The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People Essay

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Traditional Custodians of the Land

The local community is heavily influenced by the culture and practices of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. They make up Australia’s indigenous people and comprise several groups that have different languages, traditions, and histories. The history and knowledge of the indigenous communities were passed down from one generation to the next through performance, language, story-telling, elders’ teachings, and preservation of important sites. Indigenous Australians are not just limited to the local community. They can be found all over the nation from the cities to the expansive arid lands. The definition the Australian government gives to Indigenous people is people of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent who identify with those communities and are accepted by the communities they live in as part of the group. Not all Aboriginal and Torres Islander people willingly identify by the groups of their descent. While the number of people willing to identify with their groups has increased significantly, there still is under-counting in government statistics. The final data is often arrived at after the Australian Bureau of Statistics takes census data of the people who identify as indigenous and adjusts it to end up with an estimated resident population (ERP) data (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2018, p.1).

As European settlers were setting up in 1788, Aboriginal people had already occupied the continent in its entirety and had adapted successfully to the prevailing climatic conditions of the places they stayed in whether they were arid deserts or tropical rainforests. The population densities varied by climate as the greener and wetter areas had population densities of about one person per 1 to 8 square miles while the remote arid areas were a bit scarcely populated with one person per 35 square miles. The estimated total population of the Aboriginal people stands at between 300,000 and 1000,000 people. They spoke more than 200 different languages with most people being able to speak more than one Aboriginal language. Languages were identified by the territories those who spoke it lived in. The groups were named after the languages they spoke and would be referred to the Europeans settlers as “tribes.” The number of these groups was large as it is estimated that there may have been more than 500 such defined groups with specifically defined territories. Members of a group would interact mainly with members of their own group. The groups had no active political affiliations, though. Generally, they were not pegged on any general political or economic forces and were instead oriented to more local memberships and affiliations. While Aborigines had no shared consciousness of national identity, their worldview went far beyond their immediate groups as they appreciated the place of different communities in making up functional society (Tonkinson & Berndt, 2019).

Aborigines dancing at an event referred to as ‘corroboree.’

Demographics

A significant portion of the Australian population today identify as Indigenous.

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In 2016, 3.3% of the Australian population identified as such. Between 2011 and 2016, indigenous people’s population was markedly higher than that of non-indigenous people (19% increase vs. 8.0% increase). People of Aboriginal origin made up 91% of the people who identified as indigenous while those of Torres Strait Islander origin made up 5.0%. People of both Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal origins made up 4.1% of the indigenous population (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2018, p.1).

Religion plays a big role in the lives of people in the local community. The makeup of religious affiliation of the local community mirrors the national outlook. During the 2016 census, data was gathered on religious affiliations of Australians. Nationally, people who do not have any belief or practice make up 30.1% of the population. Catholics are…

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…concern of their biological parents but that of the whole community. Everyone in the community be they old or young, female or male, has a role in raising, educating, caring for, and disciplining children of members of members of the community.

The extended family is structured around:

· Marriage (uncle, cousin, aunt)

· Blood relationships (dad, mum, grandmother, grandfather, sister, brother, uncle, aunt)

· Kinship system (uncle, aunt, cousin, elder)

· Community (neighbor, elder, friend)

· Mutual respect

· Mutual obligation in the community

· Knowledge of and acceptance of Aboriginal kinship ties

· A sense of belonging (NSW Department of Community Services, 2009).

The presence of kinship terms avails to every member of the community a well-defined set of accepted terms of behavior. This encompassed practically all areas of life including sexual issues, face-saving, conflict resolution, work issues, and friendship dynamics, among others. It is expected of all community members to adhere to the expected social norms. Repeatedly flouting these norms and conventions threatens social order and may lead to censure. Children are taught what is expected of them from a young age and are expected to start obeying the social norms when they reach adolescence. In the Aboriginal culture, there were some ‘avoidance relationships’ where certain people were expected to avoid one another as much as possible. The relationship between a man and his mother-in-law was such a relationship. This applied not only to the actual mother-in-law but to all women who were culturally defined as “mother-in-law” (Tokinson & Berndt, 2019).

Developments in the local community have destroyed many sites that would have preserved the histories of indigenous people. NSW’s main piece of legislation that helps protect such sites is the National Parks and Wildlife Act, 1974 (NPW Act). The law makes it an offense to desecrate or harm an Aboriginal….....

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