Indigenous Australians

Australian Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders

File:Torres Strait Islanders Flag.svg
, , Ernie Dingo, Johnathan Thurston, Adam Goodes
Total population
517,000 2.6% of Australia's population
Regions with significant populations
Northern Territory	32.5%
Western Australia	4.0%
Queensland	3.6%
New South Wales	2.5%
South Australia	2.3%
Victoria	1.0%
Languages
Several hundred Indigenous Australian languages (many extinct or nearly so), Australian English, Australian Aboriginal English, Torres Strait Creole, Kriol
Religion
Primarily Christian, with minorities of other religions including Islam and various forms of Traditional belief systems based around the Dreamtime
Related ethnic groups
see List of Indigenous Australian group names

Indigenous Australians are descendants of the first known human inhabitants of the Australian continent and its nearby islands . Some dissident authors claim that Ancient Aborigines arrived a part of the second wave of immigration. This includes both the Torres Strait Islanders and the Aboriginal People, who together make up about 2.6% of Australia's current population. The Aboriginal peoples traditionally inhabited mainland Australia, Tasmania, and some of the other adjacent islands. The Torres Strait Islanders are indigenous to the Torres Strait Islands between Australia and New Guinea.

The time of arrival of the first indigenous Australians is a matter of debate among researchers, with estimates ranging from 40,000 years ago to 125,000 years ago.

The blanket term "Indigenous Australians" has always encompassed many different communities and societies with unique cultures and in present day Australia these are further divided into local communities. Although there were over 250 spoken languages, fewer than 200 of these remain in use - all but 20 are considered to be endangered. The population of Indigenous Australians prior permanent European settlement has been estimated at between 318,000 and 750,000. The distribution of people was similar to that of the current Australian population, with the majority living in the south east centred along the Murray River.

Definitions

Indigenous Australians

Although distinctive historical and cultural histories have resulted in Indigenous Australian having little in common socially, culturally or linguistically, Indigenous Australians are seen as being broadly related. A collective identity as Indigenous Australians is recognised as encompassing all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups. The Australian society is becoming racially mixed. According to the 2001 census, 69% of all unions involving an indigenous Australian are mixed.

Aboriginal Australians

See also: Australian Aborigines

Aborigines performing at Crown Street Mall, Wollongong

In the past the word Aboriginal has been used in Australia to describe its indigenous peoples as early as 1789. It soon became capitalised and employed as the common name to refer to all indigenous Australians. At present the term refers only to those peoples who were traditionally hunter gatherers. It does not encompass those indigenous peoples from the Torres Strait who traditionally practiced agriculture.

The word Aboriginal has been in use in English since at least the 17th century and means "first or earliest known, indigenous," (Latin Aborigines, from ab: from, and origo: origin, beginning), Strictly speaking, "Aborigine" is the noun and "Aboriginal" the adjectival form; however the latter is often also employed to stand as a noun. Note that the use of "Aborigine(s)" or "Aboriginal(s)" in this sense, i.e. as a noun, has acquired negative, even derogatory connotations among some sectors of the community, who regard it as insensitive, and even offensive. The more acceptable and correct expression is "Aboriginal Australians" or "Aboriginal people", though even this is sometimes regarded as an expression to be avoided because of its historical associations with colonialism. "Indigenous Australians" has found increasing acceptance, particularly since the 1980s.

The broad term Aboriginal Australians includes many regional groups that often identify under names from local indigenous languages. These include:

• Koori (or Koorie) in New South Wales and Victoria (Victorian Aborigines)
• Murri in Queensland
• Noongar in southern Western Australia
• Yamatji in central Western Australia
• Wangkai in the Western Australian Goldfields
• Nunga in southern South Australia
• Anangu in northern South Australia, and neighbouring parts of Western Australia and Northern Territory
• Yapa in western central Northern Territory
• Yolngu in eastern Arnhem Land (NT)
• Palawah (or Pallawah) in Tasmania.

These larger groups may be further subdivided; for example, Anangu (meaning a person from Australia's central desert region) recognises localised subdivisions such as Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara, Ngaanyatjarra, Luritja and Antikirinya. It is estimated that prior to the arrival of British settlers the population of Indigenous Australians was approximately 318,000 - 750,000 across the continent.

Torres Strait Islanders

Main article: Torres Strait Islanders

The Torres Strait Islanders possess a heritage and cultural history distinct from Aboriginal traditions. The eastern Torres Strait Islanders in particular are related to the Papuan peoples of New Guinea, and speak a Papuan language[9]. Accordingly, they are not generally included under the designation "Aboriginal Australians." This has been another factor in the promotion of the more inclusive term "Indigenous Australians".

Black

The term "blacks" has often been applied to Indigenous Australians. This owes more to superficial physiognomy than ethnology, as it categorizes Indigenous Australians with the other, unrelated black peoples of Asia and Africa. In the 1970s, many Aboriginal activists, such as Gary Foley proudly embraced the term "black", and writer Kevin Gilbert's groundbreaking book from the time was entitled Living Black. In recent years young indigenous Australians - particularly in urban areas - have increasingly adopted aspects of dark American and Afro-Caribbean culture, creating what has been described as a form of "black transnationalism."

