Aboriginal Australians

[Beachwaves127]

I’ve tried learning a bit more about the Aboriginal Australians but I’ve found google quite limited. Wondered if anyone knew the history or had real life experience from Aus.

Particularly keen to understand if Aboriginal Australians live in Aus society, or if many still live in their own society (in the outback?)

My knowledge is limited so I will apologise in advance if any of the above is incorrect.

I like expanding my knowledge so there is no particular reason why I am asking these questions, other than I’ve realised my knowledge is virtually nil

It'll be interesting to see what happens. I feel like Trump unleashed the ugly in the world and people now feel entitled to say whatever horrible racist thought pops onto their head. But there is already resistance so we'll see.

This is very specific. Some places, like NZ and the UK have few languages. And so it's easier to integrate into schools. Some places, like Canada and Australia have hundreds of indigenous languages, making it very very difficult to integrate. Yes, everyone should make an effort with the languages near them. I've lived places where you'd have to learn about five to travel in just the local area. Some places are incredibly linguistically diverse.

That is incorrect. There are stone houses near Portland in Victoria that predate white settlement.

Mixed race, and identifying with their indigenous ancestry, but fair skinned. It's not uncommon. The reasons why are outlined above - there has been consensual and non-consensual mixed race relationships over the generations since white settlement. As mentioned upthread, it would be incredibly hypocritical and offensive to deny people the opportunity to identify as First Nations because there's also white people in their family tree.

@DrJump yes, sorry you are right.

I get a bit prickly about it because I’ve worked with community down. Lots of other area would have housing too but they were destroyed by settlers.

Other areas along the coast have permanent fish traps which are quite extensive and prove inheritable rights and things.

I work in a school, and we now sing the national anthem first in the local language of our area and then in English. But this is uncommon, I think we are the first school to do it. We recently had a First Nations man come and speak about his mother, who was stolen. 2 men on horses turned up to her community and dragged her and her sister away when she was about 8. Such a heartbreaking story. They were put in residential schools and abused. They were not allowed to speak their language and were beaten if they did.

A great book I’ve read is called fatal shore. It’s a long read but really interesting. The FNP were transient in their territory. They would live and hunt in one location and then move to another, and so on eventually coming back to the first place in a year or so. This allowed the land to regenerate ect. The attitude by the colonisers was that they could just take the land and they could go to somewhere else, because they didn’t have permanent structures.

Bruce Pascoe's claim to be aboriginal has been called into question (putting it mildly). Basically, it seems that he's been faking it.

There is a fantastic documentary released a few years ago, following a charming 10 year old boy and his family in the NT. It is watchable from the website, and used as a teaching tool in schools here.
https://inmyblooditruns.com/

My ex-SIL is 1/4 Kalkadoon, but she also has Scottish ancestry. She has very fair skin and ginger hair, but typical aboriginal features. My nephew is similar, but with blonde hair like my brother.

Contact is a fascinating documentary about a group of the Martu people in Western Australia who first encountered white people in 1964.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_(2009_film)

Yes. I wasn’t going to go into the detail, and thought I probably wouldn’t read it. Until the indigenous intern at work strongly recommended it. Then I thought whatever he’s done it’s clearly got insights to offer and who am I to argue against that?