It’s a familiar story. White Europeans sail across the seas in search of new lands and riches. Inevitably, these “new lands” are already occupied, but the indigenous tribes are divided and unable to match the Europeans’ weaponry. Those that fight back are killed; those that cooperate eventually have their land taken anyway or die of introduced diseases. The indigenous population shrinks, intermixes with the invaders via rape or intermarriage, and their culture is eroded by assimilation policies. Their descendants live at the margins of society, often in isolated communities that struggle with poverty, poor health, unemployment, crime and alcoholism. North America, South America, Australia, many other places...it’s all very familiar.
In the case of Australia the indigenous people are commonly referred to as Aborigines (or “Abo’s”, a derogatory term, although we’ve heard many Australians use it). But there is a second, distinct group known as Torres Strait Islanders, who inhabit the islands off the northern tip of Queensland. Together they number about 500,000 people, or 2.6% of the total population. Many of that number are only “part” rather than “full” indigenous.
There is debate among researchers as to when the ancestors of the indigenous people first arrived in Australia. It is at least 40,000 years ago, but maybe as high as 70,000. At any rate, this is a very, very old culture. At the time of the first British settlements there were several hundred distinct indigenous languages. Now all but 20 are either extinct or endangered. The indigenous languages have been shown to be unrelated to any outside of Australia.
Today the Aboriginal population is mostly urbanized, although about a quarter lives in remote settlements. In our travels, limited as they are to the southeast coast, we have seen very few. The Northern Territory, which we haven’t visited, has the largest indigenous population percentage-wise (32%), while each of the other states and territories has less than 4%. The government provides aid to Aboriginal communities and individuals to help fight their many social ills. I’m not sure how much is given but it is enough to make many of the non-indigenous Australians resent it. As I said, it’s a familiar story.
I’ll have more posts on the Aboriginal people in future posts.