Languages

Main articles: Australian Aboriginal languages and Australian Aboriginal sign languages

The indigenous languages of mainland Australia and Tasmania have not been shown to be related to any languages outside Australia. In the late 18th century, there were anywhere between 350 and 750 distinct groupings and a similar number of languages and dialects. At the start of the 21st century, fewer than 200 indigenous Australian languages remain in use and all but about 20 of these are highly endangered. Linguists classify mainland Australian languages into two distinct groups, the Pama-Nyungan languages and the non-Pama Nyungan. The Pama-Nyungan languages comprise the majority, covering most of Australia, and are a family of related languages. In the north, stretching from the Western Kimberley to the Gulf of Carpentaria, are found a number of groups of languages which have not been shown to be related to the Pama-Nyungan family or to each other: these are known as the non-Pama-Nyungan languages. While it has sometimes proven difficult to work out familial relationships within the Pama-Nyungan language family many Australianist linguists feel there has been substantial success. Against this some linguists, such as R. M. W. Dixon, suggest that the Pama-Nyungan group, and indeed the entire Australian linguistic area, is rather a sprachbund, or group of languages having very long and intimate contact, rather than a genetic linguistic phylum.

Given their long occupation of Australia, it has been suggested that Aboriginal languages form one specific sub-grouping. Certainly, similarities in the phoneme set of Aboriginal languages throughout the continent are suggestive of a common origin. A common feature of many Australian languages is that they display mother-in-law languages, special speech registers used only in the presence of certain close relatives. The position of Tasmanian languages is unknown, and it is also unknown whether they comprised one or more than one specific language family.

History

Main articles: History of Indigenous Australians and Prehistory of Australia

A 19th century engraving of an Indigenous Australian encampment, showing the indigenous mode of life in the cooler parts of Australia at the time of European settlement.

The general consensus among scholars for the arrival of humans in Australia is placed at 40,000 to 50,000 years ago with a possible range of up to 70,000 years ago. The earliest human remains found to date are that of Mungo Man which have been dated at about 40,000 years old. At the time of first European contact, it has been estimated the absolute minimum pre-1788 population was 315,000, while recent archaeological finds suggest that a population of 750,000 could have been sustained. The mode of life and material cultures varied greatly from region to region. The greatest population density was to be found in the southern and eastern regions of the continent, the River Murray valley in particular.

Aboriginal people had a long history of contact with seafarers from outside Australia. This is evidenced by the arrival of the dingo some 5,000 years ago and continued with trade from Indonesia extending back at least 500 years through to the earliest European contact approximately 350 years ago.

British colonisation of Australia began with the arrival of the First Fleet in Botany Bay in 1788. An immediate consequence of colonisation was a pandemic of Old World diseases, including smallpox which is estimated to have killed up to 90% of the local Darug people indigenous clan within the first three years of white settlement. Smallpox would kill around 50% of Australia's indigenous population in the early years of British colonisation.

A second consequence of British settlement was appropriation of land and water resources, which continued throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries as rural lands were converted for sheep and cattle grazing. By 1900 the recorded indigenous population of Australia had declined to approximately 93,000

Commonwealth legislation in 1962 specifically gave Aborigines the right to vote in Commonwealth elections. The 1967 referendum allowed the Commonwealth to make laws with respect to Aboriginal people, and for Aboriginal people to be included when the country does a count to determine electoral representation.

In the controversial 1971 Gove land rights case, Justice Blackburn ruled that Australia had been terra nullius before British settlement, and that no concept of native title existed in Australian law. In 1972, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy was established on the steps of Parliament House in Canberra. In 1992, the High Court of Australia handed down its decision in the Mabo Case, declaring the previous legal concept of terra nullius to be invalid.

In 2004, the Australian Government abolished the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), which had been Australia's peak indigenous organisation. The abolition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission occurred soon after rape allegations were brought against its chairman Geoff Clark.

On 13th February, 2008 Prime Minister Kevin Rudd issued a public apology to members of the Stolen Generation on behalf of the Australian Government.

Culture

Main article: Indigenous Australian culture

Rock painting at Ubirr in Kakadu National Park

There are a large number of tribal divisions and language groups in Aboriginal Australia, and, corresponding to this, a wide variety of diversity exists within cultural practices. However, there are some similarities between cultures.

Belief systems

Main article: Indigenous Australian culture

See also: Australian Aboriginal mythology

Religious demography among Indigenous Australians is not conclusive because the methodology of the census is not always well-suited to obtaining accurate information on Aboriginal people. The 1996 census reported that almost 72 percent of Aborigines practiced some form of Christianity; 16 percent listed no religion. The 2001 census contained no comparable, updated data. There has also been an increase in the number of followers of Islam among the Indigenous Australian community. This growing community includes high-profile members such as the boxer, Anthony Mundine. (See Islam in Australia).

In traditional Aboriginal belief systems a creative epoch known as the Dreamtime stretches back into a remote era in history when the creator ancestors known as the First Peoples travelled across the land, creating and naming as they went.

Indigenous Australia's oral tradition and religious values are based upon reverence for the land and a belief in this Dreamtime. The Dreaming is at once both the ancient time of creation and the present day reality of Dreaming. There were a great many different groups, each with their own individual culture, belief structure, and language. These cultures overlapped to a greater or lesser extent, and evolved over time. Major ancestral spirits include the Rainbow Serpent, Baiame, and Bunjil

Music

A didgeridoo, or yirdaki

Main article: Indigenous Australian music

The aboriginal people of Australia developed unique instruments and folk styles. The didgeridoo is commonly considered the national instrument of Aboriginal people. However, it was traditionally only played by Arnhem Land people, such as the Yolngu, and then only by the men. Clapping sticks are probably the more ubiquitous musical instrument, especially because they help maintain the rhythm for the song. Much contemporary Australian aboriginal music is predominantly of the country music genre. Most indigenous radio stations - particularly in metropolitan areas - serve a double purpose as the local country music station. More recently, Indigenous Australian musicians have branched into rock and roll, hip hop and reggae. One of the most well known modern bands is Yothu Yindi playing in a style which has been called Aboriginal rock.

