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Indigenous life before colonisation & invasion

What was the Australian continent like before colonisation?

What was the Australian continent like before colonisation?

The landscape of Australia in 1750 and before colonisation was beautiful and rugged. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were very skilled in dealing with the enviromental challenges, they had to be to deaal with the significant droughts, fires and floods.

First Nations peoples had semi-permanent residences, ecenomic trade routes, technology, land managment and food production methods. Many historians recognise that 18th century Indigenous people had advanced technologies and were a growing poulation.

Subtopic 1

Language Matters

Language matters

In the past, historians used words such as settled, settlement and settler to describe the british ocupation of Australia, these terms disregard the damage that colonistaion did to the indigenous people and their land that was taken from them.

Modern historians prefer to use words like colonist and invader which acknowledge the violence and disposession.

Historians also use the word genocide to describe the experience of First Nations people.

Subtopic 2

Pictures

Cultures of First Nations peoples

Millennia before Europeans set foot on the continent of Autralia, the First Nations peoples had clearly defined political, social and legal structures.

Some concepts of time, law and social conduct are considered by first nations people to be sacred. They can only be shared

with the initiated, and cannot be described in just a textbook.

Social structures

Social structures

The nation and clan social structures of the first nations peoples of Australia are generally based on a three part system of kinship involving moiety, totem and skin name.

This kinship system had laws preventing people with certain totems and skin names from marrying one another, as they were considered siblings. This ensured the continuing genetic health of the community.

Concepts of time

First Nations people believe that time is circular, History is not fixed but is in flux,

and is something that moves across the past, present and future. this means that the past can be experienced in the present.

Oral history traditions rely on consistency, their stories are passed on through the generations, someone who is telling a sacred story must tell it the same way every time, or they will be corrected by a group of elders, who were told the story by their elders.

What were the economic structures of the First Nations Australia

Some Indigenous people operated on the basis that spirituality, lore (the customs and stories learned from the Dreamtime.) laws, country and people are all interconnected. For these communities applying terms like economy are almost meaningless.

What were the economic structures of the First Nations Australia

Gatherings

Gatherings

Many sacred sites are close to water and have a good suply of food, these places have been carefully maintained and used maximise agricultural production.

The seasonal production and migratations of food sources enabled large gatherings to occur

Where they the first famers?

European explorers described the First Nations peoples as nomads and hunter-gatherers, this description is inacurate, and in recent analysis of explorers journals and colonial artworks show that First Nations peoples had semi-permanent residences, used unique techniques to increase food production and built structure similar to silos to store food.

The abundance of certain foods throughout the season allowed societies to trade food and hold ceremonies as there was enough food to feed a large number of people.

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