Population+&+Land

HOME HISTORY POPULATION & LAND DIET CULTURE


 * Population**

In 1983 the High Court of Australia defined an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander as "a person of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent who identifies as an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander and is accepted as such by the community in which he or she lives".

The ruling was a three-part definition comprising descent, self-identification and community identification. The first part – descent – was genetic descent and unambiguous, but led to cases where a lack of records to prove ancestry excluded some. Self- and community identification were more problematic as they meant that an Indigenous person separated from her or his community due to a family dispute could no longer identify as Aboriginal.

As a result there arose court cases throughout the 1990s where excluded people demanded that their Aboriginality be recognised. In 1995, Justice Drummond ruled "..either genuine self-identification as Aboriginal alone or Aboriginal communal recognition as such by itself may suffice, according to the circumstances." This contributed to an increase of 31% in the number of people identifying as Indigenous Australians in the 1996 census when compared to the 1991 census.

Judge Merkel in 1998 defined Aboriginal descent as technical rather than real – thereby eliminating a genetic requirement. This decision established that anyone can classify him or herself legally as an Aboriginal, provided he or she is accepted as such by his or her community.

Based on Census data at 30 June 2006, the preliminary estimate of Indigenous resident population of Australia was 517,200, broken down as follows:

New South Wales – 148,200 Queensland – 146,400 Western Australia – 77,900 Northern Territory – 66,600 Victoria – 30,800 South Australia – 26,000 Tasmania – 16,900 ACT – 4,000 and a small number in other Australian territories

The affinity of attachment to a particular area of land by the Aborigines was based on their Dreamtime beliefs, that the land had been created for them by ancestral heroes and heroines. Every rock, tree and waterhole; every animal, bird and insect; the sky above and all it contained were believed to have been created in the Dreamtime. At some indefinite time the creators disappeared, however, many were believed to have remained in secret places in the land - in rivers, caves and other places. In other words, the Aborigines believed that their land had been created by spirits who continued to live in the land. This was a superstitious belief, but it was very important to the Aborigines. For example, there were never any wars of conquest between Aboriginal tribes. They were too superstitious to do this and living in the land of another tribe would have involved them in living among strange and no doubt hostile spirits. Land was spiritual, but also an economic resource as it provided the people with food, sources of wood, fiber and glue for making spears, utensils and other implements. However the people respected these aspects of their land and were environmentalists in the sense of 'taking care' of the land through their practices of performing increase ceremonies, singing 'Songlines' and relationships with flora and fauna through a system of totemic relationships. Traditional Aboriginal people (before their society was changed with the arrival of the British into their lands), lived in relatively small groups which have been called clans, bands, family groups, sub-tribes and by a variety of other names. The larger (well known term) social unit known as a tribe, was made up of a number of smaller social units (clans and bands etc). Maybe we can explain it this way: A clan was a family group made up of a grandfather and his wife or wives, his sons and their wife or wives and their children. A number of these groups formed a tribe. The exact number of clans which comprised a tribe cannot be said precisely, as this varied. However in the Sydney district it is known that in 1788 there were at least 30 clans of the Eora / Dharawal tribe. Each clan had a name for themselves based on the name in their language for the area they lived in. For example the men of Cadi were known as the Cadigal (Cadjigal) females added the postfix eean so the women from Cadi were the Cadieean and they lived around South Head, Elizabeth Bay, Rushcutters Bay to present day Circular Quay. The Gweagal / Gweaeean lived at Kurnell. The clans which formed a tribe were those who believed in the same Dreamtime creation stories, spoke the same language and celebrated the same customs such as initiation rites.
 * Attitudes to land**