Art

Main article: Indigenous Australian art

Australia has a tradition of Aboriginal art which is thousands of years old, the best known forms being rock art and bark painting. These paintings usually consist of paint using earthly colours, specifically, from paint made from ochre. Traditionally, Aborigines have painted stories from their Dreamtime. Modern Aboriginal artists continue the tradition using modern materials in their artworks. Aboriginal art is the most internationally recognisable form of Australian art. Several styles of Aboriginal art have developed in modern times including the watercolour paintings of Albert Namatjira; the Hermannsburg School, and the acrylic Papunya Tula "dot art" movement. }

Australian Aboriginal poetry is found throughout Australia. It ranges from the sacred to the every day.

Traditional recreation

Australian Aboriginal domestic scene from 1857 depicting traditional recreation, including a football game which may be Marn Grook.

An Indigenous community Australian rules football game.

The Djabwurrung and Jardwadjali people of western Victoria once participated in the traditional game of Marn Grook, a type of football played with possum hide. The game is believed by some to have inspired Tom Wills, inventor of the code of Australian rules football, a popular Australian winter sport. The Wills family had strong links to indigenous people and Wills coached the first Australian cricket side to tour England, the Australian Aboriginal cricket team in England in 1868.

Population

In 1983 the High Court of Australia defined 'An Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander is a person of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent who identifies as an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander and is accepted as such by the community in which he or she lives'. This decision legally established that anyone who has a drop of Aboriginal blood can classify himself as an Aboriginal if he is accepted as such by his community. However, there is no formal procedure for any community to record acceptance, so the primary method of determining indigenous population is from self-identification on census forms. There is no provision on the forms to differentiate full from part indigenous.

The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics 2005 snapshot of Australia shows the indigenous population has grown at twice the rate of the overall population since 1996 when the indigenous population stood at 283,000. As at June 2001, the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimated the total resident indigenous population to be 458,520 (2.4% of Australia's total), 90% of whom identified as Aboriginal, 6% Torres Strait Islander and the remaining 4% being of dual Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander parentage. Much of the increase since 1996 can be attributed to higher rates of people identifying themselves as Aborigines and changed definitions of aboriginality.

The preliminary census of Indigenous estimated resident population of Australia, at 30 June 2006, is 517,200.

In the 2001 census the Aboriginal population in different states was:

• New South Wales - 134,888
• Queensland - 125,910
• Western Australia - 65,931
• Northern Territory - 56,875
• Victoria - 27,846
• South Australia - 25,544
• Tasmania - 17,384
• ACT - 3,909
• Other Territories - 233

While the State with the largest total Aboriginal population is New South Wales, as a percentage this constitutes only 2.1% of the overall population of the State. The Northern Territory has the largest Aboriginal population in percentage terms for a State or Territory, with 28.8%. All the other States and Territories have less than 4% of their total populations identifying as Aboriginal; Victoria has the lowest percentage (0.6%).

In 2001 about 30% of the Aboriginal population was living in major cities and another 43% in or close to rural towns, with the balance in remote areas. The populations in the eastern states are more likely to be urbanised sometimes in city communities such as at Redfern in Sydney.

The proportion of Aboriginal adults married (de facto or de jure) to non-Aboriginal spouses was 69% according to the 2001 census, up from 64% in 1996, 51% in 1991 and 46% in 1986. The census figures show there were more intermixed Aboriginal couples in capital cities: 87% in 2001 compared to 60% in rural and regional Australia.

Mainland Australia

Groups and communities

Main articles: List of Indigenous Australian group names, Australian Aboriginal kinship, and Australian Aboriginal language

Throughout the history of the continent, there have been many different Aboriginal groups, each with their own individual language, culture, and belief structure. At the time of British settlement there were over 200 distinct languages. There are an indeterminate number of Indigenous communities, comprised of several hundred groupings. Some communities, cultures or groups may be inclusive of others and alter or overlap; significant changes have occurred in the generations after colonisation.

The word 'community' is often used to describe groups identifying by kinship, language or belonging to a particular place or 'country'. A community may draw on separate cultural values and individuals can conceivably belong to a number of communities within Australia, identification within them may be adopted or rejected. An individual community may identify itself by many names, each of which can have alternate English spellings. The largest Aboriginal communities, the Pitjantjatjara, the Arrernte, the Luritja and the Warlpiri are all from Central Australia.

Tiwi Islands and Groote Eylandt

Main articles: Tiwi Islands and Groote Eylandt

The Tiwi islands are inhabited by the Tiwi, an Aboriginal people culturally and linguistically distinct from those of Arnhem Land on the mainland just across the water. They number around 2,500. Groote Eylandt belongs to the Anindilyakwa Aboriginal people, and is part of the Arnhem Land Aboriginal Reserve.

