Daily life of the Australian Aborigines. Peoples of Australia

It did not differ in complexity.

Fruits, berries and insects were eaten raw. The rest of the food was fried or baked. Fire was taught by rubbing two pieces of wood. The work of extracting the fire took from half an hour to an hour. The killed game was thrown directly into the fire, then, when the wool burned, they were taken out, gutted, the remains of the wool were cleaned off and baked on coals. Meat, fish and small turtles were prepared in this way. If the animals were large, like kangaroos, then the meat remained half-baked. Often blood flowed from him, it was considered a delicacy. Nuts, seeds, roots were baked in the ashes of a fire. More refined was cooking in an earthen oven. For an earthen oven, they dug a hole half a meter deep and built a fire in it, where stones were laid. When the fire burned out, coal and ashes were removed; only red-hot stones were left in the pit. Big game, fish and vegetables were put there. Large turtles were covered with red-hot stones and cooked right in the shell.

Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Aboriginal diet was well balanced and contained the optimal ratio of proteins, fats and carbohydrates for the body. Many dishes baked in an earthen oven would satisfy any gourmet. A surprisingly pleasant drink was prepared from the nectar of flowers dipped in water. Very tasty macadamia nuts, now in commercial demand. Other delicacies - lizards, larvae, butterflies and honey ants - are unlikely to suit white Australians. But the most repulsive thing is eating human flesh.

Cannibalism

Cannibalism among the Australian Aborigines occurred among many tribes, but was practiced infrequently. Sometimes, when there was a shortage of food or for ritual purposes, newborn children were killed, more often girls, and the dead were not buried, but eaten. There were also purely ritual forms of cannibalism: eating the corpses of dead relatives, eating the bodies and, especially, the hearts of killed enemies by warriors, and the rite of eating human meat during initiation (initiation of a young man into a man). For all that, the Australian Aborigines were not regularly practicing cannibals, their cannibalism was not systematic and did not serve as an aid in nutrition. Sid Kyle-Little, who lived among the natives, writes:

“Natives of Liverpool River did not kill people for food. They ate human flesh out of superstition. If they killed a worthy man in battle, they ate his heart, believing that they would inherit his courage and strength. They ate his brain because they knew that his knowledge was there. If they killed a fast runner, they would eat part of his legs, hoping to gain his speed."

The explanations of the natives themselves of the causes of cannibalism are interesting. In 1933, an old chief from Yam Island told journalist Colin Simpson that he was given finely chopped human meat mixed with crocodile meat when he was initiated. The young man became tired. The goal was to "make the heart strong from the inside". Simpson also describes how, at the birth of a child, spouses who already had their first child ritually killed the newborn and fed him the meat of the older child to make him strong. Among other tribes, relatives ate pieces of the fat of the deceased out of respect for his memory. “We ate him,” explains the native, “because we knew him and loved him.”

4.4. Family and marriage

The system of kinship that determined marital relations was very complex. The elementary unit was the family, but the child's mothers were considered, except for the mother, her sister, and the fathers were the father and his brothers. All their children were "brothers" and "sisters". Children from brothers "mothers" and sisters "fathers" were considered cousins. "Brothers" and "sisters" had a common guardian spirit or totem in the form of an animal, plant or natural phenomenon and belonged to one marriage phratry, or, as the natives said, one skin type. Many tribes had four phratries, although it was not uncommon for them to have eight or even an odd number. The system of phratries excluded consanguineous marriages within the tribe. So, with a four-part division, men and women of a certain phratry could look for a wife or husband only in one of the four phratries, and marriage was prohibited with the other three, including their own. Violation of the prohibition of marriage was punishable by death.

Marriages were usually arranged by elders. The young man had little chance of getting a bride to his liking. The bride was chosen by influential elderly men of the family. In the tribe tiwi a young man who has undergone initiation is usually promised a wife, an unborn daughter from a peer from the “correct” phratry: she is already married to a man who is her father’s age. From this moment on, the young man begins to “earn” the bride by delivering part of the game to her mother. But life goes on, and the young man not only dreams of future happiness, but looks around and at the age of thirty, if he is a good hunter, marries a woman, often older in age, the widow of one of the deceased patriarchs. He later acquires a younger widow.

