document recognised by the Australian Parliament. David Unaipon
David Unaipon
David Unaipon was an Australian Aboriginal of the Ngarrindjeri people, a preacher, inventor and writer. He was the most widely known Aboriginal in Australia, and broke stereotypes of Aboriginals...
(1872–1967) is credited as providing the first accounts of Aboriginal mythology written by an Aboriginal: Legendary Tales of the Aborigines; he is known as the first Aboriginal author. Oodgeroo Noonuccal
Oodgeroo Noonuccal
Oodgeroo Noonuccal was an Australian poet, political activist, artist and educator. She was also a campaigner for Aboriginal rights...
(1920–1995) was a famous Aboriginal poet, writer and rights activist credited with publishing the first Aboriginal book of verse: We Are Going (1964). Sally Morgan
Sally Morgan (artist)
Sally Jane Morgan is an Australian Aboriginal author, dramatist, and artist. Morgan's works are on display in numerous private and public collections in both Australia and around the world.-Early life:...
's novel My Place
My Place (book)
My Place is an autobiography written by artist Sally Morgan in 1987. It is about Morgan's quest for knowledge of her family's past and the fact that she has grown up under false pretences. The book is a milestone in Aboriginal literature and is one of the earlier works in indigenous writing.-...
was considered a breakthrough memoir in terms of bringing indigenous stories to wider notice. Leading Aboriginal activists Marcia Langton
Marcia Langton
Marcia Lynne Langton is one of Australia's leading Aboriginal scholars. She holds the Foundation Chair in Australian Indigenous Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia...
(First Australians
First Australians
First Australians is an Australian historical documentary series produced over the course of six years and first aired in October 2008. The documentary is part of a greater project that further consists of a hard-cover book, a community outreach program and a substantial website featuring over 200...
, 2008) and Noel Pearson ("Up From the Mission", 2009) are active contemporary contributors to Australian literature.
The voices of Indigenous Australians
Australian Aborigines
Australian Aborigines , also called Aboriginal Australians, from the latin ab originem , are people who are indigenous to most of the Australian continentthat is, to mainland Australia and the island of Tasmania...
are being increasingly noticed and include the playwright Jack Davis
Jack Davis (playwright)
Jack Davis , was a notable Australian 20th Century playwright and poet, also an Indigenous rights campaigner. He was born in Western Australia, in the small town of Yarloop, and lived in Fremantle towards the end of his life. He was of the Aboriginal Noongar people, and much of his work dealt with...
and Kevin Gilbert
Kevin Gilbert (author)
Kevin Gilbert was a 20th century Indigenous Australian activist, artist, poet, playwright and printmaker. He is also a past winner of the National Book Council prize for writers.- Life :...
. Writers coming to prominence in the 21st century include Alexis Wright
Alexis Wright
Alexis Wright is an Indigenous Australian writer best known for winning the Miles Franklin Award for her 2006 novel Carpentaria....
, Tara June Winch
Tara June Winch
Tara June Winch is an Australian writer of Aboriginal and European descent. Her first book, Swallow the Air, won several major Australian literary awards.-Life:...
, in poetry Yvette Holt and in popular fiction Anita Heiss
Anita Heiss
Anita Heiss is a contemporary Australian author of Austrian and Indigenous Australian descent.Anita Heiss is from the Wiradjuri people though she grew up in and lives in Sydney. Her mother was brought up in a Catholic mission and her father is originally from Austria...
. Australian Aboriginal poetry – ranging from sacred to everyday – is found throughout the continent.
Many notable works have been written by non-indigenous Australians on Aboriginal themes. Examples include the poems of Judith Wright
Judith Wright
Judith Arundell Wright was an Australian poet, environmentalist and campaigner for Aboriginal land rights.-Biography:...
; The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith is a 1972 Booker Prize-nominated novel by Thomas Keneally, and a 1978 Australian film of the same name directed by Fred Schepisi. The novel is based on the life of bushranger Jimmy Governor....
by Thomas Keneally
Thomas Keneally
Thomas Michael Keneally, AO is an Australian novelist, playwright and author of non-fiction. He is best known for writing Schindler's Ark, the Booker Prize-winning novel of 1982 which was inspired by the efforts of Poldek Pfefferberg, a Holocaust survivor...
and the short story by David Malouf
David Malouf
David George Joseph Malouf is an acclaimed Australian writer. He was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 2000, his 1993 novel Remembering Babylon won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 1996, he won the inaugural Australia-Asia Literary Award in 2008, and he was...
: "The Only Speaker of his Tongue".
Histories covering Indigenous themes include The Native Tribes of Central Australia by Spencer
Walter Baldwin Spencer
Sir Walter Baldwin Spencer KCMG was a British-Australian biologist and anthropologist.Baldwin was born in Stretford, Lancashire. His father, Reuben Spencer, who had come from Derbyshire in his youth, obtained a position with Rylands and Sons, cotton manufacturers, and rose to be chairman of its...
and Gillen, 1899; the diaries of Donald Thompson
Donald Thompson
Sir Donald Thompson was a British Conservative Party politician. He was a Member of Parliament from 1979 until 1997.Thompson attended Holy Trinity School, Halifax, and Hipperholme Grammar School...
on the subject of the Yolngu
Yolngu
The Yolngu or Yolŋu are an Indigenous Australian people inhabiting north-eastern Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia. Yolngu means “person” in the Yolŋu languages.-Yolŋu law:...
people of Arnhem Land
Arnhem Land
The Arnhem Land Region is one of the five regions of the Northern Territory of Australia. It is located in the north-eastern corner of the territory and is around 500 km from the territory capital Darwin. The region has an area of 97,000 km² which also covers the area of Kakadu National...
(c.1935–1943); Geoffrey Blainey
Geoffrey Blainey
Geoffrey Norman Blainey AC , is a prominent Australian historian.Blainey was born in Melbourne and raised in a series of Victorian country towns before attending Wesley College and the University of Melbourne. While at university he was editor of Farrago, the newspaper of the University of...
(Triumph of the Nomads, 1975); Henry Reynolds
Henry Reynolds (historian)
Henry Reynolds is an eminent Australian historian whose primary work has focused on the frontier conflict between European settlement of Australia and indigenous Australians.-Education and career:...
(The Other Side of the Frontier
The Other Side of the Frontier
The Other Side of the Frontier: Aboriginal Resistance to the European invasion of Australia is a history book published in 1981 by Australian historian Henry Reynolds...
, 1981); and Marcia Langton
Marcia Langton
Marcia Lynne Langton is one of Australia's leading Aboriginal scholars. She holds the Foundation Chair in Australian Indigenous Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia...
(First Australians, 2008). Differing interpretations of Aboriginal history are also the subject of contemporary debate in Australia, notably between the essayists Robert Manne
Robert Manne
Robert Manne is a professor of politics at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.Born in Melbourne, Manne's earliest political consciousness was formed by the fact that his parents were Jewish refugees from Europe and his grandparents were victims of the Holocaust...
and Keith Windshuttle.
AustLit's BlackWords project provides a comprehensive listing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Writers and Storytellers.
Film
Baldwin Spencer
Winston Baldwin Spencer is the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda. He has been Prime Minister since March 24, 2004, when his party, the United Progressive Party , which he had led as the opposition party for several years, won a parliamentary election...
in 1900.