Tasmania

Fanny Cochrane Smith

Main article: Tasmanian Aborigines

The Tasmanian Aborigines are thought to have first crossed into Tasmania approximately 40,000 years ago via a land bridge between the island and the rest of mainland Australia during the last glacial period. The original population, estimated at 4,000 to 6,000 people, was reduced to a population of around 300 between 1803 and 1833 often due to the actions of British settlers. Almost all of the Tasmanian Aboriginal peoples today are descendants of two women: Fanny Cochrane Smith and Dolly Dalrymple. A woman named Truganini, who died in 1876, is generally considered to be the last first-generation tribal Tasmanian Aborigine while Fanny Cochrane Smith, who died in 1905, is recognised as the last of the Tasmanian Aboriginals.

This conflict is a subject of the Australian history wars, the 2002 publication of The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, Volume One: Van Diemen's Land 1803-1847 by Keith Windschuttle, questioned the historical evidence used to identify the actual number of Aborigines killed stating that it was exaggerated and challenged what is labelled the "Black armband view of history" of Tasmanian colonisation. [10] After years of research, though only using officially-recorded deaths, Keith Windschuttle speculated that only 118 Tasmanian Aborigines had been killed in the whole period between 1803, when British settlement began, and 1847, when the frontier nature of Tasmanian society ended. Most Tasmanian Aboriginal deaths were the result of virulent diseases to which the natives had no immunity (including syphilis) and alcoholism. His argument has been challenged by a number of authors, for example see "Contra Windschuttle" by S.G. Foster in Quadrant, March 2003, 47:3.

The more general academic argument about the history of the Aboriginal Tasmanians has been between Rhys Jones and David Horton. And in fact Windschuttle is implicitly tapping into this debate, although he presents it as if there is no debate, just a "factual" and uncontroversial account by Jones. The Jones hypothesis (presented in a series of academic papers including 'The Tasmanian Paradox' in R. Wright (ed.) Stone tools as cultural markers, AIAS, Canberra, p 203, 1977; and 'Why did the Tasmanians stop eating fish?' In R. Gould (ed.) Explorations in Ethnoarchaeology, University of New Mexico Press, Santa Fe, p11-47, 1978) is that Tasmanian Aborigines, as a consequence of being isolated from the Australian mainland for some ten thousand years (after sea levels rose), and as a consequence of small population size (perhaps some 4000 people), were doomed to extinction. They had retained, in isolation, a restricted and primitive technology, with no new inventions such as those which had occurred on the mainland (e.g. boomerangs and hafted tools), made foolish economic decisions (they didn't eat fish), had a very limited culture, and their population was insufficiently large for them to come up with new ideas on their own. Rhys asked "Even if Abel Tasman had not sailed the winds of the Roaring Forties in 1642, were they in fact doomed — doomed to a slow strangulation of the mind?" David Horton on the other hand (notably in 'Tasmanian Adaptation' Mankind 12:28-34, 1979) argued that Tasmanians were well adapted people with a rich culture. That what was being seen as "strangulation of the mind" was a rational response to the peculiar environment of Tasmania, and that Tasmanians were no more "different" to mainland groups than those groups were to each other, and far from being doomed to extinction were so well adapted they could have gone on for another 10,000 years. The debate was presented in more detail in David Horton 'The Pure State of Nature' Allen & Unwin 2000, which is available online http://www.blognow.com.au/mrpickwick/History_Conquerors/, the Tasmanian discussion being at http://www.blognow.com.au/mrpickwick/35548/Eating_fish_is_wrong.html..

Torres Strait Islanders

Main article: Torres Strait Islanders

Six percent of Indigenous Australians identify themselves fully as Torres Strait Islanders. A further 4% of Indigenous Australians identify themselves as having both Torres Strait Islanders and Aboriginal heritage.

More than 100 islands make up the Torres Strait Islands where they come from. Many organisations to do with Indigenous people in Australia are named "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander", showing the importance of Torres Strait Islanders in Australia's indigenous population. The islands were annexed by Queensland in 1879.

Eddie Mabo was from Mer or Murray Island in the Torres Strait, which the famous Mabo decision of 1992 involved.

Indigenous Australians and the environment

The effect of indigenous Australians on the local environment has been the subject of fierce debate, partly because of its implications in modern land management practices, and partly because of its philosophical and political resonance.