Larrakia woman. Northern Australia. The scars on her back mean she is a widow. Young women first enter the harems of elderly men, and when they are widowed, they marry young men. The more sadness for the deceased husband, the more scars ... and attractiveness for young men. T.A. Joyce and N.W. Thomas. Women of all nations. 1908. London: Cassel and Co. Photo: Dr. Ramsay Smith and P. Foelsche. Wikimedia Commons.

At the age of fifty, a man finally connects with his betrothed. Usually by this time he, now a respected member of the tribe, has several more brides on the way. Our hero has reached the pinnacle of social position. His wives have given birth or are going to give birth to daughters, so the suitors in every possible way “courage him. They bring delicious dugong meat and fat geese.” The patriarch spends old age in honor and prosperity. When he dies, his widows go to young, not yet married men. The circle closes. But all this applies to smart and skillful men - a klutz, most often left without a wife.

Marriage life was arranged in a similar way in all tribes. Only the details differed. In some tribes the groom gives part of the booty to the mother of the bride, in others to the father; somewhere he gives only a share of what he has got, in other places he presents the best. The decision to be engaged is arranged with ceremony. In the tribe loritia the engagement is announced in the presence of all members of the clan. The mother of the bride comes up to the groom, aged 12-15, or even five, and declares: “Oh, you won’t marry her soon! Only when the men order you, will you take her as your wife! Until then, don't think about her!" And the groom's relatives shake their batons and say: “We give you this girl, this one alone. When she grows up and when all the men give her to you, you can take her. Until then, don't think about her!"

4.5. sexual relations

Aboriginal people consider sexuality to be a natural desire that needs to be satisfied. Unlike Europeans, they considered normal erotic interest in children. In the tribe yolingu play was common among children nigi nigi, imitating sexual intercourse, and adults treat her quite calmly. During puberty, boys were circumcised and girls were deprived of their virginity. The reason for circumcision was the belief that an uncircumcised member could harm a woman during intercourse. Circumcision was a secret ritual. Women danced nearby, but they were forbidden to watch the process. The older men revealed to the boy the meaning of sacred songs, and at dawn, having formed a table from their bodies, they performed circumcision. The foreskin was eaten by the men, or in other tribes given to the boy, and he wore it in a pouch around his neck.

Some tribes, in particular, aranda in Central Australia, one month after circumcision, a longitudinal dissection of the penis was performed. To do this, the partially erect penis was cut along the urethra to make it look like a male emu with a longitudinal cleft or a forked member of a marsupial wallaby hare. After such an operation, the dissected penis, when excited, turned outwards and thickened greatly, which, according to Arand, can give a woman no less pleasure than a female wallaby receives from a male bicorn penis. The rite of longitudinal notching was not associated with contraception, as was previously believed, because according to the concepts of the natives, the seed is not associated with conception at all. They denied the physical role of the father and mother and believed that the psychic forces of the father call from the world of dreams the totem of the conception of the spirit of the child, which is infused in the mother. There he grows until birth.

The ritual of defloration (deprivation of virginity) is described among several tribes of Australia. The natives of Arnhem Land back in the 40s. 20th century made a shelter for the girls who were initiated, with an entrance known as sacred vagina. There the girls, hidden from men's eyes, lived for some time. The older women taught them songs, dances and sacred myths. At the dawn of the last day, the girls performed a ritual bath. By this time, the men had already made boomerangs with flattened ends. Girls, men and boomerangs are rubbed with red ocher, symbolizing blood. Men boomerang deflower girls or imitate defloration if virginity has already been lost. The males and females then copulate. In another tribe, the future husband and his "brothers" kidnap the girl intended for marriage, have sex with her in turn, and then take her to the parking lot to her husband. A ritual is described when men deflower a girl with their fingers or a stick in the form of a penis. Then, they take turns copulating with her, collecting their own semen and drinking it.

Australian Aborigines highly valued sexual intercourse. For them, it meant the cycle of nature, the change of seasons, the reproduction of people, animals, plants, and, in this way, the maintenance of food supplies. At dieri ritual copulation of four pairs of men and women was considered a means of increasing the fertility of emus. Men were especially interested in the penis. In some tribes, when meeting, as a sign of greeting, men stroked their penis or touched the penis with their hand. Women excelled in sexual dances. In corroboree dances, performed on the full moon or by the light of bonfires, the painted men personified the militant, and the women personified the sexual principle. The dancing girls shook their buttocks and breasts and announced with facial expressions that they were ready to meet the young men in places known to them.