1955's Jedda
Jedda
Jedda was the last movie made by the Australian filmmaker Charles Chauvel. The film is most notable for being the first to star two Aboriginal actors in the leading roles, and also to be the first Australian film shot in colour...
was the first Australian feature film to be shot in colour, the first to star Aboriginal actors in lead roles, and the first to be entered at the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
. 1971's Walkabout
Walkabout (film)
Walkabout is a 1971 film set in Australia, directed by Nicolas Roeg and starring Jenny Agutter, Luc Roeg and David Gulpilil. Edward Bond wrote the screenplay, which is loosely based on the novel Walkabout by James Vance Marshall...
was a British film set in Australia; it was a forerunner to many Australian films related to indigenous themes and introduced David Gulpilil
David Gulpilil
David Gulpilil Ridjimiraril Dalaithngu , is an Indigenous Australian traditional dancer and actor. His first starring role was Walkabout....
to cinematic audiences. 1976's The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith is a 1972 Booker Prize-nominated novel by Thomas Keneally, and a 1978 Australian film of the same name directed by Fred Schepisi. The novel is based on the life of bushranger Jimmy Governor....
, directed by Fred Schepisi, was an award-winning historical drama from a book by Thomas Keneally
Thomas Keneally
Thomas Michael Keneally, AO is an Australian novelist, playwright and author of non-fiction. He is best known for writing Schindler's Ark, the Booker Prize-winning novel of 1982 which was inspired by the efforts of Poldek Pfefferberg, a Holocaust survivor...
about the tragic story of an Aboriginal bushranger
Bushranger
Bushrangers, or bush rangers, originally referred to runaway convicts in the early years of the British settlement of Australia who had the survival skills necessary to use the Australian bush as a refuge to hide from the authorities...
. The canon of films related to Indigenous Australians also increased over the period of the 1990s and early 21st Century, with Nick Parson's 1996 film Dead Heart
Dead Heart (film)
Dead Heart is a 1996 Australian film. It was written and directed by Nick Parsons and starred Bryan Brown, Angie Milliken, Ernie Dingo, Aaron Pedersen and John Jarratt....
featuring Ernie Dingo
Ernie Dingo
Ernie Dingo AM is an Indigenous Australian actor and television presenter originating from the Yamatji people of the Murchison region of Western Australia.-Background:...
and Bryan Brown
Bryan Brown
Bryan Neathway Brown, AM is an Australian actor.-Early life:Brown was born in Sydney, the son of John Brown and Molly Brown, a house cleaner who worked as a pianist in the early days of the Langshaw School of Ballet. He grew up in the south-western Sydney suburb of Bankstown and began working at...
; Rolf de Heer
Rolf de Heer
Rolf de Heer is a Dutch film director, writer and producer living in Australia. De Heer was born in Heemskerk in The Netherlands but migrated to Sydney when he was eight years old. He attended the Australian Film Television and Radio School in Sydney. His company is called Vertigo Productions and...
's The Tracker
The Tracker
The Tracker is an Australian drama film produced in 2002. It was directed and written by Rolf de Heer. It is a set in 1922 in outback Australia where a racist white colonial policeman used the tracking ability of an Indigenous Australian tracker to find the murderer of a white woman...
, starring Gary Sweet
Gary Sweet
Gary Sweet is an Australian film and television actor known for his roles in Alexandra's Project , Police Rescue, Cody, Big Sky, The Battlers, Bodyline and Stingers....
and David Gulpilil; and Phillip Noyce
Phillip Noyce
Phillip Noyce is an Australian film director.-Life and career:Noyce was born in Griffith, New South Wales, attended Barker College, Sydney, and began making short films at the age of 18, starting with Better to Reign in Hell, using his friends as the cast...
's Rabbit-Proof Fence
Rabbit-Proof Fence (film)
Rabbit-Proof Fence is a 2002 Australian drama film directed by Phillip Noyce based on the book Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington Garimara...
in 2002. In 2006, Rolf de Heer's Ten Canoes
Ten Canoes
Ten Canoes is a 2006 film. It was directed by Rolf de Heer and Peter Djigirr and starred Crusoe Kurddal. The title of the film arose from discussions between de Heer and David Gulpilil about a photograph of ten canoeists poling across the Arafura Swamp, taken by anthropologist Donald Thomson in...
became the first major feature film to be shot in an indigenous language and the film was recognised at Cannes and elsewhere.
Traditional recreation
Woggabaliri
Woggabaliri, literally meaning "play", is the name given to a traditional Indigenous Australian "co-operative kicking volley game" similar to the English game of Keepie uppie.-History:...
is recognised by the Australian Sports Commission
Australian Sports Commission
The Australian Sports Commission is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in Australia. It is an agency of the Government of Australia within the portfolio of Health and Ageing...
as the oldest Indigenous game and is the earliest depicted by Europeans. Played mainly by the Wiradjuri
Wiradjuri
The Wiradjuri are an Indigenous Australian group of central New South Wales.In the 21st century, major Wiradjuri groups live in Condobolin, Peak Hill, Narrandera and Griffith...
people of central NSW before European arrival, Woggabaliri is a non-competitive "co-operative kicking volley game" played with a ball made of possum
Possum
A possum is any of about 70 small to medium-sized arboreal marsupial species native to Australia, New Guinea, and Sulawesi .Possums are quadrupedal diprotodont marsupials with long tails...
hide, using soccer type skills of teamwork and ball control.
The Djab wurrung
Djab Wurrung
The Djab wurrung people are Indigenous Australians who occupy the volcanic plains of central Victoria from the Mount William Range of Gariwerd in the west to the Pyrenees range in the east encompassing the Wimmera River flowing north and the headwaters of the Hopkins River flowing south. The towns...
and Jardwadjali
Jardwadjali
The Jardwadjali people are Indigenous Australians who occupy the lands in the upper Wimmera River watershed east to Gariwerd and west to Lake Bringalbert. The towns of Horsham, Cavendish, Coleraine, Asply, Minyip and Donald are within their territory...
people of western Victoria once participated in the traditional game of Marn Grook
Marn Grook
Marn Grook , literally meaning "Game ball", is a collective name given to a number of traditional Indigenous Australian recreational pastimes believed to have been played at gatherings and celebrations of up to 50 players. It is often confused with a separate indigenous game resembling Association...
, a type of football played with a ball made of possum hide.
The game is believed by some who? to have contributed to the development of the code of Australian rules football
Australian rules football
Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...
. The Wills family is believed by somewho? to have had strong links to Indigenous people and Wills for a few weeks coached an Indigenous cricket team which toured Eastern Australia in 1866–67.
Definition
Ethnicity is a socially constructed concept whose meaning has shifted over time. Over time Australia has used various means to determine membership of ethnic groups such as lineageLineage (genetic)
A genetic lineage is a series of mutations which connect an ancestral genetic type to derivative type. In cases where the genetic tree is very bushy the order of mutations in the lineage is mostly known, examples are the order of mutations between E1b1b and E1b1b1a1a for the human Y-chromosome...
, blood quantum
Blood quantum laws
Blood Quantum Laws or Indian Blood Laws is an umbrella term that describes legislation enacted in the United States to define membership in Native American tribes or nations...
, birth and self-determination
Self-determination
Self-determination is the principle in international law that nations have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no external compulsion or external interference...
. From 1869 until well into the 1970s, Indigenous children under 12 years of age, with 25% or less Aboriginal blood were considered "white" and were often removed from their families by the Australian Federal and State government agencies and church missions
Mission (Christian)
Christian missionary activities often involve sending individuals and groups , to foreign countries and to places in their own homeland. This has frequently involved not only evangelization , but also humanitarian work, especially among the poor and disadvantaged...