The two major topics, sometimes discussed together, and at times directly linked by some authors, are the use of fire by the indigenous peoples, and the mechanism for the extinction of the "Australian megafauna". In both cases there have been strongly held opposing beliefs which have oscillated in popularity over 200 years. To begin with, fire has been a subject of interest from the time that the colonists at Sydney Cove saw fires burning in the bush. In 1957 John Cleland summed up the beliefs of the previous 150 years when he said, "What changes have our natives produced in the vegetation of Australia? It would seem they have produced singularly little ... They fitted naturally into the ecology of the land they inhabited and might have continued to do so indefinitely ... obviously the frequency and extent of bushfires must have increased greatly since fire-producing man arrived ... I know of nothing to suggest that such firing by the Indigenous peoples has altered the covering of vegetation." (JB Cleland "Our natives and the vegetation of southern Australia" Mankind 5: 149-162 1957). But within 2 years, Cleland was contradicted by Norman Tindale who said, "Man, setting fire to large areas of his territory ... probably has had a significant hand in the moulding of the present configuration of parts of Australia. Indeed much of the grassland of Australia could have been brought into being as a result of his exploitation. Some of the post-climax rain forests may have been destroyed in favour of invading sclerophyll, as the effects of his firestick were added to the effects of changing climate in Early Recent times.... Perhaps it is correct to assume that man has had such a profound effect on the distribution of forest and grassland that true primaeval forest may be far less common in Australia than is generally realised." (NB Tindale "Ecology of primitive Aboriginal man in Australia: Biogeography and Ecology in Australia" Monographiae Biologicae 8, Junk, The Hague, p36-51, 1959). Tindale's view became popular, and was expanded on by Rhys Jones (e.g. "Fire-stick farming" Australian Natural History 16:224-228 1969; and "The Neolithic, Palaeolithic and the hunting gardeners" in R. Suggate and M. Cresswell (eds.) Quaternary Studies Royal Society of New Zealand, Wellington, p21-34, 1975) and by Sylvia Hallam ("Fire and Hearth", Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra, 1975). The theory of Tindale, Jones and Hallam was later popularised by Tim Flannery ("The Future Eaters", Reed Books, Melbourne, 1994). It became very popular (some reasons are explored here) with extensive media support, and was used by foresters to justify the "prescribed burning" opposed by ecologists; the clearing of trees by farmers; and the opening up of national parks to various activities. Lost in the enthusiasm was any sense that "Fire-stick farming" was just a theory. In 1982 David Horton published a paper ("The Burning Question: Aborigines, Fires and Australian Ecosystems", Mankind 13:237-251, 1982) criticising the Tindale, Jones, Hallam theory and returning, in a sense, to the view of Cleland. In 2000 he published a book ("The Pure State of Nature", Allen & Unwin, Sydney 2000; available online here) setting out in full an alternative view of the relationship between Aborigines and the Australian environment (particular chapters on fire can be found here and here; subsequent work is available here). In essence Horton pointed out the lack of archaeological evidence for the use of fire in forests; that the vegetation patterns of Australia were of long-standing and not the result of fire; that the Aboriginal economy depended not on animals like kangaroos that might be favoured by fires but on small species that wouldn't be; and that the Australian fauna and flora were not adapted to fire, and in fact would be greatly damaged by frequent use of fire. Ecological research in recent years has provided considerable evidence for the last of those propositions.

The theories about Indigenous Australians and the megafauna have a similar antiquity. Bones of large mammals (such as Diprotodon) began to be discovered in 1839 and it was fairly quickly realised that these species were extinct. Comparisons were drawn with the similar extinct large mammals in Europe (e.g. Mammoths), and a debate began as to whether these species had become extinct in Australia as a result of hunting by humans or climate change (in Europe there was a similar debate, though in that case the change in climate was the end of the Ice Age). Ludwig Leichardt, just 4 years after the first discoveries, set out the problem beautifully: "It seems to me that the conditions of life can have very little changed [in western NSW], as the same shells live still in similar waterholes. The want of food can scarcely be the cause of their [Diprotodon] disappearing; as flocks of sheep and cattle depasture over their fossil remains. But as such a herbivore must have required a large body of water for his sustenance, the drainage of these plains or the failing of these springs ... has been, probably, the cause of their retiring to more favourable localities. " (from his letter to R. Owen of 10 July 1844 in M. Aurousseau (ed.) The letters of Ludwig Leichardt, Hakluyt Society, Cambridge). The distinguished Zoologist Leichardt, writing to Richard Owen, changed his mind about the reasons for extinction, first addressing climate change, then humans: "[The fossils] tell us plainly that the time was when Australia's arid plains were trodden by the hooves of heavy pachyderms [i.e. Diprotodon]; but could the land then have been, as now, parched by long continued droughts, with dry river courses containing here and there a pond of water? ... May not the change from a more humid climate to the present peculiarly dry one have been the cause, or chief cause, of the extinction of such pachyderms?" and, "as the elephant succumbs to the spears and pitfalls of the negro hunters, the minor bulk of the Diprotodon is not likely to have availed it against the combined assaults of the tribe of Australoid wielders of club and throwing sticks." And why did megafauna go extinct and not some of the other species? Owen had the answer: "to a race of man depending like the blackfellows for subsistence on the chase, the largest and most conspicuous kinds of wild beasts first fall prey" (The Owen sequence is found in "On the discovery of the remains of a mastodontoid pachyderm in Australia," Annals and Magazine Natural History 11: 7-12, 1843, "On the fossil mammals of Australia, Part 3: Diprotodon australis" Royal Society of London Philosophical Transactions 160: 519-578, "Researches on the fossil remains of the extinct mammals of Australia," Erxleben, London, 1877, "Extinct animals of the colonies of Great Britain," Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute 10: 267-297, 1879). This debate was summed up in David Horton, "The great megafaunal extinction debate 1879-1979" The Artefact 4:11-25, 1979; D. Horton "A review of the extinction question," Archaeology and Physical Anthropology in Oceania 15: 86-97, 1980).

