Indigenous Australians

The term Indigenous Australians refers to the ethnic groups that have inhabited the lands of Australia since the time before European colonization, and include ethnically and culturally diverse groups. The term Aboriginal Australian, or Aborigine in older texts, refers more specifically to groups indigenous to mainland Australia, Tasmania, and some of the smaller islands but is sometimes incorrectly used to refer to all Indigenous Australians. There are more than four hundred distinct groups of Aboriginal Australians, who are believed to have migrated to Australia from Africa or Asia, in addition to the Torres Strait Islanders, who are descended from the Papuans of New Guinea and lived in the Torres Strait Islands, which are today part of the province of Queensland. Indigenous Australians have been referred to as "black" since European colonization in Australia began, and in the modern era this term has been adopted by many indigenous people as a positive term rather than a derogatory or reductive one.

Brief History

Genetic studies indicate that humans probably arrived in Australia about forty-four thousand years ago, though some scholars using other methods think the earliest arrival could have been more than one hundred thousand years ago. The earliest remains that have been found are those of Mungo Man, a skeleton found in Lake Mungo and dated at forty-two thousand years, making it the oldest human remains found outside of Africa. The first Australians may have arrived in a single migration or, as proposed by some scholars, in three waves assisted by low sea levels.

The early Indigenous Australians were hunter–gatherers, most groups lived in seminomadic cultures who probably hunted and contributed to the extinction of the Australian megafauna (stories about which are part of Indigenous oral tradition). When Australia was first settled, the northwest still had ample tropical forest and woodlands. Subsequent decreases in rainfall and carbon dioxide after the glacial maximum of twenty-five thousand to fifteen thousand years ago resulted in significant changes across the continent, including desertification and the spread of semiarid savannahs that characterize it today. These changes undoubtedly reduced the Indigenous population, as well as separated it into more remote groups. Songlines, a practice among Indigenous Australians of following a path recorded in song (or traditional stories, dances, or paintings), may have originated as a way for hunter–gatherers both to trace the routes to scarce resources and to find safe passage to neighboring groups. Indigenous belief ascribes these songlines to local gods and creator-beings.

European colonization (which began in 1788) has had its strongest impact on the indigenous coastal populations, which have largely been absorbed or forced from their lands, since it is these zones that were the most habitable and the most useful to trade-minded colonists. The Australian inland populations, such as the indigenous groups of the Great Sandy Desert, have been less disrupted. As in other parts of the world, European contact also brought epidemics of disease, seizure of land and resources, war, and the introduction of addictive substances like alcohol and tobacco.

Topic Today

The Indigenous Australian population declined steadily after European contact from between four hundred thousand and seven hundred thousand to a low of seventy-four thousand in 1933, before numbers began to recover. Today they have returned to their precolonial levels. The right of Indigenous Australians to vote in Australian elections was assured by legislation in 1962, during a decade marked by growing Indigenous activism. These gains were set back by a 1971 case, Gove Land Rights, that ruled that Indigenous Australians had no land rights to assert because they had been "uncivilized" at the time of colonization and because the British Crown had claimed the right to overrule native land rights. That same year, the first Indigenous Australian Senator, Neville Bonner of Queensland, was elected. The Gove case was eventually overturned in 1992.

It is difficult to generalize about Indigenous Australians today. Many groups live largely self-sufficient existences far from white settlements; the last uncontacted tribe was discovered as recently as 1984. But many have assimilated or at least participate in modern Australian society, contributing to every sphere of Australian life, from politics to the arts to science.

There has been a trend in recent decades toward admitting white Australia’s misdeeds in the past. The Australian Parliament passed a Motion of Reconciliation in 1999, calling maltreatment of Indigenous Australians "the most blemished chapter" of Australian history, though government officials faced controversy for refusing to include specifically apologetic language, drawing a distinction between condemning the actions of past generations and taking responsibility for them. The Motion had its origins in growing public discussions of the "stolen generations," generations of Indigenous children who were taken from their families by government or church officials between 1905 and 1970 to be raised in foster homes or institutions in order to force their assimilation. Subsequent studies found that the disruption caused the removed children to be far more likely to have developed a drug problem or to have a criminal record, later in life. A formal apology for the policy was finally made in 2008.

In 2010, a panel was appointed consisting of Indigenous leaders, parliament members, and legal advisers, to provide advice to the Australian government on recognizing Indigenous Australians in the constitution. Final recommendations were made in 2012, which included removing all references to race entirely and specifically repealing the sections of the constitution that empower the government or the states to create special race-based laws or to restrict voting based on race. An additional recommended section acknowledges Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders as the first inhabitants of Australia. The proposals await a referendum, which as of 2016 had not been announced.

According to the Australian Census, most Indigenous Australians and Torres Strait Islanders no longer follow traditional Australiasn religion. This may be in part because Census-taking methods are most accurate with urban and suburban populations and so favor the most assimilated individuals. The traditional Australian religion is an animist framework that relies heavily on oral tradition and other art. Holy men in this religion are not only healers but also keepers of stories about the "dreamtime," a distant mythological past that informs present experience in Indigenous Australian tradition. Torres Strait Islanders are now predominantly Christian.

Bibliography

Brennan, Frank. No Small Change: The Road to Recognition for Indigenous Australia. Brisbane: University of Queensland, 2015. Print.

Cowan, James. Myths of the Dreaming: Interpreting Aboriginal Legends. Roseville: Unity Press, 1994. Print.

Davis, Megan, and Georgia Williams. Everything You Need to Know About the Referendum to Recognize Indigenous Australians. Sydney: U of New South Wales P, 2015. Print.

Grossman, Michele. Blacklines: Contemporary Critical Writing by Indigenous Australians. Melbourne: Melbourne UP, 2003. Print.

Hampton, Ronald, and Maree Toombs. Indigenous Australians and Health. New York: Oxford UP, 2013. Print.

Horton, David, ed. The Encyclopedia of Aboriginal Australia. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 1994. Print.

Probyn-Rapsey, Fiona. Made to Matter: White Fathers, Stolen Generations. Sydney: Sydney UP, 2013. Print.

Sculthorpe, Gary, et al., eds. Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilizations. London: British Museum Press, 2015. Print.

Smith, W. Ramsay. Myths and Legends of the Australian Aborigines. New York: Dover, 2003. Print.

Wright, Alexis. Carpenteria. New York: Atria Books, 2010. Print.