, under acts
Act of Parliament
An Act of Parliament is a statute enacted as primary legislation by a national or sub-national parliament. In the Republic of Ireland the term Act of the Oireachtas is used, and in the United States the term Act of Congress is used.In Commonwealth countries, the term is used both in a narrow...
of their respective parliaments in order that they would have "a reasonable chance of absorption into the white community to which they rightly belong". Grey areas in determination of ethnicity led to people of mixed ancestry being caught in the middle of a devisive policies which often led to absurd situations:
In 1935, an Australian of part Indigenous decent left his home on the local reserve to visit a nearby hotel where he was ejected for being Aboriginal. He returned home but was refused entry to the reserve because he was not Aboriginal. He attempted to remove his children from the reserve but was told he could not because they were Aboriginal. He then walked to the next town where he was arrested for being an Aboriginal vagrant and sent to the local reserve. During World War IIWorld War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
he tried to enlist but was rejected because he was an Aborigine so he moved to another state where he enlisted as a non-Aborigine. After the end of the war he applied for a passportPassportA passport is a document, issued by a national government, which certifies, for the purpose of international travel, the identity and nationality of its holder. The elements of identity are name, date of birth, sex, and place of birth....
but was rejected as he was an Aborigine, he obtained an exemption under the Aborigines Protection Act but was now told he could no longer visit his relatives as he was not an Aborigine. He was later told he could not join the Returned Servicemens ClubReturned and Services League of AustraliaThe Returned and Services League of Australia is a support organisation for men and women who have served or are serving in the Australian Defence Force ....
because he was an Aborigine.
In 1983 the High Court of Australia
High Court of Australia
The High Court of Australia is the supreme court in the Australian court hierarchy and the final court of appeal in Australia. It has both original and appellate jurisdiction, has the power of judicial review over laws passed by the Parliament of Australia and the parliaments of the States, and...
defined an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander as "a person of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent who identifies as an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander and is accepted as such by the community in which he or she lives".
The ruling was a three-part definition comprising descent, self-identification and community identification. The first part – descent – was genetic descent and unambiguous, but led to cases where a lack of records to prove ancestry excluded some. Self- and community identification were more problematic as they meant that an Indigenous person separated from her or his community due to a family dispute could no longer identify as Aboriginal.
As a result there arose court cases throughout the 1990s where excluded people demanded that their Aboriginality be recognised. In 1995, Justice Drummond ruled "..either genuine self-identification as Aboriginal alone or Aboriginal communal recognition as such by itself may suffice, according to the circumstances." This contributed to an increase of 31% in the number of people identifying as Indigenous Australians in the 1996 census when compared to the 1991 census.
Judge Merkel in 1998 defined Aboriginal descent as technical rather than real – thereby eliminating a genetic requirement. This decision established that anyone can classify him or herself legally as an Aboriginal, provided he or she is accepted as such by his or her community.
Inclusion in the National Census
As there is no formal procedure for any community to record acceptance, the primary method of determining Indigenous population is from self-identification on census forms.Until 1967 official Australian population statistics excluded "full-blood aboriginal natives" in accordance with section 127 of the Australian Constitution
Constitution of Australia
The Constitution of Australia is the supreme law under which the Australian Commonwealth Government operates. It consists of several documents. The most important is the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia...
, even though many such people were actually counted. The size of the excluded population was generally separately estimated. "Half-caste aboriginal natives" were shown separately up to the 1966 census, but since 1971 there has been no provision on the forms to differentiate 'full' from 'part' Indigenous or to identify non-Indigenous persons who are accepted by Indigenous communities but have no genetic descent.
Demographics
The Australian Bureau of StatisticsAustralian Bureau of Statistics
The Australian Bureau of Statistics is Australia's national statistical agency. It was created as the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics on 8 December 1905, when the Census and Statistics Act 1905 was given Royal assent. It had its beginnings in section 51 of the Constitution of Australia...
2005 snapshot
Snapshot
Snapshot may refer to:* Snapshot , an amateur photograph* Snapshot, a 1979 Australian film directed by Simon Wincer* Snapshot, a novel by Garry Disher...
of Australia showed that the Indigenous population had grown at twice the rate of the overall population since 1996 when the Indigenous population stood at 283,000. As of June 2001, the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimated the total resident Indigenous population to be 458,520 (2.4% of Australia's total), 90% of whom identified as Aboriginal, 6% Torres Strait Islander and the remaining 4% being of dual Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander parentage. Much of the increase since 1996 can be attributed to greater numbers of people identifying themselves as Aboriginal or of Aboriginal descent. Changed definitions of aboriginality and positive discrimination via material benefits have been cited as contributing to a movement to indigenous identification.
In the 2006 Census, 407,700 respondents declared they were Aboriginal, 29,512 declared they were Torres Strait Islander, and a further 17,811 declared they were both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders
Torres Strait Islanders
Torres Strait Islanders are the indigenous people of the Torres Strait Islands, part of Queensland, Australia. They are culturally and genetically linked to Melanesian peoples and those of Papua New Guinea....
. After adjustments for undercount, the indigenous population as of end June 2006 was estimated to be 517,200, representing about 2.5% of the population.
Based on Census data at 30 June 2006, the preliminary estimate of Indigenous resident population of Australia was 517,200, broken down as follows:
- New South WalesNew South WalesNew South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
– 148,200 - Queensland – 146,400
- Western Australia – 77,900
- Northern TerritoryNorthern TerritoryThe Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...
– 66,600 - VictoriaVictoria (Australia)Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
– 30,800 - South Australia – 26,000
- TasmaniaTasmaniaTasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
– 16,900 - ACTAustralian Capital TerritoryThe Australian Capital Territory, often abbreviated ACT, is the capital territory of the Commonwealth of Australia and is the smallest self-governing internal territory...
– 4,000 - and a small number in other Australian territories
The State with the largest total Indigenous population is New South Wales. Indigenous Australians constitute 2.2% of the overall population of the State. The Northern Territory
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...
has the largest Indigenous population in percentage terms for a State or Territory, with 31.6% of the population being Indigenous.
All the other States and Territories have less than 4% of their total populations identifying as Indigenous; Victoria has the lowest percentage at 0.6%.
As of 2006 about 31% of the Indigenous population was living in 'major cities' (as defined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics/Australian Standard Geographical Classification) and another 45% in 'regional Australia', with the remaining 24% in remote areas. The populations in Victoria, South Australia, and New South Wales are more likely to be urbanised.
The proportion of Aboriginal adults married (de facto or de jure) to non-Aboriginal spouses was 69% according to the 2001 census, up from 64% in 1996, 51% in 1991 and 46% in 1986. The census figures show there were more intermixed Aboriginal couples in capital cities: 87% in 2001 compared to 60% in rural and regional Australia. It is reported that up to 88% of the offspring of mixed marriages subsequently self identify as Indigenous Australians.
Groups and communities
Throughout the history of the continent, there have been many different Aboriginal groups, each with its own individual languageAustralian Aboriginal languages
The Australian Aboriginal languages comprise several language families and isolates native to the Australian Aborigines of Australia and a few nearby islands, but by convention excluding the languages of Tasmania and the Torres Strait Islanders...
, culture, and belief structure.
At the time of British settlement, there were over 200 distinct languages.
