The Aborigines

The Aborigines were the first people in Australia. They were about 410,000 Aborigines in 2001. Aborigines in Australia have lived there about 70,000 years. They ate animals they found around. The Aboriginal ate the most was the kangaroo and koala bear. When very young, children were indulged played with and loved by all members of the group. But soon, each child had to begin to fend for himself. Shortly after he could walk, he began to handle small spears, followed his father and the other men, watching while they fished, made tools. Little girls began to follow their mother, helping her and trying to copy what she was doing. The "Dreamtime", the mythological past, was the time when spirit ancestors had travelled throughout the land, giving it its physical form, and setting down the rules to be followed by the Aboriginals. Beings such as the "Fertility Mother", the "Great Rainbow Snake", the Djanggawul brothers and sisters, survive in stories and ceremonies that have been passed down from generation to generation. Some sacred aspect of these stories and ceremonies were available only to initiated adult males. Women had their own sacred ceremonies from which they excluded men, but there were ceremonies and songs in which the whole group joined men, women and children.