Indigenous people in Australia

Indigenous people or aboriginal people are the inhabitants who lived first in a country. So every country started with indigenous people. In the British colonies or Australia, New Zealand and Canada were many indigenous people. Everyone should learn in history class about the tragedy which happened on the 17th century, when millions of black slaves were moved in terrible ships from Africa to the new country America. The white man basically ruled the world which is very weird to think about because there are much more of black people in the world. 

Many think the indigenous people in Australia are from Africa because they are black but it is said they went from Africa to Asia about 70.000 years ago and then they went to Australia about 50.000 years ago. When the white man came to Australia to take Australia as it’s colony it was not enough for him to bring horrible diseases which the indigenous people’s immune system couldn’t handle. The white man had to come to Australia and take their land away from them pushed them anywhere they wanted. 

The British just killed the ones who were in their way. In Kangaroo Island which is right next to Australia the white man walked all the island and killed every one of the indigenous people who lived there. An official government policy was stated from 1909 to 1969, the policy said aboriginal children were supposed to be taken away from their families. This is called the stolen generation and it was done well into the seventies although the policy was not invalid from 1969. There was not one indigenous family that did not have at least one child taken away and that is a true tragedy. What the white man was trying to do was to make all the indigenous people white. Because when the indigenous children were taken away they were usually put into an institution or mission dormitory, fostered or adopted and all was that in a white community. 

So when they got older they would marry a white person and their children would also marry a white person so one day all the blackness from their ancestor got erased. In 2008 the government gave the aboriginal people a formal national apology. Today the indigenous people are about 500.000 in Australia. Indigenous people from Australia were very “arty” people they painted on many rocks and in caves. The oldest painting on a rock from indigenous australians is 30.000 years old so it started a very long time ago. Didgeridoo is an instrument the indigenous founded about 1500 years ago and they still play on. We know it was founded about 1500 years ago because of the dating of cave paintings the indigenous painted, they painted a didgeridoo player and two singers on the cave wall. The didgeridoo instrument is usually cylindrical and it can measure up to 1 to 3 meters but usually it’s 1,5 meters long and the indigenous liked to decorate it with paint. 

Maori People

Maori people are the indigenous people of New Zealand called. Sometime around the year 1000 to 1300 the Polynesians came to New Zealand, Polynesia is right by New Zealand so it was not a very long trip for them. The Polynesians are the ancestors of the Maori people. Some of the Maoris called their new land “Aotearoa” and it translates to “land of the long white cloud.” 

The British explorer James Cook was the first white man to set his foot on New Zealand. Many indigenous in New Zealand died because of diseases from the white man just like in Australia. The Maori people had with them from Polynesia a pink sweet potato which got famous for it’s participation in a war, well thousands of Maori people were killed between the years 1818 and the early 1930s in the war which was called the Musket Wars. Also many Maoris who did not get killed became refugees or enslaved. The musket war began because of rivalry on potatoes between maori tribes from northern iwi Ngāpuhi and Ngāti Whātua. 

For two centuries Ta Moko or Maori tattoo as it is often referred to and it was traditional for Maori people to mark permanently their body and face by another Maori. To have a tattoo if you were an Maori it had the expression of commitment and respect. To make the tattoo the Maori people didn’t have needles so they used bones from birds or some other animals to plug the ink inside of the skin. The Maori men usually had tattoo of patterns all over their face but the women usually just had below their mouth some kind of pattern also. It was very artful how their tattoo looked and the maori’s were very handy with carving and weaving. The Maori art was very spiritual, they did carvings in trees and painted just marvellous paintings. Today 15 % or 700.000 people of New Zealand’s community are Maori people, some still live in their traditional tribal areas but more and more are living in urban centers. Over 70.000 Maori people live in Australia and up to 10.000 live in Britain. Many of the Maori people today are unemployed and many have some kind of lousy job while the white man has of course the better payed job. In the movie “Once were warriors” one would say it has a great insight of how the Maori’s have it today. They have their lousy job and drink allot, they are very poor, they can never have everything they want and their lives are just horrible. But more and more of the Maori children are going to school for Maori’s to learn and become something and they are taught on the Maori language. The Maori language is the official language in New Zealand although it is threatened and in 2001 only one of every forth spoke the Maori language.

"The Maori men usually had tattoo of
patterns all over their face"

This is called a hongi and it is a traditional Maori greeting in New
Zealand. It is done by pressing one's nose and forehead
(at the same time) to another person at an encounter

Métis and Inuit

Inuits

Métis

There are two groups of aboriginal people in Canada it is the Métis and Inuit or the eskimos, today they call themselves The First Nations. These three groups have different language, history, cultural practices and spiritual beliefs. The first people to come to Canada was around 30 - 15 thousand b.c but the Vikings came 1000 a.c. The British explorer James Cook strikes again in history as he explored the west coast and the year 1896 there was gold there. 

France and Britain had a long colonial rivalry about who would get Canada, The First Nations groups were very important to France and Britain to secure strong alliances with them so their military control in North America would be stronger. Canada became a colony of Great Britain after New France transfered to Britain. So the First Nations were forced by the white man to be in their military and they sure did not like it after the War of 1812. The Indian Act of 1876 was a consolidation of regulations that affected the indigenous people who lived all over Canada. The white man focused most on to civilize First Nations. The policies and amendments to the Indian Act became very controlling of First Nations lives. There are 11 aboriginal language groups in Canada now but there were at least 53 different aboriginal languages, the official language today is English and French. According to research from 2006 more then one million people in Canada can identify themselves as an aboriginal person.

Aboriginal people are everywhere all over the world, they did not harm anyone. Let us learn by history to be nice to one another and not judge by the look. 

Sources

Fundus. Aboriginal. Sótt 3,maí 2013 af 

http://www.fundus.org/pdf.asp?ID=10308

Reconciliaction. 2007. Stolen generations fact sheet. Sótt 4.maí 2013 af 

http://reconciliaction.org.au/nsw/education-kit/stolen-generations/ 

Teara. 2004. Story Maori. Sótt 3.maí 2013 af 

http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/maori/page-1