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A Brief Look into History
In Their Own Country
- The Aborigines presumably arrived some 45,000-60,000 years ago by foot via Indonesia and New-Guinea along a narrow isthmus that connected continental Asia and Australia in those days
- They were hunter-gatherers.
- They spread the seeds of the plants they used as food, and advanced the growth of the plants which were eaten by the animals they hunted.
- They were selective hunters, and they used boomerangs and woomeras for hunting.
- They had an intimate knowledge of medicinal plants and other applications to cure diseases.
- They moved systematically around within the area they lived, enabling the land to regenerate after it had been exploited.
Tramped on by the Europeans
- The first British settlements in Australia were established in 1788.
- In 1788, there were some 300,000 Aborigines living with tribes in the carefully delimited areas which they had inherited from their ancestors.
- There were over 300 tribes, and over 500 languages were spoken.
- By 1930 the number of Aborigines had decreased to 60,000.
- The Europeans brought diseases for which the native population had no immunity or cure.
- Several plants used as food vanished because of farming and hunted animals fled from the cultivated lands.
- The Europeans attacked the way the Aboriginal community and economy worked; their rituals and whole way of thinking were suppressed.
- Altogether some 10,000 Aborigines are estimated to have been killed in various conflicts. The Aborigines have probably killed some 1,000 Europeans.
- According to history books the last full-blooded Tasmanian Aborigine died in 1876.
- During the years 1900-1930 Aborigines were forced to move from their traditional living areas to reservations supervised by white people, the nominal function of which was to protect the Aborigines.
- They were forced to work 32 hours a week.
- Approximately half of the children were taken from their homes and placed in white families and the boarding schools of the missionary stations in the years 1910-1970.
- In 1967, the Aborigines were given Australian citizenship and they got the vote.
- In 1971, the first Aborigine was returned to Parliament and got a seat in the Senate.
The Present Situation
- In 1991, the Aboriginal population was 283,000. In 2001, the number was estimated to be 427,000, since more and more people dare identify themselves as Aborigines. The number of children in Aboriginal families is usually larger than in other population groups.
TEXT: Marju Tapaninen
TRANSLATION: Terhi Kinnarinen
UPDATED: Wednesday, 13-Mar-2002 11:38:38 EET
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