The population of Australia. Indigenous people 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.

, Tasmanians

Aboriginal Handicrafts

Today, most Aboriginal people rely on state and other charity. Traditional ways of subsistence (hunting, fishing and gathering, among the islanders of the Torres Strait - manual farming) are almost completely lost.

Types of Australian Aboriginals

• Murray type
• Carpentarian type
• barrinean type

Before the advent of Europeans

The settlement of Australia took place 50-40 thousand years ago. The ancestors of the Australians came from Southeast Asia (mainly along the Pleistocene continental shelf, but also overcoming at least 90 km of water barriers). The first inhabitants of Australia were extremely massive and very large people.

The modern anthropological appearance of the Australian Aborigines acquired approx. 4 thousand years ago.

With an additional influx of migrants who arrived by sea about 5 thousand years ago, the appearance of the dingo dog and a new stone industry on the continent is probably associated. Before the start of European colonization, the culture and racial type of Australians underwent a significant evolution.

According to the latest data, Indigenous Australians are believed to be the descendants of the first modern humans who migrated out of Africa almost 75,000 years ago.

culture

By the time people of the European type appeared (XVIII century), according to various estimates, the number of aborigines ranged from 750 thousand to 3 million people, united in more than 500 tribes, which had a complex social organization, various myths and rituals, and spoke more than 250 languages.

Although the Australian Aborigines did not have a written language, they used symbolic drawings to convey information about ancient legends, as well as counting signs in the form of notches on sticks.

The traditional diet consists of wild animals, insects, fish and shellfish, fruits and roots. From wild-growing cereals, flat cakes baked on charcoal are made.

According to the memoirs of the exiled Englishman William Buckley, who lived for over 30 years among the natives in the territory of the modern state of Victoria in the first third of the 19th century, cannibalism was not typical for them. However, according to Sid Kyle-Little, who lived among the aborigines of the Liverpool River (Northern Territory) in the first half. XX century, some of them periodically practiced ritual cannibalism, or resorted to it in case of emergency.

Astronomical and cosmological representations

The Australian aborigines believed that there is not only our physical reality, but also another reality inhabited by the spirits of ancestors. Our world and this reality intersect and mutually influence each other.

One of the places where the world of "dreams" and the real world meet is the sky: the actions of the ancestors are manifested in the appearance and movement of the Sun, Moon, planets and stars, however, the actions of people can also affect what is happening in the sky.

Despite the fact that the natives have certain information about the sky and objects in it, as well as individual attempts to use celestial objects for calendar purposes, there is no evidence that any of the Aboriginal tribes used a calendar associated with the phases of the moon; celestial objects were not used for navigation either.

colonial period

Colonization, which began in the 18th century, was accompanied by the deliberate extermination of Australians, dispossession of land and displacement to ecologically unfavorable areas, epidemics, and led to a sharp decrease in their numbers - up to 60 thousand in 1921. However, the state policy of protectionism (since the end of the 19th century), including the creation of reserves protected by the authorities, as well as material and medical assistance (especially after the 2nd World War) contributed to the growth in the number of Australians.

From about 1909 to 1969, but in some areas well into the 1970s, Australian Aboriginal and half-breed children were removed from their families. Children were forbidden to use their native language for communication, they were given an elementary education sufficient to work on the farm and on farms. Parents were forbidden to communicate with the selected children, including even correspondence. In fact, a policy of "whitening" the indigenous population, the forcible destruction of their languages, traditions, customs and culture was carried out.

By the mid-1990s, the number of Aboriginal people reached approximately 257 thousand people, which is 1.5% of the total population of Australia.

Current position

Currently, the growth rate of the Aboriginal population (due to high birth rates) is significantly higher than the average Australian, although the standard of living is significantly lower than the average Australian. In 1967, the civil rights previously granted to the natives were legally enshrined. Since the late 1960s, a movement has been developing for the revival of cultural identity, for the acquisition of legal rights to traditional lands. Many states have enacted laws granting the lands of the reservations to the collective ownership of Australians on the basis of self-government, as well as protecting their cultural heritage.

