With the beginning of the European settlement and with the influx of more and more people, there was the growing demand for expansion. The period from 1855-90 saw the emergence of independent colonies like Victoria , Queensland, South Australia and Northern Territory . The other notable events of this were the Gold Rush of 1850s and the Depression of 1890.
On 1 st January 1901, the Commonwealth of Australia was born as a federation of six states, each having its own parliament and government. The 19 th century witnessed the great surge of immigrants from different parts of Europe, Asia and America. The present population of Australia consists of the 72% of Europeans and only 27% of Asians. The coming of the Europeans reduced the number of the "aboriginals" in the country as they were deprived of their rights. Lands, which belonged to them, were snatched away by the Europeans and they also died of many diseases spread by the Europeans. The present population of Australia consists of only 72% of the Europeans, 27% Asians and remaining 1% of the Aboriginals.
History of Aboriginals in Australia
The history of aboriginal settlements in Australia was initatited with the inflow of aborigines from Asia. The aboriginal population migrated to Australia 30,000 years ago. There are 500-600 different groups among aborigines but they are similar in many aspects. They share similar cultural and spiritual belief. Their closeness with the land and their traditional art and story telling attributes bound all the groups together.
Aborigines from different tribes have different appearances but they are more or less similar with short body built and long thin legs.They ahve flat faces,wide nose and their head is generally smaller in size.
Aborigines put humans and nature on the same plane as they believe that after death their ancestors are spiritually alive in the nature in some form or other. the vibrant cultural life of the Aborigine's is known from their traditional art and culture of "story-telling". Among the aboriginal tribes vibrant cultural and art life, Music takes an important place. They play an instrument called Didgeridoo which is made of bamboo.
This instrument produces a low and vibrating hum. The instrument extends to a length of five feet. This musical instrument, Didgeridoo, is used in every occassion and ceremony like marriage, funerals, birth of a child etc.
In the Northern territory of Australia aborigines practise several art forms as sculpting, bark and rock paintings, and making baskets and bead works.In places like Arnhem Land, Ubbir and nourlangie,rock carvings and paintings done by the aborigines are stilll found. Many aborigines earn their livelihood by selling their native artworks.
The health of Australian aboriginals is not taken care of properly and the health graph takes a negative turn on the aspects of life expectancy. Many aborigines have often fallen prey to deadly disesses and therefore many aboriginal tribes are becoming extinct in the due course of time. Aboriginal health system generally suffers the prejudice of the authoroties that is made up of the people in power.
Resident of remote areas of the country, the aborigines of Australia were granted proper constitutional rights on land and property in the 1970s. The Aboriginal Land Rights Act was passed in the year 1976, and was implemented in areas which had a fair amount of the indigenous tribal population. In the 1990s, the government of Australia passed law where wages and welfare benefits were increased to a fair amount, specially, for the aborigines.
Although granted constitutional rights, the aboriginal population that generally reside in the remote and far off areas of Australia are largely vistims of prejudice metted out by the power yielding sections of the society.
