Aboriginals
... Australians have been profoundly affected by the European making a return to tradition near impossible. The central belief system of the Aboriginals is the “Dreamtime belief”. According to the Aboriginals, before the present age was the “Alchera of the Arando” or what is also called “The Dreaming”. During this time, the ancestors of the Aboriginals lived on the earth and they had special powers and a special connection with a certain native Australian animal. This animal became their “totem”. These ancestors created the land as it is know today. The spirit of each of these ancestors dwells in the place they died. The belief also explains pregnancy as a sprit of one of these ancestors going into a woman’s body. They associate the place where the woman first realizes she is pregnant with the spirit that has gone into the woman’s body. This determines the totemic group of the future child. An aboriginal has a special connection with their totem animal. They do not hunt that animal and the animal is not hunted on the land of a person of that totem. The Dreamtime belief believes that the Physical World, the Human World, and the Sacred World are all connected. The stories of the Dreamtime were the sources of their laws and the roles of men, women, and children were also contained in the stories. Almost all Aboriginal art, music, and customs are derived from the Dreamtime belief. The aborigines have often been stereotyped as an extremely primitive, unevolved culture. In the nineteenth century, the media description of the Aborigines not being people justified much of their killing by the Europeans at the time. Present media portrayals of their society show them as being wild and uncivilized which is a stereotype of their traditional way of life. The aborigines are a hunting and gathering society. The men are the hunters and the women and children are gatherers. They do not cultivate food and therefore the hunting and gathering process takes place almost everyday of their life. Fishing is one way many aborigines got their food. Many devices were used to collect fish including fish traps, spears, hand lines with hooks, and even just catching them with their hands. Aborigines also hunted possums, kangaroos, reptiles, birds, and wallabies. Methods used for hunting included boomerangs, spears, and even driving them out with fire. Meat is generally scotched rather than thoroughly cooked. The women gathered food such as vegetables, roots, herbs, fruits, nuts, eggs, honey, and small animals like snakes. The aboriginals have an extensive knowledge of the floral and fauna life cycle of their region and use this to their advantage in gathering food. The dwellings of the Aboriginal people were bark huts called gunyas or they lived in caves. The elder of the band decided where in the camp he wanted to sleep and the others would spread out according to where he choose. Marriages were arranged as young children or even...