There are an indeterminate number of Indigenous communities, comprising several hundred groupings. Some communities, cultures or groups may be inclusive of others and alter or overlap; significant changes have occurred in the generations after colonisation.
The word 'community' is often used to describe groups identifying by kinship, language or belonging to a particular place or 'country'. A community may draw on separate cultural values and individuals can conceivably belong to a number of communities within Australia; identification within them may be adopted or rejected.
An individual community may identify itself by many names, each of which can have alternate English spellings. The largest Aboriginal communities – the Pitjantjatjara, the Arrernte
Arrernte people
The Arrernte people , known in English as the Aranda or Arunta, are those Indigenous Australians who are the original custodians of Arrernte lands in the central area of Australia around Mparntwe or Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. The Arrernte tribe has lived there for more than 20,000 years...
, the Luritja
Luritja
Luritja is a name used to refer to several dialects of the Indigenous Australian Western Desert Language, and thereby also to the people who speak these varieties, and their traditional lands.-Origin and meaning of Luritja:...
and the Warlpiri
Warlpiri
The Warlpiri are a group of Indigenous Australians, many of whom speak the Warlpiri language. There are 5,000–6,000 Warlpiri, living mostly in a few towns and settlements scattered through their traditional land in Australia's Northern Territory, north and west of Alice Springs...
– are all from Central Australia.
Indigenous 'communities' in remote Australia are typically small, isolated towns with basic facilities, on traditionally owned land. These communities have between 20 – 300 inhabitants and are often closed to outsiders for cultural reasons. The long term viability and resiliance of Indigenous communities has been debated by scholars and continues to be a political issue receiving fluctuating media attention.
Tasmania
The Tasmanian Aboriginal population are thought to have first crossed into Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
approximately 40,000 years ago via a land bridge between the island and the rest of mainland Australia during the last glacial period. Estimates of the population of the Aboriginal people of Tasmania, before European arrival, are in the range of 3,000 to 15,000 people although genetic studies have suggested significantly higher figures which is supported by Indigenous oral traditions that indicates a reduction in population from diseases introduced by British and American sealers before settlement. The original population was further reduced to around 300 between 1803 and 1833 due to disease, warfare and other actions of British settlers. Despite over 170 years of debate over who or what was responsible for this near-extinction, no consensus exists on its origins, process, or whether or not it was genocide however, using the "U.N.
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
definition, sufficient evidence exists to designate the Tasmanian catastrophe genocide."
A woman named Trugernanner (often rendered as Truganini
Truganini
Trugernanner , often referred to as Truganini, was a woman widely considered to be the last "full blood" Palawa ....
) who died in 1876, was, and still is, widely believed to be the very last of the full blooded Aborigines. However, in 1889 Parliament recognized Fanny Cochrane Smith
Fanny Cochrane Smith
Fanny Cochrane Smith, was a Tasmanian Aborigine, born in December 1834. She is considered to be the last fluent speaker of a Tasmanian language, and her wax cylinder recordings of songs are the only audio recordings of any of Tasmania's indigenous languages.-Life:Fanny Cochrane's mother and...
(d:1905) as the last surviving full blooded Tasmanian Aborigine. The 2006 census showed that there were nearly 17,000 Indigenous Australians in the State.
Contemporary issues
The Indigenous Australian population is a mostly urbanised demographic, but a substantial number (27% as of 2002) live in remote settlements often located on the site of former church missionsMission (station)
A religious mission or mission station is a location for missionary work.While primarily a Christian term, the concept of the religious "mission" is also used prominently by the Church of Scientology and their Scientology Missions International....
. The health and economic difficulties facing both groups are substantial. Both the remote and urban populations have adverse ratings on a number of social indicators, including health, education, unemployment, poverty and crime.
In 2004, Prime Minister John Howard
John Howard
John Winston Howard AC, SSI, was the 25th Prime Minister of Australia, from 11 March 1996 to 3 December 2007. He was the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies....
initiated contracts with Aboriginal communities, where substantial financial benefits are available in return for commitments such as ensuring children attend school. These contracts are known as Shared Responsibility Agreements. This saw a political shift from 'self determination' for Aboriginal communities to 'mutual obligation', which has been criticised as a "paternalistic and dictatorial arrangement".
Stolen Generations
The Stolen Generations were those children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were forcibly removed from their families by the Australian Federal and State government agencies and church missionMission (Christian)
Christian missionary activities often involve sending individuals and groups , to foreign countries and to places in their own homeland. This has frequently involved not only evangelization , but also humanitarian work, especially among the poor and disadvantaged...
s, under acts of their respective parliaments
Act of Parliament
An Act of Parliament is a statute enacted as primary legislation by a national or sub-national parliament. In the Republic of Ireland the term Act of the Oireachtas is used, and in the United States the term Act of Congress is used.In Commonwealth countries, the term is used both in a narrow...
. The removals occurred in the period between approximately 1869 and 1969, although, in some places, children were still being taken in the 1970s.
On 13 February 2008, the federal government of Australia, led by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
Kevin Rudd
Kevin Michael Rudd is an Australian politician who was the 26th Prime Minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010. He has been Minister for Foreign Affairs since 2010...
, issued a formal apology to the Indigenous Australians over the Stolen Generations.
Political representation
Under Section 41 of the Australian ConstitutionConstitution of Australia
The Constitution of Australia is the supreme law under which the Australian Commonwealth Government operates. It consists of several documents. The most important is the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia...
, Aboriginal Australians always had the legal right to vote in Australian Commonwealth elections if their State granted them that right. This meant that all Aboriginal peoples outside Queensland and Western Australia had a legal right to vote. The right of Indigenous ex-servicemen to vote was affirmed in 1949 and all Indigenous Australians gained the unqualified right to vote in Federal elections in 1962. Unlike other Australians, however, voting was not made compulsory for Indigenous people.
It was not until the repeal of Section 127 of the Australian Constitution
Constitution of Australia
The Constitution of Australia is the supreme law under which the Australian Commonwealth Government operates. It consists of several documents. The most important is the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia...
in 1967 that Indigenous Australians were counted in the population for the purposes of distribution of electoral seats. Only two Indigenous Australians have been elected to the Australian Senate
Australian Senate
The Senate is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the House of Representatives. Senators are popularly elected under a system of proportional representation. Senators are elected for a term that is usually six years; after a double dissolution, however,...
: Neville Bonner
Neville Bonner
Neville Thomas Bonner AO was an Australian politician, and the first indigenous Australian to become a member of the Parliament of Australia...
(Liberal, 1971–1983) and Aden Ridgeway
Aden Ridgeway
Aden Derek Ridgeway , Australian politician, was a member of the Australian Senate for New South Wales, from 1999 to 2005, representing the Australian Democrats. During his term he was the only Aboriginal member of the Australian Parliament.-Early history:Ridgeway was born in Macksville, New South...
(Democrat, 1999–2005). Following the 2010 Australian Federal Election, Ken Wyatt
Ken Wyatt
Kenneth George Wyatt AM is a member of the Australian House of Representatives representing the electoral division of Hasluck in Western Australia for the Liberal Party of Australia...
of the Liberal Party won the West Australian seat of Hasluck, becoming the first Indigenous person elected to the Australian House of Representatives
Australian House of Representatives
The House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the Parliament of Australia; it is the lower house; the upper house is the Senate. Members of Parliament serve for terms of approximately three years....
.