The debate was to continue for well over 100 years, with many of the same protagonists for human impact as for fire. An American, Paul Martin, thought that the megafauna both in Australia and America had become extinct as a result of over-hunting (P. Martin and H. Wright "Pleistocene Extinctions," Yale University Press, New Haven, 1967) and Rhys Jones (e.g. "The geographical background to the arrival of man in Australia," Archaeology and Physical Anthropology in Australia 3: 186-215, 1968) also asserted a human cause, but perhaps as a result of fire's altering the habitat, while David Horton (e.g. "Red Kangaroos, last of the Australian megafauna" in P. Martin and R. Klein, Quaternary Extinctions, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, p 639-680, 1984) thought it was climate change. Tim Flannery, examining the Martin and Jones views (The Future Eaters, Reed Books, Melbourne, 1994), recombined them to suggest that over-hunting caused the extinctions, which in turn left more vegetation that needed to be controlled by fire. David Horton ("The Pure State of Nature", Allen & Unwin, Sydney 2000; available online here) analysed all those theories and reached the conclusion that climate change was the mechanism. The difficulty in deciding between human and climate change causation of Australian extinctions was that, in spite of 100 years of discovery of archaeological and paleontological sites, and in spite of some 30 years of being able to date such sites, by the 1980s scientists were still faced with the fact that humans had arrived in Australia and megafauna had gone extinct, both at roughly the same time as the last great climatic swing of the Pleistocene period. The extinction, and the two possible causes, were all roughly contemporaneous, and the sites being excavated, and the dating processes used, were incapable of satisfying everyone as to their meaning. In addition, there was no agreement on how humans could have caused extinctions (the mechanisms proposed were both theoretically unsatisfactory) or how climate change could have done the trick (opponents claiming that there was no climatic reason for extinctions to have occurred at the end of the Pleistocene and not earlier, and Horton's failure of permanent water supplies mechanism not being generally accepted).

In a sense this remains the situation today. However, the proponents of human causation, by the method of greatly restricting the megafaunal sites which they will accept as worth dating, claim that the extinctions coincide with human arrival (around 47,000 years ago). The opponents of this view see a long overlap between human arrival and final extinction (and suggest that many extinctions did indeed occur earlier in the Pleistocene due to climatic change, and in the absence of humans), the latter viewed as taking place after 40,000 years ago (the restriction of dating to sites with articulated skeletons having the effect of removing archaeological sites from consideration). Sites such as Cuddies Springs (Field, J., et al., "Chronological overlap between humans and megafauna in Sahul (Pleistocene Australia–New Guinea): A review of the evidence, Earth-Science Reviews" (2008), doi:10.1016/j.earscirev.2008.04.006) are crucial to this modern debate--sites, that is, where there was actual interaction between humans and megafauna. A number of such sites indicate considerable overlap in time between the arrival of the first humans and the disappearance of the last of the megafauna. Even one site is enough to disprove human causation, which is why every new announcement has been bitterly contested by scientists who favour that cause.

Issues facing Indigenous Australians today

The Indigenous Australian population is a mostly urbanised demographic, but a substantial number (27%) live in remote settlements often located on the site of former church missions. The health and economic difficulties facing both groups are substantial. Both the remote and urban populations have adverse ratings on a number of social indicators, including health, education, unemployment, poverty and crime. In 2004 former Prime Minister John Howard initiated contracts with Aboriginal communities, where substantial financial benefits are available in return for commitments such as ensuring children attend school. These contracts are known as Shared Responsibility Agreements. This saw a political shift from 'self determination' for Aboriginal communities to 'mutual obligation', which has been criticised as a "paternalistic and dictatorial arrangement". The "Mutual Obligation" concept was introduced for all Australians in receipt of welfare benefits and who are not disabled or elderly. Notably, just prior to a federal election being called, John Howard in a Speech at the Sydney Institute on October 11 2007 acknowledged some of the failures of the previous policies of his government and said "We must recognise the distinctiveness of Indigenous identity and culture and the right of Indigenous people to preserve that heritage. The crisis of Indigenous social and cultural disintegration requires a stronger affirmation of Indigenous identity and culture as a source of dignity, self-esteem and pride."

Stolen Generations

Main article: Stolen Generations

The Stolen Generations were those children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian and State government agencies and church missions, under acts of their respective parliaments. The removals occurred in the period between approximately 1869 and 1969, although, in some places, children were still being taken in the 1970s.

On February 13, 2008, the federal government of Australia, led by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, issued a formal apology to the Indigenous Australians over the Stolen Generations,

Political representation

See also: Voting rights of Australian Aboriginals

Under Section 41 of the Australian Constitution Aboriginals always had the legal right to vote in Australian Commonwealth elections if their State granted them that right. This meant that all Aborigines outside Queensland and Western Australia had a legal right to vote. Indigenous Australians gained the unqualified right to vote in Federal elections in 1962. It was not until 1967 that they were counted in the population for the purpose of distribution of electoral seats. Only two Indigenous Australians have been elected to the Australian Parliament, Neville Bonner (1971-1983) and Aden Ridgeway (1999-2005). There are currently no Indigenous Australians in the Australian Parliament.

ATSIC, the representative body of Aborigine and Torres Strait Islanders, was set up in 1990 under the Hawke government. In 2004, the Howard government disbanded ATSIC and replaced it with an appointed network of 30 Indigenous Coordination Centres that administer Shared Responsibility Agreements and Regional Partnership Agreements with Aboriginal communities at a local level.