Yet for girls, more precisely, nine-year-old girls, usually, the first man was a husband. Boys began their sexual life later, at 12–14 years of age. As a rule, they had connections with peers and married women. Aboriginal people tolerated extramarital sex, as long as the prohibitions of consanguinity were not violated. Married women and men often had affairs on the side. Elderly husbands were especially hard hit. Young wives now and then cheated on them with young men thirsty for caresses. The patriarch could beat the unfaithful wife and slightly injure the offender with a spear, and he had to endure it, but a serious wound caused universal condemnation.

When settling down for the night, an elderly man laid one or two of the youngest wives near him, and sacrificed other wives - he placed them outside in a circle and delicately did not notice what was happening there. Extramarital affairs, much more often than marriages, were based on physical attractiveness and on courtship, including singing songs and small gifts. Very often, in order to achieve the desired goal, they used love magic - magic songs, rock paintings of a loved one, the magic of severed bird heads, buzzing in shells.

A special place was occupied by the proposal by husbands of their wives at festive ceremonies, where natives from a vast territory gathered. There, it was not uncommon for the men of one phratry or tribe to invite foreign men to take advantage of their wives. This is how, according to Spencer and Gillen (1927), it looked like a tribal festival aranda:

"Old man, head of the totem tjapeltieri, brought one of the wives with him and, leaving her in the bushes, approached the totem man tupila from the tribe worgaya, one of the woman's tribal fathers. After whispering with him for a while, he took him to the place where the woman was hidden, and he lay down with her. Meanwhile the man tjapeltieri returned to the place of the ceremony, sat down and began to sing along with all the men. Tupila returned and hugged him from behind, and in response the man tjapeltieri rubbed his legs and arms ... and then he invited other men tupila, (tribal fathers of women) and men takomara(the woman's tribal brothers), but they all refused."

It is characteristic here that the man of the phratry tupila who accepted the offer was a guest, and the men tupila who rejected the offer, local. That is, the proposal of the woman was rejected if the men live nearby.

In addition to holiday entertainment, groups of men aranda they often made trips to their neighbors in order to find and kill the sorcerer who caused damage to the members of the clan. Usually they offered a woman to the supposed sorcerer. If he accepted the gift and approached a woman, it means that he is a harmless person. But if he rejected a woman, his fate was sad. So, with the help of women, the natives strengthened the bonds of friendship between neighboring tribes and punished enemies. Unlike more "cultured" peoples, the natives knew almost no homosexuality. One of the exceptions was boron in north Queensland, where, like the Papuans, boys at initiation had oral sex with men and swallowed their semen.

4.6. Aborigines today

The customs of the Australian aborigines described in this chapter have all but disappeared. During European colonization, the tribes of South, East and South-West Australia died out or lost their culture. Observations from the life of aborigines refer to the tribes of Central and Northern Australia in the late 19th - mid-20th centuries. Now they have changed their way of life in many ways. But the movement to revive the cultural traditions of the natives is gaining momentum. Of course, not ritual cannibalism and the killing of sorcerers, but an understanding of nature, knowledge of legends, one's history and pedigree, songs and dances of corroborees under the stars by the fires.

Appearance, languages

Aborigines or indigenous people of Australia belong to the Australoid race. In the opinion of Europeans, the natives do not shine with beauty. They have dark chocolate, almost black skin, wavy or curly hair, a very wide shapeless nose, thick lips, and a developed brow. Men have abundant hair growth on the face and body. The physique is thin, somewhat asthenic; growth is average, sometimes high. The volume of the brain is one of the lowest in the world, which has been used more than once to prove the mental retardation of the natives. But it must be remembered that brain volume is positively related to lean body mass (which is why men have larger brains than women), and Aboriginal body weight is small.

Boomerang attack. Luritya tribe. Central Australia. 1920.

Aborigine with a child. Western Australia. 1916. National Museum of Australia.

Despite the vastness of the continent, local differences are small. Aborigines of the south of Australia are shorter than the northerners, more broad-nosed and hairy. The tribes in the lower reaches of the Murray River are exceptionally hairy: the length of hair on the chest and body of men reaches 10 cm, and even women grow beards and mustaches. In Central Australia it is not uncommon for very dark-skinned children to have blond, even blond, hair. With age, the hair darkens and acquires a chestnut or reddish tint. Purebred natives of Tasmania (now only mestizos remain) had curly, like the Papuans, hair and the widest nose in the world.