A number of Indigenous people represent electorates at State and Territorial level, and South Australia has had an Aboriginal Governor, Sir Douglas Nicholls
Douglas Nicholls
Sir Douglas Ralph "Doug" Nicholls KCVO, OBE, was a prominent Aboriginal Australian from the Yorta Yorta people. He was a professional athlete, Churches of Christ pastor and church planter, ceremonial officer and a pioneering campaigner for reconciliation.Nicholls was the first Aboriginal person to...
. The first Indigenous Australian to serve as a minister in any government was Ernie Bridge
Ernie Bridge
Ernest Frances "Ernie" Bridge is an Australian politician and country music singer. He was a member of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly from 1980 to 2001, representing the electorate of Kimberley, first as an Australian Labor Party representative and then as an independent MP...
, who entered the Western Australian Parliament in 1980. Carol Martin
Carol Martin
Carol Martin is an Australian politician and the current member for the Western Australian Legislative Assembly seat of Kimberley for the Australian Labor Party, having first been elected to that position in 2001 following the retirement of Ernie Bridge...
was the first Aboriginal woman elected to an Australian parliament (the Western Australian Legislative Assembly
Western Australian Legislative Assembly
The Legislative Assembly, or lower house, is one of the two chambers of parliament in the Australian state of Western Australia. It sits in Parliament House in the state capital, Perth....
) in 2001, and the first woman minister was Marion Scrymgour
Marion Scrymgour
Marion Rose Scrymgour is an Australian politician. She has been a member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly since 2001, representing the electorate of Arafura. She was the Labor Party Deputy Chief Minister of the Northern Territory from November 2007 until February 2009, and was the...
, who was appointed to the Northern Territory ministry in 2002 (she became Deputy Chief Minister in 2008).
ATSIC, a representative body of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, was set up in 1990 under the Hawke
Bob Hawke
Robert James Lee "Bob" Hawke AC GCL was the 23rd Prime Minister of Australia from March 1983 to December 1991 and therefore longest serving Australian Labor Party Prime Minister....
government. In 2004, the Howard government
Howard Government
The Howard Government refers to the federal Executive Government of Australia led by Prime Minister John Howard. It was made up of members of the Liberal–National Coalition, which won a majority of seats in the Australian House of Representatives at four successive elections. The Howard Government...
disbanded ATSIC and replaced it with an appointed network of 30 Indigenous Coordination Centres that administer Shared Responsibility Agreements and Regional Partnership Agreements with Aboriginal communities at a local level.
In October 2007, just prior to the calling of a federal election, the then Prime Minister, John Howard, revisited the idea of bringing a referendum to seek recognition of Indigenous Australians in the Constitution (his government first sought to include recognition of Aboriginal peoples in the Preamble to the Constitution in a 1999 referendum). His 2007 announcement was seen by some as a surprising adoption of the importance of the symbolic aspects of the reconciliation process, and reaction was mixed. The ALP initially supported the idea, however Kevin Rudd
Kevin Rudd
Kevin Michael Rudd is an Australian politician who was the 26th Prime Minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010. He has been Minister for Foreign Affairs since 2010...
withdrew this support just prior to the election – earning stern rebuke from activist Noel Pearson. Critical sections of the Australian public and media meanwhile suggested that Howard's raising of the issue was a "cynical" attempt in the lead-up to an election to "whitewash" his handling of this issue during his term in office. David Ross of the Central Land Council was sceptical, saying "its a new skin for an old snake", while former Chairman of the Reconciliation Council Patrick Dodson
Patrick Dodson
Patrick Dodson is a Yawuru man from Broome, Western Australia, he is a former Chairman of the "Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation", a former Commissioner into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and former Roman Catholic priest. He was the winner of the 2008 Sydney Peace Prize...
gave qualified support, saying: "I think it's a positive contribution to the process of national reconciliation...It's obviously got to be well discussed and considered and weighed, and it's got to be about meaningful and proper negotiations that can lead to the achievement of constitutional reconciliation."
Age characteristics
The Indigenous population of Australia is much younger than the non-Indigenous population, with an estimated median age of 21 years (37 years for non-Indigenous), due to higher rates of birth and death. For this reason, age standardisationAge adjustment
In epidemiology and demography, age adjustment, also called age standardisation, is a technique used to better allow populations to be compared when the age profiles of the populations are quite different....
is often used when comparing Indigenous and non-Indigenous statistics.
Life expectancy
Aboriginal life expectancy is difficult to quantify accurately. Indigenous deaths are poorly identified in Australia, and there are no accurate figures of the size of the population at risk. Two estimates of Indigenous life expectancy in 2008 differed by as much as five years.In some regions the median age at death was identified in 1973 to be as low as 47 years and the life expectancy gap between Aboriginals and the rest of the Australian population as a whole, to be 25 years. Since 1996, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) had used indirect methods for its calculations, because census results were deemed to be unreliable.
Figures published in 2005 (59.4 years for males and 64.8 years for females) indicated a widely quoted gap of 17 years between indigenous and non-indigenous life expectancy, though the ABS does not now consider the 2005 figures to be reliable. Using a new method based on tracing the deaths of people identified as Indigenous at the 2006 census, in 2009 the ABS estimated life expectancy at 67.2 years for Indigenous men (11.5 years less than for non-Indigenous) and 72.9 years for Indigenous women (9.7 years less than for non-Indigenous). Estimated life expectancy of Indigenous males ranges from 61.5 years for those living in the Northern Territory to a high of 69.9 years for those living in New South Wales, and for Indigenous females, 69.2 years for those living in the Northern Territory to a high of 75.0 years for those living in New South Wales.
Education
Aboriginal students generally leave school earlier—and live with a lower standard of education—than their peers, although the situation is improving, with significant gains between 1994 and 2002.- 39% of indigenous students stayed on to year 12 at high school, compared with 75% for the Australian population as a whole.
- 22% of indigenous adults had a vocational or higher education qualification, compared with 48% for the Australian population as a whole.
- 4% of Indigenous Australians held a bachelor degree or higher, compared with 21% for the population as a whole. This proportion is increasing, but at a slower rate than for the Australian population as a whole.
The performance of indigenous students in national literacy and numeracy tests conducted in school years three, five, and seven is also inferior to that of their peers. The following table displays the performance of indigenous students against the general Australian student population as reported in the National Report on Schooling in Australia 2004.
| Reading | Writing | Numeracy | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year 3 | Year 5 | Year 7 | Year 3 | Year 5 | Year 7 | Year 3 | Year 5 | Year 7 | |
| Indigenous | 82.9 | 69.4 | 71.0 | 76.8 | 81.7 | 78.8 | 79.2 | 69.4 | 51.9 |
| Australia | 93.0 | 88.7 | 91.0 | 92.9 | 94.2 | 93.6 | 93.7 | 91.2 | 82.1 |
In response to this problem, the Commonwealth Government formulated a National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Policy
National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Policy
The Australian National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Policy is an agreed national policy between the Government of Australia and each State and Territory government and is the foundation of education programs for all Indigenous Australians...
. A number of government initiatives have resulted, some of which are listed at the Commonwealth Government's website.
Employment
Indigenous Australians as a group generally experience high unemployment compared to the national average. This can be correlated to lower educational outcomes (ABS 2010).As of 2002, the average household income for Indigenous Australian adults (adjusted for household size and composition) was 60% of the non-Indigenous average.
