Australian Aborigines Free Essays

The kinship system is the social relationships that constitute the family connection by blood, marriage, or adoption; family relationship in a particular culture, according to Websters Dictionary. The Australian Aborigines kinship system determines how people interact with each other and it also determines their roles and responsibilities. Within the Australian Aborigines kinship system they use it for a lot more things then say our kinship system, â€Å"it is used for marriage funeral roles and ceremonial relationships. We will write a custom essay sample on Australian Aborigines or any similar topic only for you Order Now They have a system of classes which puts everybody in a specific kinship relationship. The Australian Aborigines have a cross–cousin marriage rule. Cross–cousins are the children of opposite–sex siblings, such as the father’s sister or the mother’s brother. One could marry his dad’s sister’s daughter or his mom’s brother’s daughter† (Nowak and Laird 2010). Some Australian Aboriginals have many names, like a birth name, personal name or a bush name and some have English speaking names. Their personal names aren’t used by English speakers, but by other Aboriginals in their community (Turpin 2000). In Australian Aboriginal culture, dreamtime is used when someone is talking about their or their family’s spirituality. It also has many meanings like â€Å"the period of creation, the moral order and the source of all spirits. Dreamtime can also refer to a specific geographic or topographic point or a totem spirit (animal spirit recognized as a kin group’s ancestor). It is an all–pervasive philosophy that permeates all aspects of Aboriginal life† (Nowak and Laird 2010). The Aborigines of Australia have lived the same way with the same culture untouched until 1788. 788 is the year of the first British fleet to land at Australia and establish a colony. The Aborigines had their own way of life until Australia started to become colonized. At that point they were the oldest surviving race in the entire world. The Aborigines of Australia were a people way before the Egyptians started building the Great Pyramids, before the Greeks started work on the Pantheon and when Britain was a Roman Empire. When the British came to Australia and they encountered the Aborigines they thought of them as primitive and didn’t understand the Aborigines culture. To the Aborigines land is a spiritual thing and an economic resource; they took care of the land because the land took care of them. It gave them food, wood and tools. They would perform ceremonies too and for the land. They lived and worked in family groups and their camps would have huts for the people to live in and the get out of the elements, but some of the Aboriginals lived in caves or out in the wild open. Some camps were small with only 6 to 12 people and other camps were very large with some being upwards around 400 people. Now the bigger the camp meant the more food that was accessible for how many people who lived in the camp. Everyday members of the group would go out to hunt and gather food for the whole camp to share (Crystal, 2001). I don’t feel that kinship impacts these same behaviors in my life. The Aboriginals were a lost people in my eye and once the world got to them and made them make changes they may have lost some of their roots. I was raised a totally different way than the Aboriginals are even today. They still try to be themselves as much as they can be. I have seen TV shows where an Aboriginal is walking in Sydney Australia and is just amazed at what we have made the world into. And in the end it always has the Aboriginal wanting to get back to his land with his people where the land is a spiritual thing and should be taken care of, not tore up and made into metal and machine. I think maybe life would be better if we as people didn’t always want to get a bigger, better something and we were just happy with what we had. Maybe if the British had learned from the Aboriginals instead of employing their views and thoughts and cities and towns, just maybe we as a people today would be a better people and would want to take care of the land that we live in†¦Maybe taking care of the land would be in my culture. Reference www.crystalinks.com/aboriginals.html How to cite Australian Aborigines, Essay examples Australian Aborigines Free Essays Australian Aborigines The Australia Aborigine’s culture has always had my attention. From the places they lived to they way they where treated always amazed me. After reading about their rituals, social organization and settlement patterns for the textbook, they are a society of people who are all one. We will write a custom essay sample on Australian Aborigines or any similar topic only for you Order Now The type of kinship they practice is all is one. For example, if an outsider came to their tribe someone in the tribe would classify that outsider as their mother, and a name that is given to that tribe members real mother will be given to the outsider. According to Scheper-Hughes, N. n the 1993 article: Cephu’s choice: Is natural for human beings to want personal liberty? or is it a peculiarly western concern? some conclusions drawn from the indigenous cultures around the world. â€Å"Among Australian aborigines of the Western Desert, each new person comes into the world circumscribed by ancestral origin myths about ‘Dreamtime’ which structure the world and rigidly define the place of all aboriginal people within it. The myths determine each person’s position and the marriage strategies, kinship ties and friendship alliances that each must pursue in adherence to the sacred geography and its accompanying moral economy. The Dreaming’, wrote William Stanner, ‘determines not only what life is, but also what it can be. Life, so to speak, is a one – possibility thing’. In this aboriginal society there is no sense of personal ‘agency’ fundamental to western notions of liberty and democracy. Nor is there any idea of an individual search for personal salvation which Christian missionaries have tried, but normally failed, to communicate. † The way Australia Aborigines use kinship affects the way they l ive, act and think. Since there system is â€Å"all is one† they live with the common understanding that they are all under one belief system. This can be compared to when someone in your family marries; the person they marry is now your family. This understanding creates a strong bond between people who are not technical blood related. The thought of people with such a bond helps in battles and growth within a society. In my own society the type of kinship seen in the aborigines can be seen with close family and friends. Our society tends to compare when we know the person or someone we trust knows the outside person. However, unlike the aborigines, our society has shown a way of turning away what is unfamiliar or unlike them. This brings a crack or weakness in our society because our bonds or circles are not as big because of it. I believe we can learn several things from foragers like the Australia Aborigines to make ourselves stronger. Reference: Scheper-Hughes, N. (1993, Cephu’s choice: Is natural for human beings to want personal liberty? or is it a peculiarly western concern? some conclusions drawn from the indigenous cultures around the world. New Internationalist, , 11-13. 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