In October 2007, just prior to the calling of a federal election, the then Prime Minister, John Howard, advocated a referendum to recognise Indigenous Australians in the Constitution. Reaction to his surprising adoption of the importance of the symbolic aspects of the reconciliation process, was mixed. The ALP supported the idea. Some sections of the Australian public and media [11] suggested it was a cynical attempt in the lead-up to an election to whitewash Mr Howard's poor handling of this issue during his term in office. David Ross (Central Land Council) said "its a new skin for an old snake." (ABC radio 12 October 2007)

Education

Students as a group leave school earlier, and live with a lower standard of education, compared with their peers. Although the situation is slowly improving (with significant gains between 1994 and 2002),

• 39% of indigenous students stayed on to year 12 at high school, compared with 75% for the Australian population as a whole. ABS
• 22% of indigenous adults had a vocational or higher education qualification, compared with 48% for the Australian population as a whole . ABS
• 4% of Indigenous Australians held a bachelor degree or higher, compared with 21% for the population as a whole. While this fraction is increasing, it is increasing at a slower rate than that for Australian population as a whole. ABS

The performance of indigenous students in national literacy and numeracy tests conducted in school years three, five, and seven is also inferior to that of their peers. The following table displays the performance of indigenous students against the general Australian student population as reported in the National Report on Schooling in Australia 2004.

Percent achieving 2004 benchmark

	Reading	Writing	Numeracy
Indigenous	Year 3 Year 5 Year 7 82.9 69.4 71.0	Year 3 Year 5 Year 7 76.8 81.7 78.8	Year 3 Year 5 Year 7 79.2 69.4 51.9
Australia	93.0 88.7 91.0	92.9 94.2 93.6	93.7 91.2 82.1

In response to this problem, the Commonwealth Government formulated a National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Policy. A number of government initiatives have resulted, some of which are listed by the Commonwealth Government's Indigenous Education page.

Employment

Indigenous Australians are almost three times more likely to be unemployed (20.0% unemployment) than a non-Indigenous Australian (7.6%). The difference is not solely due to the increased proportion of Indigenous Australians living in rural communities, for unemployment is higher in Indigenous Australian populations living in urban centres (Source: ABS). The average household income for Indigenous Australian populations is 60% of the non-Indigenous average..

Health

Due to lack of access to medical facilities, Indigenous Australians were twice as likely to report their health as fair/poor and one-and-a-half times more likely to have a disability or long-term health condition.(after adjusting for demographic structures).

Health problems with the highest disparity (compared with the non-Indigenous population) in incidence are outlined in the table below:

Health problem	Comparative incidence rate	Comment
Circulatory system diseases	2 to 10-fold	5 to 10-fold increase in rheumatic heart disease and hypertensive disease, 2-fold increase in other heart disease, 3-fold increase in death from circulatory system disorders. Circulatory system diseases account for 24% deaths
Renal failure	2 to 3-fold	2 to 3-fold increase in listing on the dialysis and transplant registry, up to 30-fold increase in end stage renal disease, 8-fold increase in death rates from renal failure, 2.5% of total deaths
Communicable diseases	10 to 70-fold	10-fold increase in tuberculosis, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C virus, 20-fold increase in Chlamydia, 40-fold increase in Shigellosis and Syphilis, 70-fold increase in Gonococcal infections
Diabetes	3 to 4-fold	11% incidence of Type 2 Diabetes in Indigenous Australians, 3% in non-Indigenous population. 18% of total indigenous deaths
Cot death	2 to 3-fold	Over the period 1999–2003, in Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory, the national cot death rate for infants was three times the rate
Mental health	2 to 5-fold	5-fold increase in drug-induced mental disorders, 2-fold increase in diseases such as schizophrenia, 2 to 3-fold increase in suicide..
Optometry/Ophthalmology	2-fold	A 2-fold increase in cataracts
Neoplasms	60% increase in death rate	60% increased death rate from neoplasms. In 1999-2003, neoplasms accounted for 17% of all deaths
Respiratory disease	3 to 4-fold	3 to 4-fold increased death rate from respiratory disease accounting for 8% of total deaths

Each of these indicators is expected to underestimate the true prevalence of disease in the population due to reduced levels of diagnosis.

In addition, the following factors have been at least partially implicated in the inequality in life expectancy:

• poverty
• insufficient education
• substance abuse
• for remote communities poor access to health services
• for urbanised Indigenous Australians, cultural pressures which prevent access to health services
• cultural differences resulting in poor communication between Indigenous Australians and health workers.

Successive Federal Governments have responded to these issues by implementing programs such as the Office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health (OATSIH). Which effected by bringing health services into indigenous communities, but on the whole the problem still remains challenging.

Violent Crime

Violent crime, including domestic and sexual abuse, is a problem in many communities. Indigenous Australians are twice as likely to be a victim of violent aggression than their peers, with 24% of Indigenous Australians reported being a victim of violence in 2001.

An estimated three in five children have suffered various degrees of sexual abuse in the southeast Queensland community of Cherbourg . In May, 2006, Alice Springs crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers called abuse in Aboriginal communities a "National problem". Australia-wide, Indigenous Australian children are 20-fold overrepresented in the juvenile corrective service and 20-fold more likely to be involved in child abuse and neglect cases.

An Indigenous Australian is 11 times more likely to be in prison, and in June 2004, 21% of prisoners in Australia were of the indegeous population.

Substance abuse

Signpost outside Yirrkala, NT, where kava was introduced as a safer alternative to alcohol, but was withdrawn in 2007.

Many Indigenous communities suffer from a range of health and social problems associated with substance abuse of both legal and illegal drugs.

A large 2004-05 health survey by the ABS found that the proportion of the Indigenous adult population engaged in 'risky' and 'high-risk' alcohol consumption (15%) was comparable with that of the non-Indigenous population (14%), based on age-standardised data. The percentage-point difference between the two figures quoted is not statistically significant, and a similar result was obtained in the earlier 2000-01 survey. The same health survey found that, after adjusting for age differences between the two populations, Indigenous adults were more than twice as likely as non-Indigenous adults to be current daily smokers of tobacco.