Health
Indigenous Australians were twice as likely to report their health as fair/poor and 1.5 times more likely to have a disability or long-term health condition (after adjusting for demographic structures).Health problems with the highest disparity (compared with the non-Indigenous population) in incidence are outlined in the table below:
| Health complication | Comparative incidence rate | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Circulatory system | 2 to 10-fold | 5 to 10-fold increase in rheumatic heart disease and hypertensive disease, 2-fold increase in other heart disease Heart disease Heart disease, cardiac disease or cardiopathy is an umbrella term for a variety of diseases affecting the heart. , it is the leading cause of death in the United States, England, Canada and Wales, accounting for 25.4% of the total deaths in the United States.-Types:-Coronary heart disease:Coronary... , 3-fold increase in death from circulatory system Circulatory system The circulatory system is an organ system that passes nutrients , gases, hormones, blood cells, etc... disorders. Circulatory system diseases account for 24% deaths |
| Renal failure | 2 to 3-fold | 2 to 3-fold increase in listing on the dialysis Dialysis In medicine, dialysis is a process for removing waste and excess water from the blood, and is primarily used to provide an artificial replacement for lost kidney function in people with renal failure... and transplant Organ transplant Organ transplantation is the moving of an organ from one body to another or from a donor site on the patient's own body, for the purpose of replacing the recipient's damaged or absent organ. The emerging field of regenerative medicine is allowing scientists and engineers to create organs to be... registry, up to 30-fold increase in end stage renal disease, 8-fold increase in death rates from renal failure Renal failure Renal failure or kidney failure describes a medical condition in which the kidneys fail to adequately filter toxins and waste products from the blood... , 2.5% of total deaths |
| Communicable | 10 to 70-fold | 10-fold increase in tuberculosis Tuberculosis Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body... , Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C virus Hepatitis C virus Hepatitis C virus is a small , enveloped, positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus of the family Flaviviridae... , 20-fold increase in Chlamydia, 40-fold increase in Shigellosis Shigellosis Shigellosis, also known as bacillary dysentery or Marlow Syndrome, in its most severe manifestation, is a foodborne illness caused by infection by bacteria of the genus Shigella. Shigellosis rarely occurs in animals other than humans and other primates like monkeys and chimpanzees... and Syphilis Syphilis Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. The primary route of transmission is through sexual contact; however, it may also be transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy or at birth, resulting in congenital syphilis... , 70-fold increase in Gonococcal infections |
| Diabetes | 3 to 4-fold | 11% incidence of Type 2 Diabetes Diabetes mellitus type 2 Diabetes mellitus type 2formerly non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus or adult-onset diabetesis a metabolic disorder that is characterized by high blood glucose in the context of insulin resistance and relative insulin deficiency. Diabetes is often initially managed by increasing exercise and... in Indigenous Australians, 3% in non-Indigenous population. 18% of total indigenous deaths |
| Cot death | 2 to 3-fold | Over the period 1999–2003, in Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory, the national cot death rate for infants was three times the rate |
| Mental health | 2 to 5-fold | 5-fold increase in drug-induced mental disorders, 2-fold increase in diseases such as schizophrenia Schizophrenia Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social... , 2 to 3-fold increase in suicide. |
| Optometry/Ophthalmology | 2-fold | A 2-fold increase in cataracts |
| Neoplasms | 60% increase in death rate | 60% increased death rate from neoplasms. In 1999–2003, neoplasms accounted for 17% of all deaths |
| Respiratory | 3 to 4-fold | 3 to 4-fold increased death rate from respiratory disease Respiratory disease Respiratory disease is a medical term that encompasses pathological conditions affecting the organs and tissues that make gas exchange possible in higher organisms, and includes conditions of the upper respiratory tract, trachea, bronchi, bronchioles, alveoli, pleura and pleural cavity, and the... accounting for 8% of total deaths |
Each of these indicators is expected to underestimate the true prevalence of disease in the population due to reduced levels of diagnosis.
In addition, the following factors have been at least partially implicated in the inequality in life expectancy:
- poverty
- insufficient education
- substance abuse
- for remote communities poor access to health services
- for urbanised Indigenous Australians, cultural pressures which prevent access to health services
- cultural differences resulting in poor communication between Indigenous Australians and health workers.
Successive Federal Governments have responded to these issues by implementing programs such as the Office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health (OATSIH). Which effected by bringing health services into indigenous communities, but on the whole the problem still remains challenging.
Crime and imprisonment
In 2009 the imprisonment rate for Indigenous people was 14 times higher than that of non-Indigenous people.In 2000, Indigenous Australians were more likely per capita to be both victims of and perpetrators of reported crimes in New South Wales.
In 2002, Indigenous Australians were twice as likely as their non-Indigenous peers to be a victim of violent aggression, with 24% of Indigenous Australians reported as being a victim of violence in 2001.
In 2004, Indigenous Australians were 11 times more likely to be in prison (age-standardised figures).
In June 2004, 21% of prisoners in Australia were Indigenous.
There are frequent reports of domestic violence and community disturbances.
Substance abuse
Substance abuse
A substance-related disorder is an umbrella term used to describe several different conditions associated with several different substances .A substance related disorder is a condition in which an individual uses or abuses a...
of both legal and illegal drugs.
The 2004–05 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey (NATSIHS) by the ABS
Australian Bureau of Statistics
The Australian Bureau of Statistics is Australia's national statistical agency. It was created as the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics on 8 December 1905, when the Census and Statistics Act 1905 was given Royal assent. It had its beginnings in section 51 of the Constitution of Australia...
found that the proportion of the Indigenous adult population engaged in 'risky' and 'high-risk' alcohol consumption (15%) was comparable with that of the non-Indigenous population (14%), based on age-standardised data. The definition of "risky" and "high-risk" consumption used is four or more standard drinks per day average for males, two or more for females.
The 2007 National Drug Strategy Household Survey reported that Indigenous peoples were "more likely than other Australians to abstain from alcohol consumption (23.4% versus 16.8%) and also more likely to consume alcohol at risky or high-risk levels for harm in the short term (27.4% versus 20.1%)". These NDSHS comparisons are non-age-standardised; the paper notes that Indigenous figures are based on a sample of 372 people and care should be exercised when using Indigenous figures.
NATSIHS 2004/5 also found that, after adjusting for age differences between the two populations, Indigenous adults were more than twice as likely as non-Indigenous adults to be current daily smokers of tobacco.
To combat the problem, a number of programs to prevent or mitigate alcohol abuse have been attempted in different regions, many initiated from within the communities themselves. These strategies include such actions as the declaration of "Dry Zones" within indigenous communities, prohibition and restriction on point-of-sale access, and community policing and licensing.
Some communities (particularly in the Northern Territory) introduced kava
Kava
Kava or kava-kava is a crop of the western Pacific....
as a safer alternative to alcohol, as over-indulgence in kava produces sleepiness, in contrast to the violence that can result from over-indulgence in alcohol. These and other measures met with variable success, and while a number of communities have seen decreases in associated social problems caused by excessive drinking, others continue to struggle with the issue and it remains an ongoing concern.
The ANCD study notes that in order to be effective, programs in general need also to address "...the underlying structural determinants that have a significant impact on alcohol and drug misuse" (Op. cit., p. 26). In 2007, Kava
Kava
Kava or kava-kava is a crop of the western Pacific....
was banned in the Northern Territory.
Petrol sniffing is also a problem among some remote Indigenous communities. Petrol vapour produces euphoria and dulling effect in those who inhale it, and due to its previously low price and widespread availability, is an increasingly popular substance of abuse.