The Australian Aborigines were divided into tribes. By the end of the XVIII century. (the time of the arrival of Europeans) 400-700 tribes lived in Australia. The number of the tribe ranged from 100 to 1500 people. Each tribe had its own language or dialect of the language, customs and territory of residence. Large tribes occupying a large territory could speak related dialects of the same language. In turn, neighboring tribes also often spoke different dialects of the same language. Prior to European colonization, there were about 200 independent languages ​​in Australia, not counting dialects.

material culture

The Aboriginal people were hunters and gatherers who lived in the Stone Age. Men hunted kangaroos and other marsupials, emu, birds, turtles, snakes, crocodiles, and fished. When hunting, tamed dingoes were often used. Women and children collected nuts, seeds, berries, edible roots, bird eggs, insects and grubs. Women prepared food and carried simple belongings during wanderings. The aborigines led a nomadic life and slept in hastily erected huts and in the open air. Only during long stays were permanent huts built. They had almost no clothes - they wore loincloths or went naked. The body was painted. The natives did not know the bow and arrows, and when hunting they used spears, darts with a spear thrower, and some tribes used boomerangs. For catching fish, spears, fishing lines with a hook and special fish traps were used.

Religious beliefs

In contrast to the primitive way of life, the spiritual culture of the Australian aborigines was quite developed. The surrounding world was perceived by them as a unity of spirits, people, animals and nature. The central place was occupied by the mythology of the cycle dream times, uniting the past, when the creation of the world took place, the present and the future. played an important role in the acts of creation Rainbow Serpent, creator of mountains and caves. The Aboriginal universe consisted of heaven, earth and the underworld. The best place was the sky, where the souls of the dead and divine beings lived. In the heavenly plain there is plenty of water and abundance. The stars are the campfires of the heavenly inhabitants. Strong shamans can travel to heaven and return to earth. Aborigines revered and feared shamans who owned magic and sorcery. But ordinary people also resorted to magical rites for a successful hunt, love success and harm to the enemy.

Australian Aborigines, that is, the indigenous inhabitants of Australia, whose number now stands at about half a million people, live mostly in areas of the northern half of the mainland remote from cities. Until recently, the existence of the First Nations who inhabited Australia was under threat. With the beginning of European colonization, epidemics came to their lands, displacement from their native lands and uncontrolled physical destruction. The British, having come to new lands and considering the tribes living there for the most primitive people, not far from the monkey, without ceremony slaughtered them with whole villages. By 1921, their number had fallen to 60 thousand people, while by the time the Europeans discovered Australia, there were about 1 million of them.

But in the 20th century, the Australian government became concerned about the problems of the indigenous population, reservations began to be created, public finances were allocated and donations were collected, so that, given the high birth rate, now their numbers have increased dramatically.

Scientists single out the Australian Aborigines as a separate Australian branch of the Australoid race. Outwardly, they are tall people with black wavy hair, large protruding brow ridges, a large nose with wide nostrils and deep-set eyes. They are distinguished by very large teeth, an elongated skull with very thick skull bones, and extremely dark pigmentation of the skin and eyes. Among the natives there are natural blondes, this is a mutation that has been fixed as a result of isolation. Initially, they were attributed to the Negroid race, but later genetic studies proved their proximity to the Mongoloid race and the maximum remoteness of kinship with the Negroids.

In their best times, the Australian Aborigines were engaged in gathering, hunting and fishing. They were not engaged in agriculture or other productive economy, they did not have a written language, laws, social hierarchy. They did not build cities and large settlements, did not engage in handicrafts. Australians lived in groups, based on a common language and family ties. Only the related Tasmanians had a more primitive cultural and material environment. The spiritual and religious side of the life of the indigenous population was more developed. Hundreds of scattered tribes spoke their own languages ​​or dialects, had rich oral traditions and an extensive mythology.

