17 February 2001 By Katerina Siamidis – Lakewood Lutheran School – 1 st Grade
Aborigines - The First Australians
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THE AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES
BY KATERINA SIAMIDIS
FEBRUARY 20, 2001
17 February 2001 By Katerina Siamidis – Lakewood Lutheran School – 1 st Grade
Aborigines - The First Australians
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The word Aborigine comes from Latin and means "from the beginning".
This is the name given to the native Australians by the Europeans.
This is not the name they called themselves. They prefer to call themselves: Koori.
17 February 2001 By Katerina Siamidis – Lakewood Lutheran School – 1 st Grade
Aborigines - The First Australians
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Some scientists believe that the Aborigines went to Australia from Asia over 100,000 years ago, although their origins are not clear.
They built canoes or rafts to carry themselves over the sea separating Australia from Asia.
17 February 2001 By Katerina Siamidis – Lakewood Lutheran School – 1 st Grade
Aborigines - The First Australians
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Aboriginals lived in the entire continent of Australia many thousands of years before the white men came and had found a way of living that was in harmony with the environment, and that satisfied their needs.
The first Aboriginals found an Australia with a better environment than today. Large animals, that don’t exist today, gave them plenty of meat. Some parts of Australia were also very rich in vegetables.
17 February 2001 By Katerina Siamidis – Lakewood Lutheran School – 1 st Grade
Aborigines - The First Australians
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Their future was depended on the ability of the land to provide food for gathering, animals to kill, and fresh water.
But food was not easy to find. In some areas both men and women had to spend up to two thirds of each day hunting for food.
The Aborigines hunted animals using spears and boomerangs. They also gathered fruits, nuts and yams which they ate.
17 February 2001 By Katerina Siamidis – Lakewood Lutheran School – 1 st Grade
Aborigines - The First Australians
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Art was an important part of their life.
Their bodies were painted for ceremonies.
Designs were painted on the walls of their homes.
Paintings told stories. They used them to keep record of their daily life and religion. Their paintings also showed what was happening around them and told stories of contact with other people.
17 February 2001 By Katerina Siamidis – Lakewood Lutheran School – 1 st Grade
Aborigines - The First Australians
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The aborigine people had never seen white people until Captain James Cook landed in Botany Bay in 1770.
They were shocked to see these white people in their strange clothes and they thought they were the spirits of their dead ancestors.
At first the Aborigines were friendly towards the visitors but were very confused at the way they behaved.
17 February 2001 By Katerina Siamidis – Lakewood Lutheran School – 1 st Grade
Aborigines - The First Australians
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When the aborigines realized that the white men were not the spirits of their dead ancestors and that they were taking more and more of their land and destroying the trees and wild life they began to fight back.
White men brought diseases that the aborigines had never had before. Aborigines caught smallpox and even the common cold and died in great numbers. In two years smallpox had killed almost half the aborigine people around Sydney.
17 February 2001 By Katerina Siamidis – Lakewood Lutheran School – 1 st Grade
Aborigines - The First Australians
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As more and more white people moved in and took their lands, the aborigines were pushed further and further away from their lands.
Their families were broken up and their children taken away from them.
Aborigines were second class people in their own land. They only got the right to vote in 1967.
This is a shameful part of Australian history.