Proposed solutions to the problem are a topic of heated debate among politicians and the community at large. In 2005 this problem among remote indigenous communities was considered so serious that a new, low aromatic petrol Opal
Opal (fuel)
Opal is a variety of low-aromatic 91 RON petrol developed in 2005 by BP Australia to combat the rising use of petrol as an inhalant in remote indigenous Australian communities....
was distributed across the Northern Territory to combat it.
Prominent Indigenous Australians
After the arrival of European settlers in New South Wales, some Indigenous Australians became translators and go-betweens; the best-known was BennelongBennelong
Woollarawarre Bennelong was a senior man of the Eora, an Aboriginal people of the Port Jackson area, at the time of the first British settlement in Australia, in 1788...
, who eventually adopted European dress and customs and travelled to England where he was presented to King George III. Others, such as Pemulwuy
Pemulwuy
Pemulwuy was an Aboriginal Australian man born around 1750 in the area of Botany Bay in New South Wales. He is noted for his resistance to the European settlement of Australia which began with the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788. He is believed to have been a member of the Bidjigal clan of...
, Yagan
Yagan
Yagan was an Australian Aboriginal warrior from the Noongar tribe who played a key part in early indigenous Australian resistance to British settlement and rule in the area of Perth, Western Australia. After he led a series of burglaries and robberies across the countryside, in which white...
, and Windradyne
Windradyne
Windradyne was an Aboriginal warrior and resistance leader of the Wiradjuri nation, in what is now central-western New South Wales, Australia; he was also known to the British settlers as Saturday...
, became famous for armed resistance to the European settlers.
During the twentieth century, as social attitudes shifted and interest in Indigenous culture increased, there were more opportunities for Indigenous Australians to gain recognition. Albert Namatjira
Albert Namatjira
Albert Namatjira , born Elea Namatjira, was an Australian artist. He was a Western Arrernte man, an Indigenous Australian of the Western MacDonnell Ranges area...
became one of Australia's best-known painters, and actors such as David Gulpilil
David Gulpilil
David Gulpilil Ridjimiraril Dalaithngu , is an Indigenous Australian traditional dancer and actor. His first starring role was Walkabout....
, Ernie Dingo
Ernie Dingo
Ernie Dingo AM is an Indigenous Australian actor and television presenter originating from the Yamatji people of the Murchison region of Western Australia.-Background:...
, and Deborah Mailman
Deborah Mailman
Deborah Mailman , is an Australian television and film actress. She was the first Aboriginal actress to win the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role...
became well known. Bands such as Yothu Yindi
Yothu Yindi
Yothu Yindi are an Australian band with Aboriginal and balanda members formed in 1986. Aboriginal members come from Yolngu homelands near Yirrkala on the Gove Peninsula in Northern Territory's Arnhem Land...
, and singers Christine Anu
Christine Anu
-Early life:Anu was born in Cairns, Queensland to a Torres Strait Islander mother from Saibai and Mabuiag Islands.-Career:Anu began performing as a dancer and later went on to sing back-up vocals for The Rainmakers, which included Neil Murray of the Warumpi Band. Her first recording was in 1993...
, Jessica Mauboy
Jessica Mauboy
Jessica Hilda Mauboy , is an Indigenous Australian R&B singer-songwriter and actress. In 2006, Mauboy was the runner-up on the fourth season of Australian Idol, she had auditioned for the talent show in Alice Springs to pursue a recording career...
and Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu
Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu
Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu is an Indigenous Australian musician, who sings in the Yolngu language.He was born in Galiwin'ku , off the coast of Arnhem Land, Northern Australia about 350 miles from Darwin. He is from the Gumatj clan of the Yolngu and his mother from the Galpu nation...
, have successfully combined Indigenous musical styles and instruments with pop/rock, gaining wide appreciation amongst non-Indigenous audiences. Polymath David Unaipon
David Unaipon
David Unaipon was an Australian Aboriginal of the Ngarrindjeri people, a preacher, inventor and writer. He was the most widely known Aboriginal in Australia, and broke stereotypes of Aboriginals...
is commemorated on the Australian $50 note
Banknotes of the Australian dollar
The banknotes of the Australian dollar were first issued on 14 February 1966, when Australia adopted decimal currency.- Former series :The $5 note was not issued until 1967...
.
Indigenous Australians have also been prominent in sport. Lionel Rose
Lionel Rose
Lionel Edmund Rose MBE was an Australian bantamweight boxer, the first Indigenous Australian to win a world title.-Early life:...
earned a world title in boxing. Evonne Goolagong
Evonne Goolagong
Evonne Fay Goolagong Cawley, AO, MBE is a former World No. 1 Australian female tennis player. She was one of the world's leading players in the 1970s and early 1980s, when she won 14 Grand Slam titles: seven in singles , six in women's doubles, and one in mixed doubles.-Early life:Goolagong is the...
became the world number-one ranked tennis player with 14 Grand Slam titles. Arthur Beetson
Arthur Beetson
Arthur Henry "Artie" Beetson, OAM , was an Australian rugby league footballer and coach. He represented Australia and Queensland from 1964 to 1981. His position was at prop. Beetson became the first Indigenous Australian to captain his country in any sport. and is frequently cited as the best...
, Laurie Daley
Laurie Daley
Laurie Daley OA is an Australian rugby league football commentator and former player of Indigenous Australian descent. He represented Australia on 26 occasions and has since been named as one of the nation's finest players of the 20th century...
and Gorden Tallis
Gorden Tallis
Gorden James Tallis is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played from 1992 to 2004. He captained Australia and Queensland as well as the Brisbane Broncos club, with whom he won three premierships and one Clive Churchill Medal...
captained Australia in Rugby League. Mark Ella
Mark Ella
Mark Gordon Ella is an Indigenous Australian former rugby union player, often considered as one of his country's all-time greats in that sport. In a relatively short career , Mark Ella established himself as one of the all-time greats in world rugby union...
captained Australia in Rugby Union
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
. Prominent Australian athletes include Cathy Freeman
Cathy Freeman
Catherine Astrid Salome "Cathy" Freeman, OAM is former Australian sprinter, who specialised in the 400 metres event. She became the Olympic champion for the women's 400 metres at the 2000 Summer Olympics, at which she lit the Olympic Flame.Freeman was the first ever Aboriginal...
earned gold medals in the Olympics, World Championships, and Commonwealth Games
Commonwealth Games
The Commonwealth Games is an international, multi-sport event involving athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations. The event was first held in 1930 and takes place every four years....
. In Australian Football, an increasing number of Indigenous Australians are playing at the highest level, the Australian Football League
Australian Football League
The Australian Football League is both the governing body and the major professional competition in the sport of Australian rules football...
. Graham Farmer
Graham Farmer
Graham Vivian "Polly" Farmer, MBE is a retired Australian rules football player and coach. Born in Western Australia, he joined the East Perth Football Club as a ruckman in 1953, where he won several awards and contributed to the team winning three premierships...
is said to have revolutionised the game in the ruck and handball areas, and Brownlow Medal
Brownlow Medal
The Chas Brownlow Trophy, better known as the Brownlow Medal , is awarded to the "fairest and best" player in the Australian Football League during the regular season as determined by votes cast by the officiating field umpires after each game...
lists and Indigenous Team of the Century
Indigenous Team of the Century
The Indigenous Team of the Century was selected to recognise the role of Indigenous Australians in the sport. It was announced in 2005 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first senior game played by an indigenous player, Fitzroy's Joe Johnson...
members Gavin Wanganeen
Gavin Wanganeen
Gavin Adrian Wanganeen is a retired Australian rules footballer, playing in two Australian Football League premierships with Essendon and Port Adelaide. Wanganeen is a Brownlow Medallist and is considered one of the finest indigenous players ever...
and Adam Goodes
Adam Goodes
Adam Goodes is a professional Australian rules football player with the Sydney Swans in the Australian Football League ....
