Queensland Aboriginal - Aboriginal Culture - Aboriginal Art

Australian Aboriginal culture can claim to be the oldest continuous living culture on the planet. Recent dating of the earliest known archaeological sites on the Australian continent - using thermo-luminescence and other modern dating techniques - have pushed back the date for Aboriginal presence in Australia to at least 40,000 years. Some of the evidence points to dates over 60,000 years old. The hallmark of Aboriginal culture is 'oneness with nature'. In traditional Aboriginal belief systems, nature and landscape are comparable in importance to the bible in Christian culture. Prominent rocks, canyons, rivers, waterfalls, islands, beaches and other natural features - as well as sun, moon, visible stars and animals - have their own stories of creation and inter-connectedness. To the traditional Aborigine they are all sacred: environment is the essence of Australian Aboriginal godliness. Out of this deep reverence for nature Aborigines learned to live in remarkable harmony with the land and its animals. It seems there's a lot our modern world can learn from these people. Nomadic Brilliance. Traditional Australian Aborigines lived a nomadic life, following the seasons and the food. With very few simple tools, used with incredible skill, the Aboriginal learned to live in the harsh and inhospitable Australian outback. It's possible that the first Aborigines in Australia hunted the Australian megafauna - giant kangaroos, giant wombat etc. to extinction. Maybe that was when Aborigines learned to take care of natural resources and move to new hunting grounds before the old ones are depleted beyond repair. When at rest, Aborigines lived in open camps, caves or simple structures made from bark, leaves or other vegetation. Their technology was both simple and sophisticated. Above all, it was appropriate for their way of life - ideally matched to the constraints of nomadic life. The modern notion of possessions is alien to traditional Aboriginal culture. Material things were shared within groups. The idea that an individual could 'own' land was foreign to Aboriginal thinking.

Australian aborigines have occupied the continent for an estimated 40,000 years.As hunters and gatherers, the tribes learned to live with the harsh dry terrain in this barren continent. Some of the tribes built permanent dwellings, whilst others were nomadic because of the climatic conditions that encompassed them.
In the far north of Queensland, the 'wet season' saw the local tribes retreating to caves,as the monsoonal rains engulfed large areas of their tribal lands. The men used spears and bomerangs to hunt the wild animals and fine nets were also used to capture wallaby and kangaroo.The womenfolk collected nuts,wild berries and grubs to enhance their diet and honey was a treat for the young aboriginal. Survival in this harsh environment is an artform in itself,something that is so natural to these resilient people. Aboriginal songs handed down through the generations describe their deep spiritual bond with the land.Evidence of aboriginal occupation from as far back as 40,000 years can be found in rock carvings, hand-prints and bark paintings.

Click on the banner above to visit The Injinoo Community Website, one of the offshore Aboriginal Communities that provides a warm welcome for visitors. You can either take a flight or take your car on a ferry to the Island. Entertainers.

Clashes with colonists. When Europeans first began to colonise Australia, towards the end of the 18th century AD, they found cultures and environments which, in hindsight, were of incalculable value. Much of this ancient legacy has been destroyed forever in the subsequent two centuries. Contact between new settlers, under imperial British rule, and Australia's indigenous people, led to the decimation of many Aboriginal groups due to disease, dispossession and in tens of thousands of cases, outright murder. As populations declined and were fragmented, many unique linguistic and cultural traditions as well as valuable knowledge about the land and its fauna and flora were lost forever. Land Theft. Seizure of Australia by British Imperial forces was claimed to take place under British law. Even at that time, the British legal system had developed some traditions of fair dealings with native populations inside colonies. These constraints were not applied on the ground in Australia. Invasion and blatant land theft by settlers were justified under the astonishing legal fiction of "Terra Nullius" - the notion that Australia was effectively unoccupied before British colonisation. The lack of indigenous systems of land ownership (in the European tradition of private land ownership) was used to give credence the idea of Terra Nullius. The basic idea was that it was impossible to rob Aboriginal people of land, as they'd previously never owned land. Over two centuries, the continent was progressively stolen from Aboriginal people. Settlers moved in and appropriated the overwhelming majority of Australia - either for private use or in the name of the British Crown. Even after Australia was declared independent in 1901, Aborigines continued to be marginal to the new nation and were debarred from becoming citizens by the 1902 Australian Constitution. Citizenship was granted to Aborigines only following a national referendum in 1967. Legacy of racism. Racist attitudes to Australia's indigenous population evolved through different phases. In some places and on some occasions, settlers behaved in a quite civilised way. In others, they practiced outright genocide. In between were a range of assimilationist and patronising policies. Many of these helped deepen the plight of Aboriginal people and culture. As recently as the 1950's, as many as one tenth of Aboriginal babies were removed from their natural parents and taken into foster care by non-Aboriginal families, in the belief this was to everyone's benefit. This quite recent forced removal of children on a massive scale - known as the 'Stolen Generation' - came to widespread attention only in the late 1990's. The previous Australian Coalition Government has refused to make a formal apology over the 'Stolen Generation' (in contrast to President Clinton's apology for the historical wrong of black slavery, and successive Australian Governments' demands for the Japanese to give a full apology for crimes committed during World War 2). Looking forward. Two centuries of dispossession and maltreatment have left deep scars in surviving Aboriginal communities. In life expectancy and key health indicators, Aboriginal Australians as a whole lag far behind the average Australian population. A range of serious social problems confront the leadership of Aboriginal Australia. Yet there has also been major progress in recent times, as Australia's first peoples develop their own national and regional institutions - and political strength - to meet the challenges of the modern era. Struggles for Land Rights, for greater autonomy in the management of Aboriginal affairs, and for greater recognition and respect to be given to traditional Aboriginal lore, have all met with partial success. In 1991 Australia's High Court finally overturned the disgraceful legal myth of Terra Nullius. As a consequence, native title to continuously settled land, which had until then been completely denied to Australian Aboriginal was "rediscovered" in Australian law. Throughout the 1990's, Australian Governments enacted legislation which greatly limited the applicability of High Court decisions on native title. This second dispossession of Aboriginal Australians - in favour of big mining and pastoral interests - is a blemish on recent Australian history. Many people believe it should be challenged in the international courts, as it breaches Australia's international obligations on human rights. All text without borders on this page kindly consented by :--

