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Australia :
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About Australia
17.000 000 people live in Australia.The capital city of Australia is Canberra, but the oldest city is Sydney. There is the famous Operahouse built by a Danish architect. Famous tourist attractions are the Ayers Rock, Great Barrier Rief and Bondi Beach. The first people of Australia are called Aborigines or Koori and today they make up 1.5 per cent of the population.
1.) The First Aborigines
When the people with black hair and dark skin came from a unknown place they brought a new animal: the dingo, a special dog.
The Aborigines or Kooris settled as hunters, collectors and fishermen on the northern coast. They lived in groups and if one group became too big, they splitt in two. So the Aborigines settled on the whole continent. In many areas they were very isolated, with this process each group built up different customs and languages. There were about 500 - 600 groups with about fifty different languages. Nowdays the Aborigines has 53 groups and they speak English.
The Aboriginals dind't built any houses or cut down trees. They lived in harmony with nature. Example: An Aboriginal took some honey, but he left half honey for the bees.
2.) History of Aborigines
The Aborigines have been living in Australia for more than 40.000 years and turned to a fantastic culture. Some people think the Aboriginals came from Asia, but themselves belive their ancestors lived there since the time began. They lived in harmony with nature and didn't try to control it.
In 1788 the first white men came to Australia. They took all aboriginal land for the English Crown. The English killed a lot of Aborigines and many came as slaves to british familys.
When the first settlers arrived, most of them were prisoners and the Aboriginals had a rough life.
The Aborigines could not live their life with nature and turned very unhappy.
unhappy
unhappy.
So many of them drunk alcohol to solve problems.
Nowdays the situation is o.k. The Aborigines got the land around Ayers Rock and the Kakadu Nationalpark back.
3.) The Dreaming
The aboriginal religion is based on the dreaming. The Aborigines believe, that the beginning the world a big mass of nothing. Then the mystic Ancestors arrived, in all shapes and sizes. They traveled around the world and transformed it into what we see today. That was the Dreamtime.
Each aboriginal group has a special animal totem -made of wood- and they are not allowed to hunt or eat it. There are many legends about the animal totems.
A special part of the dreming is dancing to the diggeridoo - music. Then the aboriginal people fall in trance and are for some time in an other dimesion. A medicine man helps the aboriginal people to come in the dreaming deminsion.
Dreming is important for the Koori's life.
4.) Aboriginal Marriage
Girls and boys become men and women in at an age between ten and
fife - teen.Then the they have a special ceremony called "initiation". After this the girls are ready to marry.
The boy's initiation is very rough. His body is painted with earth colors and he must dance around a fire. The older men break him a theet and make wounds on arms, legs and back as symbol for bravery. In the end he has to drink some blood from the oldest man in family, that's the blood - ritherhood. This ceremony is the hardest of the Aborigines.
The Aborigines don't choose their marriage partner themselves. The man sometimes take a thirty years younger woman. The marriage is a contract between both families.
A women usually have more than one husband. The parents choose the first one, the daughter chooses the others. A woman's status is improved by having many children. If she is not able to have children, they adopt one ore two from other famylies.
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