Architecture:
Aborigines on the move usually slept in the open. But even when they camped for only one night, they would always make a rough windbreak of branches and bark. This windbreak was for protection against wind, as well as for marking the borders of one family group's camp with its own fire or fires. In cold, dry weather or in the rainy season, Aborigines would make more solid shelters. There were three basic varieties including bark that was bent in the middle to form an inverted "V", an oval or circular hut on a framework of saplings, interlocked at the top, criss-crossed with other boughs, and covered with bark, branches, grass, or reeds, some of which were waterproofed with clay or mud, or the materials were held down with stones, and third in Arnhem Land and the Cape York Peninsula, Aborigines made rectangular huts with four or more forked corner posts, supporting a framework of stripped saplings covered with bark, and a bark roof on top. During the wet season, the men would elevate these huts above the ground and keep a fire going underneath to discourage mosquitoes. In north-eastern Arnhem Land, when sandflies and mosquitoes were bad and the Aborigines had no stilted mosquito huts nearby, they would sleep or rest under cone-shaped pandanus mats. In other areas, people used caves and rock shelters during the wet season or dug drains around their huts. The floor of a hut could be hollowed out and filled with soft grass or paperbark, and in northern areas, mats were used. A fire was always kept alight inside. Each hut usually contained a family with one or more wives, the husband, and their small children. Youths and single men would usually camp together to one side of the married men's huts.
Clothing:
Aborigines would usually go naked, except for a pubic covering (a covering for their private parts). In winter, in the Southeast and Southwest of the Continent, they wore cloaks which they made from kangaroo, wallaby, or possum fur, or huddled over their fires. In heavy rain, they would seek protection in a hut or rock shelter, or put up sheets of bark. Members of both sexes would decorate themselves with red and yellow ochres (coloured earths), white pipeclay, and charcoal, and liked wearing necklets or armbands of bunched feathers. Hunting was typically a task for men. Two or three hunters would co-operate, although some men would hunt alone. Spears and spear throwers were the main weapons, but there were also other weapons, too. Among them were boomerangs, clubs, large nets, and fish traps. Hunting dogs were especially useful for hunting down kangaroos and for sniffing out such burrowing animals as bandicoots. Large groups who took part in hunts included women and children who drove the animals toward the men, perhaps by lighting grass fires if the wind was right.
Diet
All areas where Aborigines lived contained enough animals and plants to enable them to survive, even though some areas were dry and arid. Only droughts and floods caught them unprepared. Meat was the most popular of foods, even in areas where fish was available. However, their main foods were vegetable roots, or seeds that women ground into flour for flat cakes. The Aborigines caught and ate almost every kind of animal-not only kangaroos, wallabies, and emus, but smaller creatures such as possums, carpet snakes, and goannas. They also ate shellfish, crabs, oysters, wild fowl and their eggs, as well as turtles and tortoises and their eggs. They also ate various insects, especially tree and root grubs, which were rich in fats and sugars, and some ants. Other foods included roots, fungi, tree-gums, honey-laden flowers, water lily stems and roots, some leaves, and many kinds of fruit.
Food collecting was mainly the responsibility of women. Their main tool was a hard, pointed digging stick It was especially good for digging out roots, small burrowing animals, and snakes and lizards. They collected fruit and berries, seeds, nuts, buds, leaves, shoots, bulbs, and root vegetables. The women had to treat some of these foods before they were edible. Many ordinary foods had to be pounded or crushed.
Cooking:
Some foods were always eaten raw, but some were roasted over an open fire, on live coals, or in an oven. Men usually cooked larger animals, such as kangaroos, while women attended to the smaller ones. The simplest kind of oven was used for kangaroos. It was a shallow pit filled with hot coals and sand, with the animal's leg bones left sticking out. Sometimes an animal's insides were removed and heated stones were put into the hollow part of its body. Then it was covered with more hot stones, sheets of bark, coals, and sand to seal it. Yams and bush potatoes were mostly cooked in hot coals or ashes. So were eggs, goannas, snakes, and crabs. Fish were baked in carefully made wrappings of leaves or paperbark to keep their flavour.