To combat the problem, a number of programs to prevent or mitigate against alcohol abuse have been attempted in different regions, many initiated from within the communities themselves. These strategies include such actions as the declaration of "Dry Zones" within indigenous communities, prohibition and restriction on point-of-sale access, and community policing and licensing.

Some communities (particularly in the Northern Territory) introduced kava as a safer alternative to alcohol, as over-indulgence in kava produces sleepiness, in contrast to the violence that can result from over-indulgence in alcohol. These and other measures met with variable success, and while a number of communities have seen decreases in associated social problems caused by excessive drinking, others continue to struggle with the issue and it remains an ongoing concern. The ANCD study notes that in order to be effective, programs in general need also to address "...the underlying structural determinants that have a significant impact on alcohol and drug misuse" (Op. cit., p.26). In 2007, Kava was banned in the Northern Territory.

Petrol sniffing is also a problem among some remote Indigenous communities. Petrol vapour produces euphoria and dulling effect in those who inhale it, and due to its relatively low price and widespread availability, is an increasingly popular substance of abuse. Proposed solutions to the problem are a topic of heated debate among politicians and the community at large. In 2005 this problem among remote indegenous communities was considered so serious that a new petrol Opal was distributed across the Northern Territory to combat it. As Opal petrol is less addictive.

Prominent Indigenous Australians

Main article: Prominent Indigenous Australians

See also: Category:Indigenous Australian sportspeople

There have been many distinguished Indigenous Australians, in politics, sports, the arts and other areas. These include (in alphabetical order):

• Arthur Beetson, former captain of the Australian national rugby league team, the first aboriginal to captain any Australian sporting team.
• Neville Bonner, member of the Australian Senate
• Ernie Bridge, first Aboriginal Member of the WA Parliament and the first Aboriginal person to be appointed a Cabinet Minister in any Parliament in Australia.
• Ernie Dingo, comedian, actor and presenter
• Mark Ella, rugby union player
• Cathy Freeman, Olympic athlete
• Jason Gillespie, cricketer
• Adam Goodes, dual Brownlow Medallist
• Evonne Goolagong, winner of seven Grand Slam tennis events
• David Gulpilil, actor
• Greg Inglis, Rugby league player for Melbourne Storm, Queensland and Australia
• Nathan Jawai, basketball player set to become the first Indigenous Australian ever to play in the North American NBA
• Andrew McLeod, Australian rules footballer, dual Norm Smith Medallist and captain of the Australian team
• Marcia Langton, public intellectual
• Vincent Lingiari, Aboriginal rights activist
• Michael Long, Australian rules footballer and political activist
• Patrick Mills, basketball player, youngest ever to play for the men's national team
• John Moriarty, Artist, government advisor, founder of the Balarinji Design Studio, soccer player
• Danny Morseu, former basketball player and member of the NBL Hall of Fame
• Anthony Mundine, former rugby league player and boxing champion
• Albert Namatjira, painter
• Sir Douglas Nicholls, Australian rules footballer, clergyman and Governor of South Australia,
• Oodgeroo Noonuccal, poet, author, playwright, civil rights activist, educator
• Lowitja O'Donoghue, nurse and activist
• Noel Pearson, public intellectual
• Charles Perkins, soccer player, sports administrator and civil rights activist
• Aden Ridgeway, member of the Australian Senate
• Maurice Rioli, Australian rules footballer, Norm Smith Medallist and politician
• Lionel Rose boxer, former world champion
• Johnathan Thurston Australian and Queensland representative rugby league player and dual Dally M Medallist
• Gavin Wanganeen, Australian rules footballer and Brownlow Medallist
• Mandawuy Yunupingu, singer and songwriter
• Deborah Mailman, first Aboriginal actor to win the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role

See also

Northern Territory National Emergency Response

• List of topics related to Black and African people

Further reading

• Jamison, T. The Australian Aboriginal People: Dating the Colonization of Australia

Roberts, Jan. "Jack of Cape Grim: A story of British Invasion and Aboriginal Resistance" 2008 edition available from Amazon

Roberts, Jan. "Massacres to Mining: The Colonisation of Aboriginal Australia." 2008 edition available from Amazon.

External links

• Ceremony The Djungguwan of Northeast Arnhem Land
• Aborigines win 'native title' over Perth
• Australia's largest circulating Indigenous Affairs Newspaper
• Latest Indigenous news from ABC News Online
• Indigenous Australians - State Library of NSW
• Aboriginal Studies Virtual Library
• Department of Indigenous Affairs (Australian Government)
• European Network for Indigenous Australian Rights
• Indigenous Australia - Australian Museum educational site
• KooriWeb
• Norman B. Tindale's Catalogue of Aboriginal Tribes
• Reconciliation Australia
• Australian, Bosnian and Norwagian Cross-Bred Children
• Classroom Resources
• Joel Gibson (1 May 2007). "Australia worst in the world for indigenous health". stuff.com.nx. Retrieved 2007-05-25.
• Australian Bureau of Statistics (May 14, 2007). "Law and justice statistics - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people: a snapshot, 2002". {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Original Girl Mari Miyay virtual book - Read and hear the story of Emily, a Gamilaraay girl, written by her mother, Michelle Witheyman-Crump with Gamilaraay translation. Held by the State Library of Queensland
• Indigenous Business/Employment in Darwin NT