INDIGENOUS RELATIONSHIPS WITH

THE ENVIRONMENT
KEY KNOWLEDGE
Indigenous Australians are recognised
as the descendants of the first humans
to live on Australia.
The history of Indigenous relationships
with the Australian environment will be
looked at it 2 parts:
Before non-indigenous settlement
After non-indigenous settlement
RELATIONSHIPS BEFORE NON-INDIGENOUS
SETTLEMENT

Non-indigenous views according to estimates

suggests that humans were living in Australia as long
as 120 000 years ago.
Rock shelter in Arnham land has been dated 55 000
years old and is the most accurate guess of first
settlement in Australia.

Indigenous views are quite different. Communities

believe Indigenous settlement is undated, that
Indigenous people have been here since the beginning
of time, that their creation is the same as the
Australian environment.
INDIGENOUS RELATIONSHIPS - PERCEPTIONS

Indigenous communities are incredibly

diverse across Australia.
Despite this, Indigenous communities
shared the way they viewed the
environment.
Indigenous perceptions of the
Australian environment are connected
with their spirituality or dreaming
(Dreamtime).
THE DREAMING OR DREAMTIME
The collective name we give to the
variety of stories, myths and legends
that indigenous communities used to
make sense of their environment.
Linking the way the environment works
and the way it was created or formed.
KEY ELEMENTS OF DREAMING
The sense that the land is filled with their ancestors
the trees, the sky, the stars are their ancestors
transformed from their human form to the land.
Afterlife after their death, they become a part of the
land.
With a land full of their ancestors, comes the deep
connection with the land.
A notion that the land was both their protector and
something to be protected.
Indigenous history is not recorded in writing. Their
myths and legends were passed on through story
telling, song, dance and painting.
INDIGENOUS RELATIONSHIPS -
PRACTICE
Hunting and Gathering
Living off the land. Hunting animals for their meat and
materials, and other useful resources in the environment,
such as wild fruit, roots, nuts, grasses and other edible
plants.
Hunting included kangaroo, fish, snakes, lizards, emu,
crocodiles.
Gathering included huge range of edible plants bush
tucker.
The type of food was dependant on where individual
communities were.
When you must hunt, kill and prepare your food, you
develop a deeper relationship with the environment.
Without intimately understanding the best places to hunt or
gather food, people die.
 Nomadism and semi-nomadism
Nomadic A community moving across large
distances and to many different locations
Semi-Nomadic Communities that moved from
one location to another and back again in regular
cycles eg. Alpine Indigenous communities.
Communities moved due to any of the following
reasons:
Species being hunted moving
Depletion of resources due to hunting and gathering
Change of seasons
 Fire-stick Farming
Refers to the use of fire to clear vegetation in a particular
place.
Consistent burning in areas meant that fires would not burn
out of control due to limited undergrowth.
This meant that the bush would be more open areas than
we are familiar with today.
Made travelling through environment easier for Nomadic
and semi-nomadic communities.
Useful as a hunting tool. Would burn in a pattern that would
herd escaping animals to a group of hunters.
Promote growth of grasses to encourage grazing animals
into area. Also for hunting.
 Sacred Sites
Sites of importance to Indigenous people.
Examples for Indigenous Australians
include:
Burial sites of elders
Sites for initiation of boys and girls marking
transition to adulthood
Animal breeding grounds, to allow sustainable
hunting (so as to not hunt certain animals to
extinction).
INDIGENOUS RELATIONSHIPS -
IMPACTS
Relatively low impacts on the environment as
Indigenous Australians used sustainable practices.
Dingos
Introduced to Australia 5000-10 000 years ago from
Asia as a tool for hunting, protection and as a pet.
Threatens native species
Competition for food when introduced to Tasmania led
to the decline in numbers of the Tasmanian Tiger.
Decline in Megafauna
Early overhunting may have helped in the extinction of
some of the megafauna
10 CANOES
Whilst studying the film 10 canoes,
answer the questions associated with
the film.
AFTER THE ARRIVAL OF EUROPEANS
Conflict arises to the different lifestyles of the two
groups
Nature of land ownership is different, meaning
indigenous people were forcibly removed or relocated
from traditional land ownership
Firestick farming deemed dangerous to livestock and
homes
Sacred sites deliberately or accidentally destroyed or
desecrated
Indigenous communities suffered murderous rampages
of extermination by local landowners, police or
government authorities and other indigenous groups.
CONTEMPORARY INDIGENOUS RELATIONSHIPS WITH
AUSTRALIAN ENVIRONMENTS

Contemporary Events or actions that

have occurred in the last 15 years
HEALTH, EDUCATION AND SOCIAL
ISSUES
Common issues related to indigenous people are
poor physical and mental health, low education
and income levels, low life expectancy, alcohol
and drug abuse, domestic violence etc.
All above issues relate to the reduced access and
relocation of communities to sacred sites and loss of
traditional land practices, as well as the
implementation of European lifestyles.
Conversely, reinstatement of access to land,
development of a new appreciation for
indigenous relationships have help to repair the
relationships that indigenous people have with
land and other people.
NATIVE TITLE
The 1992 High Court decision meant that the
initial colonial notion of terra nullius (land
belonging to no-one) was an incorrect notion
of indigenous perceptions and their connection
to land. This meant indigenous communities
were granted access to use traditional land
alongside other contemporary users of these
lands, such as graziers and miners.
This helped many indigenous communities to
begin the process of reclaiming some of their
traditional land.
INDIGENOUS LAND MANAGEMENT
Joint land management of national and
state parks between state land
authorities and local indigenous
communities.

http://www.yynac.com.au/woka-walla
NOTES FOR THE EXAM
For the Exam you should:
Be able to name an aboriginal group or
community that lived in an area you visited
or an area you are familiar with.
Know about Indigenous relationships
relevant to places youve visited or are
familiar with both before and after
European colonisation.