Notable representatives of Australian Aboriginal people are artist Albert Namatjira, writer David Yunaipon, footballer David Wirrpanda, TV presenter Ernie Dingo, actor and narrator David Gulpilil(Gulpilil), singer Jessica Mauboy (of mixed Australian-Timorese descent), singer Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, Australian track and field athlete, 2000 Olympic champion in the 400m Cathy Freeman.

Since 2007, Australia has had the National Aboriginal Television of Australia, which operates along with other broadcasts for the national communities of the country SBS (broadcasts in 68 languages, including Russian). These programs, which started as domestic broadcasts, are now available worldwide with the development of the Internet. Although Australia's National Aboriginal Television operates in English due to the lack of use of Aboriginal languages, it provides an opportunity for domestic and international audiences to learn Aboriginal languages ​​through TV lessons launched in 2010.

Aboriginal culture in cinema

• - " Bypass" - a film by British director Nicholas Roeg based on the novel by James Marshall (1959), dedicated to the unsuccessful attempt of white children to make friends with an Aboriginal teenager undergoing an initiation rite.
• - "The Last Wave", a film by the famous Australian director Peter Weir.
• - “Where the green ants dream” - an ecological parable by Werner Herzog about the unsuccessful attempts of the natives to defend the wild nature and the age-old culture of their ancestors from the steadily advancing Western civilization.
• - "Dundee, nicknamed" Crocodile "" - an adventure comedy.
• - Crocodile Dundee 2.
• - "Quigley in Australia" - a film directed by Simon Whisler about an American shooter from the Wild West, hired by white settlers to exterminate the natives, but instead took their side.
• - Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles.
• - "Cage for rabbits", talks about the attempts to "re-educate" the children of Australian Aborigines.
• - "Offer" . Against the background of the struggle of the colonial authorities with a gang of Irish migrants, episodes of the genocide of the natives and violence against them unfold.
• - "Ten Boats", from the life of Australian aborigines, which was a success in the world film distribution and even awarded a special prize at the Cannes Film Festival. All the actors in the film were natives and spoke their native language, Yolngu Math.
• - "Jindabine (English) Russian”, the plot of the film is built on a “conspiracy of silence” around the murder of an aboriginal girl.
• - "Samson and Delilah", a feature film by Australian director Warwick Thornton, tells about the modern difficult life of Australian Aborigines in isolated communities.
• Trails is a film directed by John Curran based on the book of the same name by Australian writer Robin Davidson, based on her nine-month journey through the Australian deserts.
• - "Charlie's Country" Charlie's Country) - drama Australian director of Dutch origin Rolf de Heer (English) Russian dedicated to the fate of the elderly native Charlie (actor David Gulpilil (English) Russian), who rejects civilization and unsuccessfully tries to live according to the precepts of his ancestors.
• - "Secret River" - a television series by Australian director Daina Reid based on the novel of the same name (English) Russian Keith Grenville (English) Russian, the plot of which is based on the clashes of exiled English settlers with the natives at the beginning of the 19th century.
• - "Sweet Land" sweet edge (English) Russian Warwick Thornton is a detective drama based on the persecution of Aboriginal farmers in the 1920s.

see also

Notes

1. ANU.edu.au
2. from " bush" - vast expanses typical of some regions of Africa and Australia, overgrown with shrubs or stunted trees
3. , With. 38.
4. Genetics: Australians have been isolated for 50,000 years / News / My Planet
5. Natural Human Fertility By Peter Diggory

In Australia, there has long been a debate about who is considered the original inhabitants: Australian Aborigines or the first settlers from Holland. The indigenous tribes of Australia are representatives of the most ancient and little-studied civilization on earth. Their way of life is so unique, and the history of the settlement of Australia is so mysterious that, until now, the natives of this continent are considered the descendants of the first inhabitants of the planet.

Aborigines of Australia. Who are they?