.
While relatively few Indigenous Australians have been elected to political office (Neville Bonner
Neville Bonner
Neville Thomas Bonner AO was an Australian politician, and the first indigenous Australian to become a member of the Parliament of Australia...
, Aden Ridgeway
Aden Ridgeway
Aden Derek Ridgeway , Australian politician, was a member of the Australian Senate for New South Wales, from 1999 to 2005, representing the Australian Democrats. During his term he was the only Aboriginal member of the Australian Parliament.-Early history:Ridgeway was born in Macksville, New South...
and Ken Wyatt
Ken Wyatt
Kenneth George Wyatt AM is a member of the Australian House of Representatives representing the electoral division of Hasluck in Western Australia for the Liberal Party of Australia...
remain the only ATSI people to have been elected to the Australian Federal Parliament), Aboriginal rights campaigner Sir Douglas Nicholls
Douglas Nicholls
Sir Douglas Ralph "Doug" Nicholls KCVO, OBE, was a prominent Aboriginal Australian from the Yorta Yorta people. He was a professional athlete, Churches of Christ pastor and church planter, ceremonial officer and a pioneering campaigner for reconciliation.Nicholls was the first Aboriginal person to...
was appointed Governor of the State of South Australia in 1976, and many others have become famous through political activism – for instance, Charles Perkins' involvement in the Freedom Ride
Freedom Ride (Australia)
The Freedom Ride of 1964 and 1965 was a significant event in the history of civil rights for Indigenous Australians.Inspired by the Freedom Riders of the American Civil Rights Movement, students from Sydney University formed a group called the Student Action for Aboriginals, led by Charles Perkins...
of 1965 and subsequent work; or Torres Strait Islander Eddie Mabo
Eddie Mabo
Eddie Koiki Mabo was a Torres Strait Islander who is known for his role in campaigning for Indigenous land rights and for his role in a landmark decision of the High Court of Australia that overturned the legal fiction of terra nullius which characterised Australian law with regards to land and...
's part in the landmark native title
Native title
Native title is the Australian version of the common law doctrine of aboriginal title.Native title is "the recognition by Australian law that some Indigenous people have rights and interests to their land that come from their traditional laws and customs"...
decision that bears his name. The voices of Cape York activist Noel Pearson; and academics Marcia Langton
Marcia Langton
Marcia Lynne Langton is one of Australia's leading Aboriginal scholars. She holds the Foundation Chair in Australian Indigenous Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia...
and Mick Dodson
Mick Dodson
Professor Michael James "Mick" Dodson, AM is an indigenous Australian leader, a member of the Yawuru peoples in the Broome area of the southern Kimberley region of Western Australia. His brother is Patrick Dodson, also a noted Aboriginal leader.Following his parents' death, he boarded at Monivae...
today loom large in national debates. Some Indigenous people who initially became famous in other spheres – for instance, poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal
Oodgeroo Noonuccal
Oodgeroo Noonuccal was an Australian poet, political activist, artist and educator. She was also a campaigner for Aboriginal rights...
– have used their celebrity to draw attention to Indigenous issues.
In health services, Kelvin Kong became the first Indigenous surgeon in 2006 and is an advocate of Indigenous health issues.
Representative sporting teams
Flying Boomerangs
The Flying Boomerangs are the underage Indigenous Australian Australian rules football team.The team has played tests against the South African national Australian rules football team in both Australia and South Africa and more recently against an underage Papua New Guinea, the first international...
and Indigenous Team of the Century
Indigenous Team of the Century
The Indigenous Team of the Century was selected to recognise the role of Indigenous Australians in the sport. It was announced in 2005 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first senior game played by an indigenous player, Fitzroy's Joe Johnson...
(Australian rules football
Australian rules football
Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...
) and the Indigenous All Stars (rugby league
Rugby league
Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...
) . The first organised trip of Australian cricketers to travel overseas was principally made up of Aboriginal members embarked on a tour of England in 1868. Charles Lawrence
Charles Lawrence (cricketer)
Charles Lawrence was a Surrey cricketer, represented England but is most notable as the captain-coach of the Aborigine cricket team that toured England in 1868, the first ever tour of England by an Australian team....
accompanied them as captain and coach.
See also
- Aboriginal sacred siteAboriginal sacred siteAboriginal sacred sites are areas or places in Australia of significant Aboriginal Australian meaning within the animist context of the localised indigenous belief system. Most are somehow related to Aboriginal mythology, known as 'The Dreaming, or The Dreamtime'. The Dreaming / Dreamtime is a term...
- Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNetAustralian Indigenous HealthInfoNetThe Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet is an internet resource that collects, collates and interprets evidence-derived knowledge on Australian Indigenous health. It then makes this knowledge readily accessible via the internet to inform policy, practice, research, teaching and general community...
- Australian outback literature of the 20th centuryAustralian outback literature of the 20th centuryThis article refers to the works of poets and novelists and specialized writers who have written about the Australian outback from first-hand experience. This is a wide and important field of study, particularly as it frequently addresses race relations in Australia, often from a non-political...
- Australoid race
- Customary Aboriginal lawCustomary Aboriginal lawCustomary law in Australia relates to the systems and practices amongst Aboriginal Australians which have developed over time from accepted moral norms in Aboriginal societies, and which regulate human behaviour, mandate specific sanctions for non-compliance, and connect people with both each other...
- Indigenous Protected AreasIndigenous Protected AreasAn Indigenous Protected Area is a class of protected area formed by agreement with Indigenous Australians, declared by Indigenous Australians, and formally recognised by the Government of Australia as being part of its National Reserve System....
- List of Indigenous Peoples
- List of laws concerning Indigenous Australians
- NAIDOC WeekNAIDOC WeekNAIDOC Week is an Australian observance lasting from the first Sunday in July until the following Sunday....
- Northern Territory National Emergency ResponseNorthern Territory National Emergency ResponseThe Northern Territory National Emergency Response was a package of changes to welfare provision, law enforcement, land tenure and other measures, introduced by the Australian federal government under John Howard in 2007 to address claims of rampant child sexual abuse and neglect in Northern...
- Welcome to Country and Acknowledgement of Country
External links
- Australian Bureau of Statistics, Key Messages from "The Health and Welfare of Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, 2010". Data from the 2008 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey (NATSISS), Census of Population and Housing, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), and other administrative data sources. 4704.0 – "The Health and Welfare of Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, 2010"
- Closing the Gap – celebrates the achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and a gateway to information on Australian Government Indigenous initiatives and programs
- Australian Museum: Indigenous Australia
- The South Australian Museum: Tribal boundaries in Aboriginal Australia map
- Indigenous Australian News and Articles
- Indigenous Language Map
- Australian Indigenous Health InfoNet
- Australian Human Rights Commission: Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Index
- Indigenous Law Resources
- National Indigenous Times – national Indigenous affairs newspaper
- NT Mojos – Northern Territory Mobile Journalists – an innovative, pilot mobile journalism project that is helping close the gap in the Northern Territory by giving Indigenous communities a chance to tell their stories in their own way