Providing fire:
People usually carried fire when they moved camp, instead of starting a new one each time. Hunters and women out collecting food often carried smouldering fire sticks. Every camp, however small, had a fire. If Aborigines needed to start a fire, they generally used the friction method-rubbing with a fire drill or a fire saw. Both tools involved hardwood, softwood, and tinder (dry material that caught fire easily).
Fishing.:
Pronged spears were popular for fishing. A man would stand quietly, almost waist deep, watching the water with his spear poised. In deeper water, he would work from a canoe or a raft. Aborigines used various nets, too, including dragnets and drum baskets. They trapped fish by making dams. They rarely used lines with hooks, but they had detachable harpoons, some attached to buoys (floating markers). They used harpoons to catch turtles and plant-eating sea mammals called dugongs. They also used harpoons to catch dolphins and such big fish as sawfish and shark. They harpooned crocodiles, but the really big ones were tough-skinned and hard to kill. Usually, several men joined in a hunt, driving the crocodile to the shore or river bank and then spearing it. Women and children hunted shellfish and crabs.
Daily Life
Indigenous people deeply understood the land that they lived on. Australia was a very harsh environment, yet they managed to survive whilst maintaining well-balanced diets. Indigenous people knew how to track their environment and read the different signs that signalled the seasons. Different seasons meant the availability of different foods and the need for different types of shelter and clothing.
Education
An Aborigines' education would be through the daily life and the environment in which they are surrounded by. The type of knowledge they gain from their playground, the Earth's land is also their classroom.
Religion
http://www.gleninnes.com/cooramah/htm/food.html
http://www.aboriginalculture.com.au/housing.shtml
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNJm_EsRdjE&feature=related
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamtime
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_mythology
http://www.skwirk.com.au/p-c_s-17_u-455_t-1227_c-4695/SA/6/Daily-life/Traditional-Life/Aboriginal-People-and-Torres-Strait-Islanders/SOSE/
NOTES
The Aboriginal Architecture of Australia
The Aboriginals were nomadic, so they were more interested in portable architecture
ever since white settlers, indigeonous have been marginized. 20 years less aging than white australians
child abuse, suffering, alcoholism
alcohol abuse spreads widespread violence
What happened to the aboriginals of Australia (video)
1922-2000 Banjo Clarke
destroying their culture, confusing them
shot around the area
all native food was being destroyed
skins being taken, clothing
not allowed to go on land that was taken by the whie people
killed and starved
mass skeletons today were all Aboriginal bones, massacrews
aboriginals never had mass burials
aboriginals would move away from when someone they knew in their tribe died, spirit roam
they're free people, wanderers, then brought to a jail/confinement
disease and died
we got that trouble still but in a different way
we're descedents of the people being slaughtered, but in a different way, political things alot of us old fellas we dont know anything about political things, government talk better conditions for aboriginals, it never seems to change for us older ppl,. might be better for younger bit education, but for old people we dont know whast their talkin bout half fthe time, political meetings, we just lke being left alone, being in the bush, living our own life, peacefully - till the day we die
we was all happy kids, i never wernt ot the school
the school was where the place i hunt, food
we had plenty of food
bush food
sharing with someone else by their on the bush, they'd share it with them.
Ancient Lives - Aborigines (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNJm_EsRdjE&feature=related)
Aborigines (from the beginning)
Aboriginals lived o here prehistoric times
Numerous languages
2% remain 250,000
Northback west of the country (most there)
50,000 years ago, land bridge from Southeast Asia
FOOD:
Aborigines find stingless bee, they attach a thread to it and follow it back to their hive to enjoy their honey
after hunting emu for meat, to make more hunting spears
coastal waters, stingrays, cooked in their shells, turtles are steam cooked in their shells
special knowledge, water pythons
ways to find hidden water
Moth catepillars found in roots
honey pot ants, dessert
According to Aboriginal law in the beigning there waqs nothing
there was song, world was sung into being
during this dreamtime, creatures roamed the earth and shaped it
pyrinthian lizard layed its eggs and became boulders
the snakes slithered and it became a river
vibrant, symbolic art keeps it alive today
songs by elders, navigation apaprent wilderness, landscape full of meaning
elders responsible teaching and spreading aboriginal law
some converted into christiianity
revive ancient beliefs