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Sorry. Wednesday 13th Feb.2008.

"I give notice that, at the next sitting, I will move: That Today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history. We reflect on their past mistreatment. We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations � this blemished chapter in our nation's history. The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future. We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians. We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country. For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry. To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry. And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry. We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation. For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written. We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians. A future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again. A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity. A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed. A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility. A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia.

The Ancient Miners of Mount Isa.

In 1867 Ernest Henry discovered copper on the Cloncurry River, a find which heralded the establishment of the Mount Isa - Cloncurry region as a focus of mining activities in European Australia. In his explorations Henry paid Aborigines of the local Kalkadoon tribe to take him to outcrops of copper ore. What Henry probably failed to recognise was that his informants were themselves miners and the descendants of miners. Indeed, at the time of Henry's discoveries Aboriginal miners were at work in the hills surrounding Mount Isa, extracting rocks and manufacturing stone axes to supply extensive trade systems as they had done for perhaps a thousand years.
Many details of the axe trade are known because they were meticulously recorded by Walter E. Roth, who was Surgeon at the Boulia and Cloncurry Hospitals from 1894 to 1898. While the trading network no longer operated at that time, due to the introduction of steel axe-heads and the general disruption of Aboriginal society, Roth's Aboriginal informants gave him a remarkable picture of the traditional axe marketing. While the Kalkadoons were extremely territorial, and rarely left their own country, they often met with the surrounding tribes to exchange axes for goods they could not manufacture themselves (Figure 1 - shown right). Travelling to the west the Kalkadoon met their neighbours, the Workia and Yaroinga, at Camooweal, Headingly and Lake Nash. There they exchanged their prized stone axes for grindstones, red ochre, boomerangs, spears and shields. Traveling south the Kalkadoon met with the Pitta-Pitta and their allies at Buckingham Downs, Chatsworth and Noranside. Here the Kalkadoon sold their axe-heads for the narchotic pituri plant and fishing nets. On other occasions the Kalkadoons carried their axes to Fort Constantine on the Cloncurry River where they exchanged them for ochre and Koolamons.
These meetings with neighbouring tribes were major social events, often held in conjunction with corroborees. Hundreds of people would attend these markets. After building temporary camps and renewing old acquaintances, the business of exchanging goods would begin. The owners of axes, or their appointed representatives, would lay out their wares on the ground. People interested in purchasing some of the axes would offer goods in exchange, each side examining the offered material for quality and haggling about the quantity of goods they should receive. If a bargain was struck the goods would be exchanged; if the price was not acceptable the buyer would go in search of a better deal elsewhere in the market. Credit was sometimes given to reputable buyers who did not have the necessary price with them but who could be trusted to send payment at a later time. It is not known how many axes were sold in this way at each market but it is likely that groups of Kalkadoons might bring hundreds of axes to the larger markets. Men were known to carry loads weighing 30kg, roughly 40-50 axes, for several months. Since the surrounding tribes had only light and soft sedimentary rocks unsuited to use as axes, the dense hard black axe-heads made by the Kalkadoons were in great demand.
Some of the axes traded at these markets were used by the people who bought them, but many were taken to more distant markets where they were exchanged again and again, fetching even higher prices. In this way the axes from Mount Isa were transported over much of inland Australia, as far away as Lake Eyre in South Australia and the South Australian- Western Australian border.