It is believed that the indigenous tribes of the Australian continent sailed there through the sea about 50 thousand years ago. The very word "aboriginal" began to be used in relation to the representatives of the tribes by the British, who, like the Dutch, set foot on the lands of Australia in order to gain a foothold on them forever.

An aboriginal is a native inhabitant of a territory, living in a communal-tribal system, and having preserved a primitive way of life.

Aborigines of Australia are considered the first navigators. After all, they were able to get to the new mainland by sea. If the Europeans had not set foot on new lands, the way of life of the natives would still remain unchanged.

Australia's largest tribal settlement is located in the arid Outback region. About 2500 people live there. Aborigines today teach their children with the help of radio, in the settlements, as before, there are no schools. Medicine came to the tribes only in 1928.

What do Australian Aborigines look like?

From the photo taken by Europeans, one can judge the appearance of the indigenous peoples of the mainland, as dark-skinned and dark-haired people, rather tall and thin.

The Solomon Islanders are dark-skinned people with blond hair and a wide nose. For a long time it was believed that the blond hair of the representatives of the tribes appeared due to ties with the first Europeans on the continent, but genetic analysis has refuted this assumption..

All indigenous peoples of Australia can be divided into three types:

• Tribes of the Barinean type with the darkest hair;
• Murray-type tribes of medium height with a lot of body hair;
• Northern tribes with tall stature and very dark skin.

Scientists think that in total the mainland was inhabited by aborigines three times: there were three waves of seafaring settlers.

Aboriginal dialects and languages ​​of Australia

At the time of the arrival of the Dutch and the British, more than 500 different dialects existed on the mainland. Today, each tribal community has its own languages. They can be counted at least 200, and writing exists only among a few tribes.

It is known that at present almost all the indigenous peoples of Australia have mastered the English language. Therefore, in 2007, a separate television channel was launched for them, where broadcasts are conducted exclusively in Shakespeare's native language.

Australian Aboriginal Traditions

Mount Uluru - for indigenous peoples is the door between the worlds. This place is considered sacred. Today, excursions to the red sandstone mountain are a popular pastime for tourists. In European language, the mountain, sacred to the tribes, is called Ayres, its age is impressive - the mountain is more than 6 million years old.

Representatives of indigenous tribes never climb the sacred mountain. Such an action for them is a terrible sacrilege. They perform rituals at the foot of the mountain. According to the natives, the spirits of ancestors live on this mountain formation, and the Gods descend there.

Local warriors from different tribes are trained to handle a boomerang from an early age. Ancient art only at first glance seems simple, but in reality it requires a certain skill.

Tribal music is played on primitive instruments. There is quite a bit of everyday music, mainly ritual songs and melodies are held in high esteem among the natives.

The discovery of the Australian Stonehenge confirmed the version that the natives have long been versed in astronomy. The construction accurately reflects the movement of some stars, as well as the days of the equinoxes.

If someone still has doubts about classifying the Aborigines as the indigenous inhabitants of Australia, then they should remember that the foot of the first European navigator set foot on the continent only in the 17th century.

Australian Aborigines are a very mysterious people. Inhabiting a highly civilized country with a developed infrastructure and existing side by side with modern citizens, these people continue to remain original and preserve their ancient, almost primitive culture. Many amazing facts testify to the uniqueness of the indigenous population of Australia.

1. The wildest of all people

Aborigines inhabit Australia for about 50 thousand years, and for 40 thousand of them the life of these tribes remained unchanged. It is believed that this is the most backward of all the peoples of the world, and there are almost half a million such ancient, wild people on the mainland.

In the central part of the continent there is a desert area where the natives live, as in ancient times - without television, cell phones and other benefits of civilization. Since there are no schools here, children are taught by radio. The population performs ancient rituals, and their main activity, like 50 thousand years ago, is hunting and gathering plants and roots. If necessary, these natives can even eat an insect larva or a caterpillar. Almost one-fifth of all Australian Aborigines live here.

However, there are among the indigenous population and those who have achieved great success and world recognition. These are, for example, artist Albert Namatjira, writer and journalist David Yunipon, Olympic champion in athletics Kathy Freeman.