Indigenous Australians united in about 400 ethnic groups, spoke several hundred dialects, grouped into 26 language groups. The aboriginal tribes of southern Australia developed a special sign language as an alternative form of communication with speakers of other languages. Also, sign language was used in special cases of taboo speech. The richness of myths and legends among different tribes have much in common, common lines of plots and heroes stand out. They developed their own system of ideas about the world, in which, in addition to the real world around us, there is also a world of dreams where the spirits of ancestors live. In the sky these worlds meet, and the movements of the Sun, Moon and stars may depend on the actions of ancestors or living people. Aborigines paid special attention to the starry sky and the movements taking place on it, but at the same time they did not use celestial objects either for navigation or for calendar readings. Structurally, the society consisted of communities, led by elders and hereditary leaders. There were initiations - special rites that preceded the entry of young men and women into adulthood. Severe restrictions on marriage were based on a complex system of kinship. Funeral rites included cremation, which was invented in Australia earlier than anywhere else.

Unfortunately, the new Australians, white settlers, paid little attention to the indigenous population. Even when the era of hard labor development of the mainland passed and scientists from Europe began to gather in the cities, there was no special attitude to the collection and analysis of materials on the aspects of the life of indigenous peoples. Therefore, much knowledge about the culture and heritage of the Australian Aborigines is now irretrievably lost. Modern descendants of the aborigines have almost completely lost their traditional ways of life support, are focused on state and charitable assistance and keep religious traditions. Aboriginal people were recognized as citizens of the state of Australia with the corresponding rights and obligations only in 1967. At present, movements for the preservation of cultural identity are developing in modern Australia, lands are allocated in collective ownership for the protection of cultural heritage, the National Aboriginal Television is operating, and lessons are being taught in Aboriginal languages. You can see with your own eyes how the natives live and get to know their culture better by visiting

Australia is located in the southern and eastern hemispheres of the planet. The entire continent is occupied by one state. The population is growing every day and this moment is over 24.5 million people. Approximately every 2 minutes a new person is born. The country ranks 50th in the world in terms of population. As for the indigenous population, in 2007 it was no more than 2.7%, all the rest are migrants from around the world who have been inhabiting the mainland for several centuries. In terms of age indicators, children are approximately 19%, older people - 67%, and the elderly (over 65 years old) - about 14%.

Australia has a long life expectancy of 81.63 years. According to this parameter, the country ranks 6th in the world. Death occurs approximately every 3 minutes 30 seconds. The infant mortality rate is average: for every 1,000 births, there are 4.75 newborn deaths.

Composition of the Australian population

Australia is home to people with roots from around the world. The largest number are the following people:

• British;
• New Zealanders;
• Italians;
• Chinese;
• Germans;
• Vietnamese;
• Hindus;
• Filipinos;
• Greeks.

In this regard, a huge number of religious denominations are represented on the continent: Catholicism and Protestantism, Buddhism and Hinduism, Islam and Judaism, Sikhism and various indigenous beliefs and religious movements.

About the natives of Australia

The official language of Australia is Australian English. It is used in public institutions and in communication, in travel agencies and cafes, restaurants and hotels, in theaters and transport. English is used by the absolute majority of the population - about 80%, all the rest are the languages ​​of national minorities. Quite often people in Australia speak two languages: English and their native national language. All this contributes to the preservation of the traditions of various peoples.

Thus, Australia is not a densely populated continent, and has the prospect of settlement and increase in numbers. It increases both due to the birth rate and due to migration. Of course, the majority of the population are Europeans and their descendants, but you can also meet various African and Asian peoples here. In general, we see a mix of different peoples, languages, religions and cultures, which creates a special state where people of different nationalities and religions get along together.

Australia population 2016

Australia and Oceania are one of the smallest parts of the world, their area is about 9 million km 2, with 7.7 million km 2 falling on the Australian continent, the rest on the island states of Oceania. The population is no different either. big amount: about 25 million people, most of the population of Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand. The composition of the historical and cultural region of Australia and Oceania is the states of Australia, New Zealand, Vanuatu, Caribati, Micronesia, Nauru, the Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea, Palau, the Solomon Islands, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu and Fiji.

Australia and the Pacific Islands were explored by European navigators much later than other continents. The name of the mainland Australia is the fruit of an erroneous theory of scientists of the 16th century, who believed that New Guinea, discovered by the Spaniards, and the archipelago of the islands of Tierra del Fuego, discovered by Magellan, are actually the northern spurs of the new mainland, as they called it "the unknown southern land" or in Latin "terra australius incognita".