Trade in axes is well documented, but until recently very little was known of the Kalkadoon miners who made them. Archaeological research around Mount Isa has now revealed much about those ancient miners of Mount Isa. The Aboriginal miners of the region were obviously familiar with the geology of their landscape, for they chose to make axes from heavy and dense metamorphosed basalts. This dark rock was perfectly suited to the purpose, being easy to shape and yet tough when used in chopping. Such basalts are found amongst the hills around Mount Isa and it is here that ancient quarries can still be found. Today, on ridges of basalt, shallow pits three metres in diameter and up to a metre deep show where the prehistoric miners dug out fresh rock. Some of the boulders which were removed weighed almost 100 kg, and were probably levered out of the ground using long wooden poles. These boulders were lifted onto large anvils and broken up using a 10-15kg basalt cobble as a hammer. This was a job for two people, one to hold the boulder at the correct angle and one to swing the hammer. In this way slabs of basalt were broken off and these slabs were manufactured into an axe shape by more delicate chipping. This work, which was probably carried out by men, took many hours and required both skill and strength to complete. It is not easy to break up this hard rock and yet the prehistoric miners shaped hundreds of pieces in exactly the same way, revealing their control over the stone.
This work was organised like a production line. Large boulders were broken up near the quarry pits and the slabs destined to be axes were carried to a second location where they were shaped. Perhaps this indicates that specialists existed at the quarries, some individuals mining while others shaped the stone. When the pieces of rock had been formed into axe shapes they were carried to a third location for the final phase of manufacture: grinding a sharp bevelled edge. This was done by laboriously rubbing the axe with a whetstone of basalt or sandstone. W.E.Roth recorded that this grinding process took up to 12 hours for each axe and was mostly done by women. When the axes were finished they were stacked in piles and stored there until another market was announced.
Intensive mining and manufacturing activities of this kind required the labour force to be organized in certain ways. In particular, it necessitated that a number of people be exempted, at least part of the time, from the daily search for food which is typical of hunter-gatherer societies. This could partly have been achieved by developing ways of storing food, so that hunting animals and collecting fruits and vegetables could be done at one time, thereby freeing days or weeks for work at the quarries. The same end was more effectively obtained if some people worked in mining and manufacturing axes while others collected food for them. This specialization of jobs is most obvious in Mount Isa today, where some people work mining and processing ore while others work in service industries, selling groceries, building houses and so on. It is likely that somewhat similar job specialization developed amongst the Kalkadoons in prehistoric times, so that they could manufacture enough axes to supply the needs of surrounding tribes. In organizing themselves in this way the Kalkadoons moved away from the nomadic and egalitarian vision Europeans have of Aborigines and developed a more hierarchical society in which some individuals acted as co-ordinators. At the same time the Kalkadoons may have been forced to defend their quarries against jealous neighbours. It is well recorded that at the end of the nineteenth century the Kalkadoons were noticeably territorial about their hilly homeland and were regarded as fearsome warriors by surrounding tribes. It may be that the intense warfare between Kalkadoons and European settlers was facilitated by the well-organised and militaristic society that arose as a result of their prehistoric mining activities.
Archaeological investigations have shown that in the Mount Isa region rocks were mined and made into axes over one thousand years ago. Careful excavations in caves close to quarries revealed fragments of axes buried 50cm below the ground surface. Fireplaces at that same depth have been radiocarbon dated, a technique which measures the extent to which carbon atoms in the firewood had decayed, and showed that axes were manufactured 1,100 years ago. Archaeological excavations in riverbanks at the location of markets have also yielded evidence for the trading of stone artefacts almost one thousand years ago. Thus, the intensive mining and trading network observed last century amongst the Aborigines of western Queensland may have existed a thousand years ago, at the time of the Dark Ages in Europe. While the current townsfolk of Mount Isa are justly proud that their mining activities have won them a living from the harsh landscape for over four generations, it is impressive to consider that for 40 generations prior to European settlement the ancient Aboriginal miners of Mount Isa had won their living in a similar way.
Author----Peter Hiscock.

Queensland Tourism has seen an ever increasing number of Aboriginal Businesses enter this particular industry. Considerable effort has been put in by The Queensland Government to assist with this development and in the Cairns and North Queensland areas a growing number of retail outlets pertaining to Aboriginal Artifacts, Art, and Musical Instruments are flourishing. Added to these ventures is an ever increasing popularity, by tourists, to partake in Aboriginal Tours throughout North Queensland. We have listed a few of the sites of interest but if we have missed a site that wishes to be included on this page we will be delighted to add you.

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