AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINE

also called Aboriginal, any member of the indigenous Australoid geographic race of Australia and Tasmania. Estimates of the Aboriginal population at the time of European colonization in the late 18th century range from 300,000 to more than 1,000,000. Both people and languages (or dialects) were associated with stretches of territory, and the largest entities recognized by the people were language-named groups, sometimes referred to by whites as tribes. There were perhaps as many as 500 such named, territorially anchored groups. As a result of European contact, most aspects of the traditional culture have been severely modified. The archaeology of Australia shows that the continent has been occupied for at least 40,000 years; some scholars suggest that human occupation may date back 60,000 years. The Aborigines, whether in one or several periods, probably arrived either by way of the now-submerged Sahul Shelf or, where land connections were absent, by rafts and canoes. The dingo, a type of wild dog, appeared in Australia some 3,0004,000 years ago, at about the same time that Aborigines began to use a new ensemble of small, flaked stone tools. Within the past 1,5003,000 years, other important changes occurred: the population increased, new habitats were exploited, more efficient methods of exploiting resources were introduced, and the exchange of valued items over wide areas increased. It is not known whether there was a single wave or multiple waves of migration into Australia. Skulls found in the southeast suggest that there were two distinct physical types, but the theory that there were two migrant groups, from southern China and from Indonesia, has been disputed on many grounds. The Aborigines were not cultivators, and Australia provided no animals suitable for herding, so they lived by food gathering and hunting, in which activities they were limited by distance from fresh water. With increase of numbers, subgroups set out to find other waters: paths of mythological heroes and trade routes indicate the directions of the migrations. An Aboriginal tribe, or language-named group, consisted of several local groups that, food permitting, associated for most of the year. The territory of each group, membership of which was in the male line, was focused upon a watering place where the group's ancestors originally settled and where the preexistent spirits of its members were believed to have sojourned ever since, waiting for incarnation and reincarnation. Founders of secondary settlements and their descendants were forever kinsfolk of the primary group and its descendants, regardless of how far they were separated in space, time, and customs. A system of classifying everyone as a relation codified reciprocal behaviour based on recognized indirect-kinship links (if any), on apparent generation level, on membership of clans, and on ritual affiliation. In much of Australia, relations were divided into two, four, or eight groups, which were correlated with rules of marriage and descent and were normally exogamous. The Aborigines divided the year into five to eight seasons (depending on the region), marked by the normally expected climatic conditions and the kinds of procurable foods. They faced recurring droughts and food failures by regarding natural species and the rain as part of the social and moral order and by entering into ritual relations with them. Each group within a traditional tribe consisted not only of men and women but also of several species, so that all were relations. The group (clan) bore the name of one of these, its totem. Further, the men were divided into lodges, each of which was custodian of the mythology, ritual, sites, and symbols associated with one or more natural species and with ancestral heroes. Through ritual reenactment, the creative past became operative in the present, and the life of species and man was assured. The myths and ritual constituted the Dreaming, or Dreamtime, signifying continuity of life unlimited by space and time. Only the old men had full knowledge of the Dreaming and, therefore, authority in ritual and matters of social behaviour. Myth and ritual were expressed in art, poetry, music, and dance. The myths are preserved in chants that are poetic in expression, rhythmic in structure, and complex in language and music. Sacred objects and even weapons such as the boomerang were painted and engraved to express myths, which were also chanted into them. The actors' bodies were painted in ritual, and mythological designs were engraved or painted on stone, on bark, and on the ground, the painting and engraving being themselves rites. Painting was also done for pleasure. Singing and dancing took place both at the social corroboree and on the secret ground. There were regional schools of art and music and regional differences in the form and decoration of implements and weapons. The content of some major religious cults also showed regional variation. Contact with Europeans, from the bloody 19th-century pacification by force to the urban assimilation of the present day, radically altered Aboriginal culture. To prevent what was perceived as the possible disintegration of the Aborigines, the government established reserves in the late 1920s and early '30s. No Aborigines exist who have not had some contact with modern Australian society, and all are now Australian citizens. The post- World War II period saw the emergence of more articulate part-Aboriginal groups in the south, who have insisted on integration rather than assimilationi.e., on retaining Aboriginal identity as a unique status symbol marking them off from other Australians. In the north, the focus has been on questions of land ownership and control, including compensation (and not merely royalties) for and a share in the mineral exploitation that is occurring on Aboriginal reserves. At the June 1986 census, Aborigines numbered fewer than 228,000, less than 2 percent of the total population of modern Australia. Their numbers have been decimated by dispossession, poverty, cultural dislocation, and disease. Their unemployment rate is more than six times the national average, and the average wage for Aborigines is half the average national wage.