A didgeridoo

Aboriginal narrative

When first encountered by Europeans, the Australian Aboriginesdid not have a written language. Their songs, legends, and stories, however, may be regarded as a kind of " oral literature".

Aboriginal oral tradition may be public (open to all members of a community and often a kind of entertainment) or sacred (closed to all but initiated members of one or the other sex).

The oral literature of the Aboriginesis involved with performance. It is not simply a verbal performance. Traditional song is very often associated with dance, and storytelling with gesture and mime. Or stories may be accompanied by diagrams drawn in the sand.

Religion

The Dreaming (also called DREAM-TIME, or WORLD DAWN) is the mythological period of time during which the natural environment was shaped and humanized by the actions of mythic beings. They were credited with having established the local social order and its " laws."

The Dreaming legends from all areas of Australia reveal that almost all

groups believed in a Supreme Creator. From the legends we learn that in the beginning, the Сreative Essence of each area emerged from a void (пустота) to form the earth's contours, organise the seasons and create the sunshine, the rain and the vegetation. Then, when creation was in complete readiness, the Creator produced the wildlife and finally the first men and women.

It was believed that the Great Spirit lived eternally, watching with interest and affection as the Aboriginal people lived out their lives and progressed.

Many legends tell how animals developed their peculiar traits. For example, one can learn how the kangaroo got its pouch (сумка), why the koala does not need to drink, etc. Several legends tell how the stars came to be and why the sun and the moon are up above.

Aboriginal religion is deeply involved with the land, the mother of all living things to which the spirit returns for rebirth following death. Aborigines do not own the land: it owns them. They are its custodians ( хранители ).

The Aborigines thought that their mission was simply to live in agreement with the laws established by the Dreaming beings. There was thus no notion of progress and no room for competing dogmas. Everything that now existed was fixed for all time in the mythic past, and all that the living were asked to do was obey the law of the Dreaming and perform correctly the rituals upon which physical and social reproduction depended. The Aborigines' ideology thus proclaimed non-change and the need only to reproduce existing forms. The 19^th c. historian James Bonwick wrote about them: " they knew no past, they wanted no future."

The history of the Aborigines since the arrival of Europeans has been similar to that of the American Indians. The earliest British settlers did not recognize aboriginal rights to the land, but regarded it as a terra nullius --a land unoccupied and unclaimed by prior inhabitants. They saw aborigines as uncivilized relics of the Stone Age, lacking agriculture, permanent habitations, written languages, or the use of metal.

Many groups were physically or culturally exterminated, uprooted from land which held for them sacred, ceremonial, or hunting significance. Massacres, food poisoning and punitive (карательный) expeditions were employed. Many Aborigines were killed or forced from their homes by white settlers.

During the first century of white settlement, there were dramatic declines in the Aboriginal population in all parts of the country. By 1930, only 67, 000 aborigines remained in Australia, and there was fear of complete genocide.

Protection acts were passed in all states between 1860 and 1911, and many reserves (резервация) were set aside for the " use and benefit" of aborigines, typically in remote, isolated, arid (засушливый) areas.

Aborigines were granted Australian citizenship in 1967, and they were granted the right to vote in 1984. The Aborigines’ social and political status was so low that they were omitted from the official national censuses (перепись населения) until 1971. At the 1991 census, 238, 590 Australian residents were counted as Aborigines.

460, 000 Aborigines make up about 2 per cent of Australia's population. More than 70 percent of the Aborigines live in urban areas. Traditional ways of life are still maintained in small enclaves in the more remote locations, especially in the north and center of the continent.

Many aborigines have rejected the anthropological term aborigine. Instead, they refer to themselves in their own languages: Koorie in the southern and eastern states, Yolngu in Northern Territory, Arangu in central Australia, Nyunga in Western Australia, and Nungga in South Australia.