Aboriginal Australia
The world’s most ancient living culture, Australia’s
indigenous people, have a continuous history spanning
at least 50,000 years.
Theirs is the oldest story on Earth, providing an irrevocable understanding of the birth of our land, its cragginess, spirituality and wonder.
Aboriginal Australia is a living legacy of spiritual knowledge, understanding of land, culture, people and the connectedness of all things shared through rituals, art, dance, music, secret stories and journeys into the mysteries known as Dreamtime – the time when ancestral spirits came to Earth and created the landforms and all life. The landscape today is a map of the spirits’ journeys and stories created thousands of years ago to describe these journeys are the same that you will hear today. It is also possible to stroll on a beach, walk a bush track or wander down a road and find some of the world’s most ancient art in a library of rock carvings, petroglyphs and paintings – some dating more than 43,000 years.
You can take your other senses on a 50,000 year journey too; hunt and cook, or simply taste ‘bush tucker’ – the native foods of our indigenous people – hear the chants and incantations of their ancient stories, or marvel at the modern expression of their culture through dance, theatre, film and exhibitions. A visit to Australia is an opportunity to experience a culture like no other.
Some Aboriginal facts
• Aboriginal Australia has developed as a network of separate, independent “nations” distinguished by hundreds of languages and over 700 dialects3. Aboriginal Australia, therefore, is one of the most linguistically diverse places on the planet.
• Australia’s indigenous population is made up of Aboriginal people of the mainland and Torres Strait Islanders.
• Torres Strait Islanders are indigenous people of the Torres Strait Islands which are part of the State of Queensland. They are Melanesians, and regarded as being distinct from other Aboriginal peoples of the rest of Australia.
• Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are ethnically and culturally different. Historically, Aboriginal people have lived on mainland Australia, Tasmania and many of the continent’s offshore islands like Groote Eylandt, Bathurst and Melville in the Northern Territory. Torres Strait Islanders come from the islands of the Torres Strait between the tip of Cape York in Queensland and Papua New Guinea and have many cultural similarities with the people of Papua New Guinea and the Pacific.
• The Olary region of South Australia is home to what is believed to be the world’s oldest known art – rock engravings – created around BC43,0006.
• The mysterious “Bradshaw” paintings in Western Australia’s remote Kimberley region continue to amaze scholars. The first settler to see these ancient paintings was explorer Joseph Bradshaw in 1891, the paintings have been likened to those in Egyptian temples.
• Indigenous Australian law covers a body of spiritual, cultural and social knowledge, bound together by social and religious obligations. While legislation can be changed by Governments, Aboriginal law does not alter. Indigenous people cannot change the law because they did not make it – their laws were made by the Dreamings.
• Just like their many languages, Aboriginal art varies from nation to nation, from the cross hatching style on bark in Arnhem Land to the contemporary dot painting on canvas in the western desert and modern urban expressions are opitimised in photographic exhibitions, sculpture and new media.
• More than two-thirds of Australia’s Aboriginal people live in smaller towns or rural areas.
• The boomerang and the didgeridoo are two objects most closely associated with Australia’s indigenous peoples. Used for hunting and commonly thought to always return, not all boomerangs are designed to come back. The didgeridoo, a deep-toned woodwind instrument at the heart of much Aboriginal music, is ideally made using suitable eucalypt branches hollowed out by termites. The tube is then decorated with ritual designs and fitted with a mouthpiece made from native honeybee wax.
• Traditional Aboriginal food – now known as bush tucker – sustained Australia’s original inhabitants for millennia. Bush tucker - such as bush tomatoes, Illawarra plums, quandongs, lilli pillies, muntari berries, wattle seeds, Kakadu plums and bunya bunya nuts – has gone mainstream as Australian chefs are experimenting more and more with its unusual and delicate flavours.
Uniquely Australian
• When you immerse yourself in this, the world’s oldest culture, make sure you keep your eyes open when you travel our vast continent as our landscape offers an outdoor gallery of ancient art and storytelling dating back at least 50,000 years.
• Often preserved within national parks, take the time to view ancient rock engravings and explore magnificent bush at the same time.
• You can witness ceremonies, dance and song dating back thousands of years when you join in the many festivals that are celebrated each year. And you don’t have to go far. Festivals are held in many capital cities but if you are seeking a bit more adventure, head inland to rural Australia or offshore to the Torres Strait Islands.
• Experience the most modern interpretations of ancient stories told by groups such as the Bangarra Dance Theatre, which has performed in some of the world’s leading venues.
• Visit sites and important spiritual centres with local Indigenous guides who will tell you stories about the Dreaming and demonstrate bush survival skills taught to them by their grandparents which has been handed down through the generations. You will likely hear native language with English translation provided by an experienced interpreter.
• Taste the world’s oldest cuisine –head to a market, buy some bush tucker ingredients and cook up a storm. Perhaps try some bunya bunya nuts in your satay sauce; a stewed quandong with some wattle-seed ice-cream for desert and some bush tomatoes in your salad. Too hard? You can always opt to eat indigenous foods in gourmet restaurants that specialise in emu, kangaroo and other unique Aussie flavours.
• By supporting indigenous tourism entrepreneurs, you are helping create sustainable employment in many areas where there are relatively few opportunities. This enables families and communities to stay on their land, in areas where they have their roots and kinship ties.
• Many individuals, families and communities are welcoming visitors to share their way of life, learn about their culture and hear their stories, reinforcing pride in their cultural heritage. Learn the arts of our Indigenous dance, story telling, painting and tribal rituals.