Conventionally, Oceania is divided into several parts, which are radically different both in culture and in ethnic composition.

The so-called "Black Islands" - Melanesia, islands in the western part of the Pacific Ocean, formerly the mainland of Australia, the largest of them is New Guinea.

The second part, Polynesia or "Many Islands", includes the southernmost part of the western islands, which is composed of New Zealand, also with a large number of large and small islands randomly scattered in the ocean, resembling a triangle in shape. Its peak in the north is Hawaii, in the east is Easter Island, in the south is New Zealand.

A part called Micronesia or "Small Islands" lies to the north of Melanesia, these are the Marshall Islands, the Gilbert Islands, the Caroline and Mariana Islands.

Indigenous tribes

When European navigators came to this part of the world, they found here tribes of indigenous people who belonged to the Australo-Negroid group of peoples at various stages of development.

(Papuan from New Guinea)

The settlement of the Australian continent and the nearby islands was mainly due to the tribes that came here in search of happiness from Indonesia, as well as from the west of the Pacific Ocean, and lasted for many centuries.

New Guinea was settled by settlers from Southeast Asia belonging to the Australoid race, then this region was overtaken by a wave of migrations several more times, as a result, all the descendants of various “waves” of migrations to New Guinea are called Papuans.

(Papuans at present)

Another group of settlers who settled in some part of Oceania, probably belonging to the race of the southern Mongoloids, first came to the island of Fiji, then Samoa and Tonga. The thousand-year isolation of this region has formed here a unique and inimitable Polynesian culture, which has spread throughout the entire Polynesian part of Oceania. The population has a motley ethnic composition: the inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands are Hawaiians, in Samoa - Samoans, in Tahiti - Tahitians, in New Zealand - Maori, etc.

The level of development of the tribes

(European colonization of Australia)

By the time Europeans penetrated the Australian lands, local tribes lived at the level of the Stone Age, which is explained by the remoteness of the continent from the ancient centers of world civilizations. The aborigines hunted kangaroos and other marsupials, gathered fruits and roots, their weapons were made of wood and stone. The most famous device of the Australian Aborigines for hunting game is the boomerang, a sickle-shaped wooden club that flies along a curved path and returns to its owner. The tribes of Australians lived in a tribal communal system, there were no tribal unions, each tribe lived separately, sometimes military conflicts arose over land or for other reasons (for example, due to accusations of insidious witchcraft).

(Modern Papuans in terms of development no longer differ from Europeans, skillfully reincarnated as actors of national traditions)

The population of the island of Tasmania differed in appearance from the Australian Aborigines, they had a darker skin color, curly hair, puffy lips, which made them similar to the Negroid race living in Melanesia. They were at the lowest level of development (Stone Age), worked with stone hoes, hunted with wooden spears. They spent time gathering fruits, berries and roots, hunting. In the 19th century, the last representatives of the Tasmanian tribes were exterminated by Europeans.

The level of technical development of all the tribes that inhabited Oceania was approximately at the same level: they used stone tools, wooden weapons with cut stone tips, bone knives, and seashell scrapers were in use. The inhabitants of Melanesia used bows and arrows, grew agricultural crops, and bred domestic animals. The fishing industry was very well developed, the inhabitants of Oceania moved well across the sea over long distances, they knew how to build strong twin boats with floats and wicker sails. Successes were achieved in pottery, in weaving clothes and in the construction of household items from plant materials.

(By the middle of the 20th century, the indigenous Polynesians had already merged with the European way of life and the modern life of society.)

The Polynesians were tall, dark skin with a yellowish tint, curly locks of hair. They were mainly engaged in the cultivation of agricultural crops, the cultivation of various root crops, one of the main sources of food and an excellent material for making clothes, household items and a wide variety of devices was the coconut palm. Weapons - clubs made of wood, stone and bone. High level of development of shipbuilding and navigation. In the social system there was a division of labor, division into castes (artisans, warriors, priests), there was the concept of property;

(Also, current Micronesians)

The population of Micronesia was a mixed ethnic group, whose appearance was a mixture of features of the inhabitants of Melanesia, Indonesia and Polynesia. The level of development of the social system is intermediate between the system of the inhabitants of Melanesia and Polynesia: the division of labor, a group of artisans stood out, an exchange was carried out in the form of natural (shells and beads), the famous money of Yap Island - huge stone disks. Formally, the land was common, but in fact it belonged to the tribal nobility, wealth and power were in the hands of the elders, they were called yuroshi. It turns out that the inhabitants of Micronesia did not yet have their own state by the time the Europeans appeared, but they were very close to creating it.

