quicko: aboriginal culture

On Wednesday ("tomorrow" -- oh, the wonders of backdating!) I saw a presentation on Aboriginal culture.  It was really pretty decent and I took notes entirely, dear reader, for your benefit.

The presenter was an Aboriginal guy named Sean Patrick Ryan.  If you think his name sounds suspiciously Irish, you'd be right.  His father was Irish, and his mother was Aboriginal.  His other name is something different that I wish I could say isn't allowed to be written or something, but the truth of the matter is I can't find the scrap of notebook I wrote it on.  Nevermind, I have other Aboriginal words to teach you.

First off, though, he said there had been 250 different Aboriginal groups and 600 different languages.  So, while I can teach you "Yalla da" means welcome in one, it's hardly likely to come in handy if you meet someone from one of the 599 languages.

A few random notes for you:

The Dharng are the Aboriginal people in the area of Sydney, and the Bidgigal were the first Aboriginal people to meet the English.  The Gadigal are also a group in the Sydney area.

The people group was very important to the Aboriginals, and whichever group you were part of (i.e., born into) was a sacred connection with them and the earth.  You would be restricted to trading, marrying, etc. with people from your same group.

:"Didgeridoo" is not what any Aboriginal group called it -- "yidaki" would be a proper name -- "didgeridoo" is an onomatopoeic description of the sound, not the actual name.  It was invented near Darwin, and was the world's first non-percussive instrument.  It's made of eucalyptus trees that have been naturally hollowed out by termites and is the only spoken word instrument -- that is, you can actually talk through it musically and hear words in, say, English.

80% of the Aboriginals living in Australia died of smallpox when the Europeans came.  The Aboriginals were classified by the neo-Darwinists of the time as sub-human, and thus the British very conveniently did not have to assign them any rights to the land because they were not deemed human.  (This was partially because they did not have any written language, any buildings (they were nomadic) or religion per se.)  Many conflicts naturally sprung up between the British and the Aboriginals, though at first the Aboriginals were helpful to distressed settlers.  Most misunderstandings came about because of a lack of common language and the British impinging on Aboriginal sacred territory.  An infamous incident at Rushcutter's Bay occurred because the British were not supposed to be cutting so many rushes -- it was not their right, they were not the correct person to be doing so -- but it was a bit tricky to explain this and Aboriginal culture does not have a concept of punishment (such as whipping or stocks or prison) -- it is either no punishment or death.  The rush cutters got death.

The Aboriginal flag was developed in the late 1960s and is divided horizontally in half.  The top half is black to represent the people and the bottom half is red to represent the earth and blood, which are greatly connected.  The middle is a yellow circle, which represents the sun, which is thought to be female.