2. They are discriminated against

The indigenous population was legally equalized in rights with ordinary citizens of the country only in 1967, and before that they were considered second-class people on the continent.

Now they have their own schools and their own flag. However, during modern sociological surveys, the natives admit that they still feel neglected by the "white" citizens.

Children attending mainstream schools also claim to be discriminated against. Although Indigenous Australians are naturally gentle and genetically devoid of aggression, from time to time they protest, demanding more rights.

3. Aboriginal people do not have a common language

For some time now, the indigenous population has its own TV channel and it broadcasts in English - this is done so that the TV programs are understood by the natives from all over the country. After all, when Europeans sailed to Australia, there were about 600 dialects on the continent. Now the aborigines have become much smaller, but still each Australian tribe has its own language, and in total there are about two hundred of them.

Now, as a result of the introduction of the modern world into the culture and life of the natives, many of them more or less know English. But ordinary Australians practically do not understand the language of the Aborigines. Of the non-aboriginal citizens, only old people own it, and even then not all.

4. There are three types of Aboriginal people living in Australia.

The indigenous population of this continent is divided into three types. The first (Barenian) is small in stature and has dark, almost black skin. These Aboriginal people live mainly in the province of North Queensland. The second type (Carpentarian) is very tall and also has rather dark skin, on which there is practically no vegetation. The third racial variety (Murray type) is aborigines of medium height with very abundant vegetation on the skin and a thick mop of hair on the head. They live mainly in the valley of the Australian Murray River.

All three types of aborigines came to the continent by sea many millennia ago. Presumably from Africa. Such great anthropological differences among these groups are due to the fact that each of them arrived in Australia at different times and from different places.

5. Some Australian Aborigines are dark-skinned and fair-haired.

About one tenth of the inhabitants of the Solomon Islands, located in the northeast of Australia, are blond. At first, researchers thought that such aborigines began to be born after contacts with European sailors. However, genetic studies have shown that the blond hair of these wild people is the result of a mutation that occurred several thousand years ago.

6. Australians invented the boomerang

The boomerang is a subject that is now known all over the world, it was the Australians who invented it many centuries ago. Similar objects were used by Paleolithic people in Europe, but the rock carvings of boomerangs discovered in Australia are the most ancient (they are 50 thousand years old). In addition, it was the inhabitants of this mainland who came up with the returning type of boomerang.

By the way, the natives still use it when hunting. The lower part of the Australian boomerang is flat, and the upper part is convex. The natives also have other types of boomerangs that differ in shape and size, and each has its own purpose.

7. Aboriginal religion

According to the natives, a certain deity created life on Earth, which then retired to heaven. Many Indigenous Australians believed and continue to believe that, in addition to physical reality, there is a world of spirits (the world of dreams) that can be encountered in the sky. Such spirits allegedly control the Sun, the Moon and other celestial bodies, but living people can also influence what happens in space.

A number of scientists argue that the ancient rock carvings of the emu, made by the natives, may actually be a figure formed in the sky by dust clouds of the Milky Way, to which the Australians, like the Incas, attached great mystical significance.

Aborigines believe that spirits can sometimes descend to Earth, using a tree or a ladder, during the ritual ceremonies performed by the tribes. And there are many such rituals among the tribes - for example, initiation into shamans and the celebration of the puberty of boys or girls.

8. The natives have their own Stonehenge

Many basalt boulders about a meter high, forming even circles, were discovered some time ago in a desert area about 45 kilometers from Melbourne. As scientists have found out, this structure is at least 10 thousand years old, which means that it is twice as old as the famous English counterpart - Stonehenge.

This group of stones played an important role among the natives. It is possible that ancient people could use this stone structure as a cosmic calendar - a determinant of the time of sunrise and sunset or the onset of the seasons. However, there is, of course, no exact confirmation of the purpose of this group of boulders.

In Africa, too, there are many amazing tribes that seem very strange to us.