Traditions and customs of local people

(Aboriginal traditional musical instruments)

In Australia, each tribe belonged to a certain totem group, that is, each tribe had patrons among representatives of flora and fauna, who were strictly forbidden to kill or eat. The ancient Australians believed in mythical ancestors, who were half people, half animals, in connection with this it was very common to perform various magical rituals, for example, when young men, having passed the test of courage and endurance, became men and received the title of warrior or hunter. The main public entertainment in the life of the Australian Aborigines were ritual holidays with chants and dances. Corroboree is a traditional ceremonial dance of Australian aboriginal men, during which its participants are painted in a certain way and decorated with feathers and animal skins, showing various scenes of hunting and everyday life, mythological and legendary stories from the history of their tribe, thus communicating with the gods and spirits of their ancestors .

In Polynesia, various legends, myths and legends about the creation of the world, various deities and spirits of ancestors are widely developed. Their whole world was divided into a divine or sacred “moa” and a simple “noa”, the moa world belonged to persons of royal blood, rich nobility and priests, for an ordinary person the sacred world was a taboo, which means “specially marked”. The cult temples of the Polynesians in the open air "marae" have survived to this day.

(Geometric patterns and aboriginal ornament)

The bodies of the Polynesians (Maori tribes, residents of Tahiti, Hawaii, Easter Island, etc.) were densely covered with a special geometric ornament, which was special and sacred for them. The very word "tatau", which means drawing, has Polynesian roots. Previously, only priests and respected people of the Polynesian people (only men) could wear tattoos, drawings and ornaments on the body told about its owner, what kind of tribe he was, his social status, occupation, his main achievements in life.

In the culture of the Polynesians, ritual chants and dances were developed, the popular Tahitian dance "tamure" is known all over the world, which is performed by a group of men and women dressed in puffy skirts made from durable fiber of the hibiscus plant. Another famous Polynesian dance "otea", which is recognizable by the luxurious movements of the shaking hips of the dancers.

(Typical housing of local tribes)

The Polynesians believed that people communicate not only on the physical level, but also on the spiritual level, i.e. when meeting people, their souls are still touching, so all the rituals and customs are built in accordance with this statement. Families are very respectful of community foundations; for Polynesians, the concept of a family called "fetia", which includes a large number of relatives on both sides, can extend to an entire village or village. In such family formations, traditions of mutual assistance and mutual assistance are strong, a joint household is maintained, common financial problems are solved. Polynesian women have a special place in society, they dominate men and are the head of the family.

Most of the Papuan tribes of New Guinea still live, observing the customs of the traditions of their ancestors in large families of up to 30-40 people, the head of the family is a man, he can have many wives. The traditions and customs of the Papuan tribes vary greatly, because there are a very large number of them (about 700).

Modernity

(Coast of modern Australia)

Today, Australia and Oceania are one of the least populated parts of the world. The population density of the Australian continent is 2.2 people / km 2. Australia and New Zealand are states with a resettlement type of population formation. Here, descendants of immigrants from Great Britain mainly predominate, in New Zealand they represent 4-5 of the entire population of the state, it is even called "Britain of the South Seas".

Australian Aborigines live in the central part of Australia on marginal lands. The indigenous inhabitants of New Zealand, the Maori tribes, make up about 12% of all inhabitants of the country. On the skeletons of Polynesia, there is a predominance of the indigenous population: the Papuans and other Polynesian peoples, and the descendants of European settlers, immigrants from India and Malaysia, also live here.

(The current natives do not mind hospitality and are happy to pose for the guests of the mainland)

The modern culture of the peoples of Australia and Oceania, to varying degrees, has retained its originality and uniqueness. On remote islands and territories, where the influence of Europeans was minimal (in the depths of Australia or in New Guinea), the folk customs and traditions of the local population remained virtually unchanged, and in those states where the influence of European culture was stronger (New Zealand, Tahiti, Hawaii), folk culture has undergone a significant transformation, and now we can observe only the remnants of once original traditions and rituals.