History Assignment

History Assignment
Name:
Course:
Professor Name:
(November 2, 2011)
History Assignment
Good morning class, I am before you to talk about the indigenous people of Australia, the Aboriginal. The Aboriginals are believed to settle in the Australian land approximately over 50,000 years ago. They were attached to land and nature in that they depended on land for survival. They were hunters and gatherers and they settled along rivers with great populations settling along River Murray. They also practiced agriculture which was in small scale and was done using crude tools made of stone. The Aboriginals were able to exploit the natural resources sustainably and nature was able to sustain their needs. For them life was smooth and uncivilized with no industrialization. They also very developed artistic and musical traditions which they practiced using stone age technology.
The religious practices during that time had ritual practices that were evidenced by signs of cremation. They also believed in dreaming, where they believed that totemic Spiritual beings were responsible for creating the world. Dreaming set up the structures and laws of the society in addition to ceremonies to ascertain the continuity of life.
The Aboriginal identified themselves as clan members or a language group this was the affiliation that could be described as the tribe. The tribes were in contact with each other, exchanged goods and also allowed others to pass through their lands. They also had social structures that had rulers based on kinship. Each tribe had a unique social structure, dreamtime, beliefs and creation stories. Examples of tribes were the Gweagal tribe and the Tjapukai; clans were the Arrente, Yolgnu, Warlpiri, Pinjantjatjara, and Alawa.
The British settlement in Australia had a very great impact to the Aboriginal people way of life; this was characterized by change of lifestyle, the over exploi...